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aerialcameraman

Porter

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The PACs did virtually all the flying. The Porter, although in the hands of the incomparable Zing, just couldn't keep up with the 2 brand new PAC's. Zing could probably tell you the exact number of turnarounds he did, but I'd be surprised if it was more than 40 out of the 642.
That wonderbread polkadot sure is fun to look at though.

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I think I flew that Porter about 5.5 hours and managed to just barely average 27 loads per hour, while the PACs were easily doing 28 and, once or twice, averaged 29 loads per hour.
The PACs flew two-hour stints and the Porter flew one-hour turns because I couldn't carry enough fuel to fly longer.
I hadn't flown like that in three years, since Jay's last record at Elsinore, and MarkMark and Bill, the PAC pilots had never done it. It took each of us a few loads to get the drill down so we could smooth and fast.
Ken, the Skydive Pennsylvania pilot who flew the polka-dot porter down to Greensburg gave it his best shot, but we had too much fuel on board at first, he was struggling to get to the 2 min. 20 sec. turn times in. The nature of the flying was something he felt was a bit out of his experience. He's a hell of good pilot in his own right, and made what he considered the best call, in my opinion.
It wasn't something for the faint-at-heart. The folks that really had it rough were the safety crew guys who hung on tight in the back and rode the airplanes down 641 times and never squaked about it once.
Zing Lurks

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IIt wasn't something for the faint-at-heart. The folks that really had it rough were the safety crew guys who hung on tight in the back and rode the airplanes down 641 times and never squaked about it once.



I'll vouch for that...I did 12 turnarounds for video [edited to add: during practice runs on Thursday] with Zing and Bill, and in spite of anything else, it was gut wrenching when they rolled over to dive back to the runway. Zing managed to get me floating a couple times. I don't know how those guys did it in such lengthy stretches.
thanks for the correction on the number of loads. I guess it just didn't seem like that many Porter turnarounds happened, but there is a big diff between 40 and 90 loads.

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I can't belive I forgot to mention the PAC pilot Brent. He really tore up the sky with the Deland PAC and did 30 loads in one hour during one of his two-hour stints.
I was refueling the Porter between my turns in the rotation somewhere past midnight when an older fellow walked up and we started talking.
He told me he'd been there most of the day watching the airshow and said that it reminded him of his time in the Navy during WWII.
Turns out, he was part of an anti-aircraft gun crew in the Pacific and his ship was sunk by a Kamikaze plane. A few months later, he was on a second ship that was hit by a Japanese plane.
Sort of puts things in a different perspective. Nobody was shooting at us.
Zing Lurks

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I can't belive I forgot to mention the PAC pilot Brent. He really tore up the sky with the Deland PAC and did 30 loads in one hour during one of his two-hour stints.
I was refueling the Porter between my turns in the rotation somewhere past midnight when an older fellow walked up and we started talking.
He told me he'd been there most of the day watching the airshow and said that it reminded him of his time in the Navy during WWII.
Turns out, he was part of an anti-aircraft gun crew in the Pacific and his ship was sunk by a Kamikaze plane. A few months later, he was on a second ship that was hit by a Japanese plane.
Sort of puts things in a different perspective. Nobody was shooting at us.



I've got a great shot of him sitting at the campfire next/near to you, Zing. He gave a great interview on Jays project.

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Here you can search just about all them www.pc-6.comwhere they are and who owns them and how many times it's been crashed.




Yep, I don't think there's a single porter frame out there that hasn't been twisted at least once.



Whats the line?...there are no good porter pilots...just ones who have not crashed yet? :P

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Yep, I don't think there's a single porter frame out there that hasn't been twisted at least once.



Whats the line?...there are no good porter pilots...just ones who have not crashed yet? :P




I think that's it. It's sad but I hear all the time how an operation will have pilots they know and trust and then it goes on the road and someone has to show some new pilot how to fly a porter unbeknownst to the owner and they end up twisting it. Or a takeoff is made with the trim set in the landing position so they do a takeoff departure stall. I have heard, but don't know for sure, that you can not get insurance for porter operations flying skydivers anymore.

Any porter operator want to correct that?
Chris Schindler
www.diverdriver.com
ATP/D-19012
FB #4125

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