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Erroll

Jumpship pilots from hell?

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Many jumpers who have skydived for any length of time at a C182 DZ will have been subjected to negative G's on the first load on a Sunday morning, when you can feel the whole of last night's wings party filling up your cheeks. This is usually funny after the fact.

But what about the real humourless pilots from hell? One pilot at a DZ I used to frequent was a brilliant Porter flier. (I do not recall ever landing before him.) However, he simply had no patience. He would land, taxi to boarding point and give the next load about 20 seconds to emplane before starting his takeoff down the runway again. I saw jumpers (having dropped goggles or helmets and such) stranded at boarding point more than once. He also abhorred anyone farting in his plane, and I remember him taking a full load back down after two visiting jumpers had been trying to outdo each other and fumigated the rest of us in the plane!

Any stories?



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I jumped a few times at a club in central Illinois. One of the pilots would not tolerate anyone touching his seat... at all. I forgot this as I climbed out and used his seat to help me out of the plane. As I left the door, I saw something whip past my shoulder. The SOB took a swipe at me as I left his plane! >:(

At our DZ, we have some outstanding, even legendary pilots. One has more than a hundred combat missions over extremely hostile enemy territory, and has been a jump pilot since before I was born (and I'm no spring chicken.) He gives pretty good spots, but beware asking for a correction on jump run. He'll snap the plane over so hard it'll slam the door down on the unwary JM. [:/] I've learned to take the spot he gives me and like it.

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We had a pilot at a private grass strip called Harbican Field in west Houston, TX. He was a heck of a nice guy, and a lot of fun, but when he was flying, he was very serious.

I was goofing around in back of the C206 once, rocking from left to right to make the plane wobble. This annoyed the pilot.

Suddenly at about 5,000 feet, he throws open the door and yells "Get out!".

Stunned, we all look at him, like; "What? Do we have an aircraft emergency?"

"GET OUT!"

So we got out.

No emergency. Just a pissed-off pilot. So we learned not to monkey around inside the plane on the climb to altitude.

And then shortly after that, another pilot was filling in for him, and he ran out of fuel on the way back down to the airport. We just stood there on the ground, straining to hear an engine noise, and confirmed our fears when we saw the prop - stationary. The persnickity pilot and aircraft owner on the ground, took off in his truck to meet the out-of-fuel pilot when he dead-sticked it at the end of the grass strip.

Hoo-boy, I thought there were going to be fisticuffs on that one.

But the plane was saved, and there was just a lot of yellling.

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There was a jump pilot at Maize Ks. that used to fly Woody Underwoods C-180. He was a pretty old guy to us youngsters and always wore an old ball cap and had a rag hanging out of his back pocket. He could make that 180 really climb. He would never take a correction on the jump run, would just smile and tell you "you're on the wind line sonny" and he was never wrong on any of the loads I was on. Found out much later he was a WWII fighter pilot. Wish I could remember his name. Anyone remember him. Late 60's early 70's.


Always remember, when you get where you're going, there you are!

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I jumped with a regular jumper/pilot many years ago who was always goofing around with aerobatic and semi-aerobatic moves in the C-182. I hated it and told him so. One day after the jumpers exited and he closed the door and descended he was goofing around, zero-g, and floated the observer up against the door handle. Door opened, and observer fell out. She had a 2 second canopy ride, and lived to talk about it. I don't know what the legal/FAA consequences were.

Another hot shot in my past killed himself and about 10 other people when a buzz job went bad. I regularly complained to both of these guys, but they always thought it was funny. Who's laughing now? Nobody.

-- Jeff
My Skydiving History

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I jumped a few times at a club in central Illinois. One of the pilots would not tolerate anyone touching his seat... at all. I forgot this as I climbed out and used his seat to help me out of the plane. As I left the door, I saw something whip past my shoulder. The SOB took a swipe at me as I left his plane! >:(



Must have been Ralph....Mean SOB....

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One of the pilots would not tolerate anyone touching his seat... at all.



He may have had a good reason for this. On a lot of the older Cessnas, there was a problem whereby the seat could come loose from it's track attachment on the floor and slide all the way backwards. Of course, when this happened, the pilots could no longer reach the pedals or they jerked the wheel backwards with them. It killed quite a few Cessna pilots on takeoff...

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Was that the guy who killed that music group and young kid in Rozzo's Beech? I don't remember his name but the crash was no surprise to me. He used to really 'cowboy' and airplane around.



I know the Mission Mountain Wood Band from Montana was killed in a twin Beech. I didn't know it was Rozzo's Beech....Steve1

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My Dad used to fly co-pilot for Johnson's Flying Service during the latter 40's when he was just a kid. They flew a tri-motor in to pick up a group of smokejumpers who were returning from a fire in Idaho. The Pilot's name was "Slim". Most all of the smoke jumpers on that flight were Conscientious Objectors. These fellows refused to fight in World War II, but could escape the draft by becoming Smoke Jumpers.

Everyone thought it was strange that Slim had on board some ice cold watermellon for these tired jumpers. And old Slim even seemed to be smiling as they ate it.

On the flight back to Missoula they hit a lot of rough air. After all it was a hot day. It wasn't long before all the jumpers were barfing their guts out. And then he wouldn't let them deplane until they had cleaned up all the puke out of his jump ship.

Slim was a nice guy, as long as you were on his side!...Steve1

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Back in the mid-70s I was flying at Pelicanland in Ridgely, MD for Mike Schultz. One weekend Mike had an Instructor Certification Course and JM certification course. I'd been an I/JM for a few years and had the opportunity to evaluate the candidates in addition to being one of the pilots.

One guy in the class was a complete and total jerk who had all the answers and always knew a better way than everyone else. He got on everyone's nerves with his arrogance. He and I got into a number of arguments over various issues.

Turns out, he was on my flight in my C-182. During the practicum, experienced jumpers acted as the S/L students but actually jumped their own rigs. On the second pass around this jerk was the JM candidate.

Just to see what kind of altitude awareness he had I climbed as fast as I could without letting him sense that I was doing it. By the time I circled around onto jump run I was well over 5000.

As he was getting his 'student' ready to move out of the door, I yelled at him "Do you always put your static line students out at 5300 feet?"

I voted that he shouldn't be rated and he wasn't. I'm sure that in his mind I'm the pilot from hell.
Guru312

I am not DB Cooper

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Although I've been involved in more than a few in-flight emergencies two of my strangest a/c emergencies happened on the ground. We are taxing out (kind of fast) in a 182 with three static line students, the largest of which is in the hole when the pilot suddenly slumped over in his seat. I shook him as we swerved off the taxiway but he was out cold.

I pulled the throttle back and tried to get to the brakes. The door was already closed and I pushed the student to the left trying to get to the rudder peddles but the student's rig pushed the throttle back in. In hindsight I should have pulled the mixture first and finally did so. We came to a stop in the weeds without hitting anything although we came close to several parked aircraft. The pilot came to and said it had something to do with not eating, being tired and the high air temperatures that day.

Another time at a different DZ and again with students on board we are taxing out and I was sitting in the door of a 182 with my feet dangling outside. All of a sudden the right landing gear broke and we spun out. I came within inches of my legs being crushed under the fuselage. It turned out the DZO, instead of seeking an aircraft mechanic's advice, and he could have asked me as I'm one, took it upon himself to repair a broken jump step by welding on it. Apparently he also managed to heat up the gear leg itself, which is a heat treated part, and after a few flights it finally failed.

Another time (and this time we got off the ground, LOL) low clouds are coming in as the S/L first jump course is ready. At that point there are enough holes to give it a shot and up we went. The broken ceiling is right at jump altitude and we are slightly above and looking for hole over the DZ. After a few passes I saw my students getting nervous and said to pilot, "this is dumb, let's go down."

By then the clouds are solid and we had to fly for miles to find the edge of the overcast, as there are mountains in the area, in order to duck back underneath. We are now under the clouds, over mountainous terrain, but still miles from the DZ. I wasn't too concerned as I knew where we are and could just make out the valley ahead where the DZ lay. I was talking to the students as you know, they get up for a jump, and now they are kind of disappointed.

I looked out the door at mountains 1500-feet below and thought, "Gee, this would be a bad place for the engine to quit." And it did quit, right then. The pilot had run the gas tanks dry. I didn’t notice as the fuel gauges weren't operational and they were sticking the tanks to keep track.

I decided right away we had to get out as there is no good place for a forced landing. We are now gliding across mountains and the small valleys between them and one by one I put each student out over the valleys. The first is already hooked up so I just pushed him out. As we are in a nose down glide at about 70 knots the tail is up high enough so I put the other two out while pulling their reserve handles for them. All three landed safely. We had now turned down one of the valleys at about 600-feet above the ground. I took one last look ahead and decided I didn’t like what I saw so I climbed out on the step, hung by one arm, pulled my reserve handle and let it pull me off. The pilot crashed and hurt himself pretty bad so I never got to yell at him about running us out of gas.

One thing I can safely say about BASE jumping is I've never had an object fall out from underneath me . . .

NickD :)BASE 194

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By then the clouds are solid and we had to fly for miles to find the edge of the overcast, as there are mountains in the area, in order to duck back underneath. We are now under the clouds, over mountainous terrain, but still miles from the DZ. I wasn't too concerned as I knew where we are and could just make out the valley ahead where the DZ lay.



I believe my brother called this technique "scud-running". He's a pilot and when he lived on the California coast near Santa Cruz, which was well-known for having dense fogs at times. I was riding around in his plane one day. We flew out of Watsonville, went over the mountain ridge to the wide flat valley which includes the San Jose metro area, stopped at a well-known ranch next to I-5 for lunch. It had an air strip right next to the highway. Then, flying back over the mountains to get back to Watsonville, it was solid white from the mountains to the ocean at about 3 to 4K feet... So my brother flew back out over the valley, went over to where highway 152 cut through a gap in the mountains, and entered the gap under the layer of clouds. There wasn't much room in the gap, and we were banking left, then right, then left, following the highway below, until we came out the other side... It was way cool, but I'm sure my brother was more nervous, since my dad and a family friend were along for the ride...

Anyway, back to your emergency with the S/L students, you did great getting them out in time as well as yourself.
"Mediocre people don't like high achievers, and high achievers don't like mediocre people." - SIX TIME National Champion coach Nick Saban

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Another hot shot in my past killed himself and about 10 other people when a buzz job went bad. I regularly complained to both of these guys, but they always thought it was funny. Who's laughing now? Nobody.



Darkwing,
I heard some people talking about this, last year, at Lost Prairie. Someone said it happened at Polson, Mt. I still remember the day it happened and hearing about it on the radio, but I don't know much. One guy said they were caught in a small canyon and that they couldn't climb out and hit a hill. Do you know any of the details? I'll bet Rozzo was glad he wasn't on board.

I know of another pilot who was killed near Polson in the 60's. He went to buzz a party on the lake, caught a wing tip on the water, and died. Luckily he was alone...Steve1

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A club in the Mid-West I jumped at, we made a leap into a backyard beer & pig party. The pilot thought he'd impress everyone by doing a low pass over the BBQ pit, pulled up late and went through some trees and powerlines. Buggered up the gear so bad he belly landed at a small 'private' runway. He just left the plane there, hitched a ride to town and we never heard from him again!










The Pessimist says: "It can't possibly get any worse!"
The Optimist says: "Sure it can!"

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He may have had a good reason for this. On a lot of the older Cessnas, there was a problem whereby the seat could come loose from it's track attachment on the floor and slide all the way backwards. Of course, when this happened, the pilots could no longer reach the pedals or they jerked the wheel backwards with them. It killed quite a few Cessna pilots on takeoff...



Yep. There was a relatively easy fix for it, but the thought of trying to land a plane while kneeling or squatting (no rudder pedals) isn't pleasant.

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The same guy that ended up in a flaming fireball in mistimed landing with a Spitfire?

The stories about him and his take-off impatience with the Porter are legend in South Africa. Ditto with him landing the plane with a full load after someone farted.

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The same guy that ended up in a flaming fireball in mistimed landing with a Spitfire?

The stories about him and his take-off impatience with the Porter are legend in South Africa. Ditto with him landing the plane with a full load after someone farted.



Yep, the same guy - Sneuman (sp?) RIP



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In the late 60s or early 70s one of our jumpers from Livermore apparently did this and went missing. Much later they found the wreckage above a tunnel near Orinda as I recall. Scud running along a highway can seem OK until the highway disappears into a tunnel and you are facing a mountain you cannot outclimb.
2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

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In the late 60s or early 70s one of our jumpers from Livermore apparently did this and went missing. Much later they found the wreckage above a tunnel near Orinda as I recall. Scud running along a highway can seem OK until the highway disappears into a tunnel and you are facing a mountain you cannot outclimb.



I hear ya... that would suck too. My brother knew the area well and he would not have gone through there without knowing what he was getting into.
"Mediocre people don't like high achievers, and high achievers don't like mediocre people." - SIX TIME National Champion coach Nick Saban

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