goobersnuftda

We have our 206 up and running doing student loads (LSTC for extra seatbelt, jump step, door mod) and we are looking for the best bang for the buck in upgrades as we can afford them in the down season over the winter months (we live where it snows for 5 months). What is the best performance for $$$ laid out. STOL kit already installed. Engine only has 850 hours on it (IO-520) so it is a long time from an overhaul to a IO-550 (+25 more horse power). In which order would you do things as the money becomes available: -Wing tip extensions. X-Wing has sold their business to Wipaire. Since the 206 is a “beefier” aircraft, it is cheaper to install the extensions than for a 182 (which needs extra bracing that the 206 already has built into the wing). $4,515 for parts only or $6,900 installed. 18 inches of extra wing tip with a total increase being 3 feet. WipAire -A longer propeller (even by a few inches) to the max rated for the IO-520 engine. Preferred Air Parts has some OHC props in the $4,500 range. Our current 2 blade prop is basically new since it has been certified and has about 25 hours on the prop so it could still be sold for a good price if we were to buy another. Not interested in the 2 vs 3 blade debate because that went nowhere. So would a 2 blade Hartzell or McCauley be the way to go? Preferred Airparts -I know when it is engine overhaul time that going to the more powerful IO-550 engine is the way to go but there is significant time still left on our engine and it would be a complete shame to tear it down with so many useable hours still left on it. Just for some fun reading, here is a full story of the adventures of a person who upgraded to a IO-550 Upgrading to a IO-550 Engine I’ve also found a system of tuning your exhaust that gives your engine the increase in performance. Down side is that they don’t have any for a 206 but they do for other planes including some Cessna’s. Power Flow Systems Inc. Powerflow Exhaust I’m open to any ideas as to how to make this plane perform better and achieve the best possible climb rate. It would be nice if money was not an issue but lets get real, we are a business and need to spend wisely and properly. Any comments or suggests are welcome.

Experienced many Mr. Bill jumps from both ends and my last one was good enough to know when to quit. IAD dispatched but we were tipping over on our side just as we left the plane. Riser caught the side of the tray on opening. Had no idea at all what happened until I landed and started to repack. Can you imagine what would have happened if the reserve came out of the bottom of the reserve container and inflated? What a tangled mess the reserve would have been. BTW, main was a Saber-190 and a PDR-193.

I'm just playing around with the new CS5 suite and I came across this little kewl feature they put in Photoshop. I'm not a big fan of the fisheye effect picture, after picture... a few times is fine but not all the time. Granted you get a much wider field of view and can get more events "in frame" but seeing the horizion of the world looking like a marble gets old real fast. This new feature takes info from the EXIF of your picture then it has a feature to try and correct for the type of lens you have. You loose a little bit on the edges but if you download the following pictures to your computer then scrub though them back and forth quickly, WOW, what a difference. They have an on line data base that will grow the more people add to it but you can do all these changes manually if you wish. Adjust for Vinette, Chromatic Aberration and Geomatric Distortion. The following pictures were taken on a Canon Digital Rebel XT and Sigma 15mm Fisheye.

Hello: Our Cessna 182 has the Horton STOL kit installed and I'm looking for a blank weight & balance sheet the pilots can fill out. I have the normal chart/graph that came with the plane but with the STOL kit, that makes it a different CofG chart and X-wing does not provide a chart for that. Any help would be greatly appreciated. please email to [email protected] Thanks so much

Well, not really. A STC is a final approved modification to the aircraft whether it be in Canada or the US. All that has to happen is the STC holder sets a price and puts you on their STC. No Transport Canada approval needed. If Rampart ever, ever gets their approval, all will be fine (minus paying the $$$). A LSTC (limited STC) is for a specific aircraft or or a small number of aircraft in a particular operation. There as well you need the LSTC holder's permission to be put on with them and use their data. There is nothing for free in the aircraft world, I understand that but I am more amazed that there are not more legal STC or LSTC availalbe for a 206 to jump from. That is what I'm looking for.

Desperately looking for a STC or a LSTC for a Cessna P206 (jump door like a 182, not the cargo U206 door) -jump door modification -jump step -extra seat belt The US form 334 does not cut it as they are really no longer granting them and in many cases, reviewing them and revoking them. Rampart Aviation has had an all inclusive, complete jump ship STC in the works with the FAA for a year now but it is like trying to get a drug approved with the FDA. Could be tomorrow, could be years from now. Looking for a way to legally have our plane modified for jumping.

I must be completely out of the loop because in all these years, I just happened to stumble upon them. http://www.africanfreefall.com/ Looks like they are down for the year but what year? No dates on the web site. Can anyone comment on what that boogie is like? Was the Herc there? What other boogies are there to jump from a Herc? Recently as Jan 29,2010 there are 3 jumps only from a Herc at Fort Knox but thats it. Have all Herc boogies gone the way of the do-do?

Yes that was us. 10 tent widths to me means 10 spaces of peoples tents, not 10 actual pup tents I guess :) Yup, emailed Fred the week after we got back and sent him the same picture of the trailer parked beside us with the generator. Didn't hear anything back about that because our real conversation revolved around the cross tandem training they were doing for us as well as buying a couple of rigs. A $150 FM transmitter wasn't a big thing in light of the other business we had down there but the more I think of going back, a $150 investment would make EVERYONE at the boogie very happy.

This is what I would do in my normal logical style. Talk to Skydive Arizona shortly before the planes fly to Lost Prairie. They have an awesome facility down there that has grown immensely over the past years. I'm sure they have upgraded their FM transmitters over the years to better quality ones. They may have one of their old ones still kicking around instead of throwing them out. You may be able to borrow it for the boogie. Next step if they don’t have a spare one laying around, put some $$$ down. How much? How is $139? Found this one on Google in no time flat. Range 1/16 of a MILE (more than adequate and you get an even longer range if you put an external antenna on the manifest roof !!!).Clicky The up side of owning your own FM transmitter is that... well.... you OWN it and can keep it for all future boogies or normal day to day operations. Some times you have to spend some money to make things better.... like the paved runway.

The boogie is awesome but it has one huge flaw. They are very much aware of the flaw but still refuse to address the issue. YOU CAN NOT HEAR MANIFEST !!!! We are set up along the flight line but unless are the first 8 tents set up right beside the manifest loud speaker, you are screwed. It got to the point that manifest got sick and tired of hearing people constantly ask them to turn up the volume all day long that they ended up posting a condescending notice: “IF YOU CAN NOT HEAR MANIFEST, MOVE CLOSER, TAKE THE CARROTS OUT OF YOUR EARS OR TURN UP YOUR HEARING AID” Yea, nice. The people who are directly in front of the loud speaker always got them to turn it down because they were being “blasted out”. The skydiving planes that are at the boogie are from Skydive Arizona. Those boys down there know what they are doing and have FM transmitters all over the place. Maybe one should be borrowed next year. I have included a picture of how completely stupid it gets. I would say that we were about 10-12 tent widths away from manifest and then Mr. Buddy showed up to park his trailer in the tent area and effetely created a sound blocking wall between us and the loud speaker. Then to top it up, lets fire up Mr. Generator to drown out any possibility of knowing what is going on. We ended up having a dedicated person to could the loads as they went so we knew what was going on and not to miss our scheduled load. Miss the load, loose your $$$. BORROW A FM TRASNMITTER, IT IS SUCH AN EASY THING TO DO !!!!

Things are a little bit different in Canada (and Austria, Sweden, Australia and about 10 other countries). Sue anyone you wish but be aware... LOSER PAYS !!! Sue if you wish but if you are wrong and the other side did nothing wrong, LOSER PAYS. You can go after the other side for court costs and legal fees. Sure that has a down side (as most whiners will complain) that poor people can not "afford" justice but that is a compromise I am willing to deal with. There has never been a $10 million law suit in Canada because someone’s McDonald's coffee was spilled in their lap. There was a time that there was not a single drug pharmacy in all of East St. Louis (even courier companies refused to do drug deliveries there) because the copious and over generous population in the jury pool there gave out hundreds of millions of dollars per drug law suit. Every single ambulance chasing lawyer sued in East St. Louis because that was the highest rate of over the top claims that were awarded. Lawyers settle medial malpractice suits for $30,000 because the procedure to remove an appendix had the initial incision going from right to left when they wanted left to right. Cheaper to pay out the frivolous lawsuit because it was cheaper than paying legal bills. Not right but that is how the rules exist. No legal system is perfect (much like the US medial care program) but it is time to fine tune it and fix what is wrong. In the mean time, Strong Enterprises get swept up in the same dumb ass, non logical legal drag net. Wouldn’t be the first company to go out of business and fire everyone even though they did nothing wrong.

I've had my fun over the years with Premiere Pro (did a few year end videos) and it was nice shooting all that video and editing it together. Learned lots and lots. Came up with some really neat projects and full length DVD's. I've just recently moved into After Effects and man.... What a huge monster of a program in what it can do. Stupidly small project files (like 2.5 meg) but it is all "fake". In Premiere, you are playing with and scrubbing though the actual video files. Nice and quick and easy. At the time I thought my computer was rendering the projects slow in Premiere, was I wrong. In After Effects, you are setting up a blue print for the special effects, 3D video manipulation etc. then you send it off to "Render". As compared to Premiere....I sent off my first final project in After Effects and watched it work only to say to my self....WHAT A DOG SLOW RENDER SYSTEM I HAVE Quad core, 4 GB Ram, pair of Velociraptor's in Raid0, GTX 280- 1GB dual head video card. You simply do no "scrub" though your video in After Effects, no way !!! I learned my lessons quick on turning every single thing down for resolution for working. Come real render time, my best time for a 50 second clip (lots and lots of effects) was a 54 MINUTE render time. Sure it was in HD 1920x1080 at the highest quality settings but what else is a quad core for :) The upside for After Effects playing around is that you only need a few good video clips or 5-10 good still shots and you can make a pretty kewl looking project. In my wildest dreams I would have NEVER thought that my two favorite extra curricular things would come together so nicely, skydiving and computers. PS, in the screen shot attached, After Effects is on the left and Premiere Pro on the right. AE is great for the little video clips but PPro is needed for the usual visual effects and all the addition of sound files. It is so sweet to have every Adobe product running and they all work together so very well. So many things going on at the same time, it gets a bit confusing unless you have the desk space to keep it organized (should have minimized AE and PPro for a second screen shot to show how full my desktop was for those projects)

Do you know why GM went into bankruptcy? People were not buying their product. Ford F150 trucks have been #1 in sales for the past 30 years. If people continue to buy it, companies tend to stay in business in making them. Javelin and Wings are predominant around these parts. Javelin's take 8-10 months to get a custom rig because they are #1 is sales world wide. Dolphins are good containers too, they only take 5 business days to ship out. If all you want is time to order (like the Mirage adds poke fun at Javelin that you can make a baby in the time it takes to get your Javelin) then dolphin is for you :) If nobody is ordering Atoms AND they take forever to manufacture..... maybe it is time to get your deposit back and rethink your purchase.

That is so funny because it is true. Didn't know what that was off the top of my head but man, if you are buying from new, why not get something good instead? http://www.dropzone.com/gear/Detailed/291.html

My Pumpkin got me this

Thanks, I'll read up on all the comments about it

This camera initially got my interest because it has the following features: -designed for wearing while sport shooting -Full HD -smallest in the world -30 fps and 60 fps -records directly to memory card -dual laser alignment -3 hour rechargeable battery $399.99 http://radioworld.ca/product_info.php?cPath=161_451_464&products_id=6962

The term "boogie" has changed for me over the past 10 years. When a DZ had a boogie, there were many turbine aircraft that showed up and it was a real event of interest. Now, every US DZ has turbines. Heck, there are balloon jumps, high altitude jumps, Pitts specials etc. through out the US on a regular basis at normal drop zones (the Perris jet for a while even). My question is where are the real exotic boogies that are truly unique? WFFC is done, Swedish Herc boogie is over, Thai Sky was cancelled this year so what does that leave? http://www.exoticskyadventures.com/ http://www.skydivebelize.com/ and that is about it. Germany had a Herc thing a year or two ago for a few days but that fell through as well as one that was attempted in Brazil. The ones that managed to stumble through the event turned out to be a disaster to most involved: http://www.skydivevietnam.com So does anyone know of a good, unique boogie that still exists in the world or have they all gone the way of the Do-Do bird?

Does anyone have an extra jump step for a 206 laying around or know of where one may be?

KARMA BITES YOU IN THE ASS. Here is how it goes. Last year the wifffee and I made our last squibb-idgit. Born right smack dab in the middle of March. My superior male negotiating skills were put to the test with the female part of the equation. I upped the anti of a teleconference from Thailand to a live video feed through Skype. Alas I lost the argument and we both gave birth together :) This year, I thought I was so smart. I lined it up so that her, both children and her mother rented a condo for 3 weeks in March. While I was away skydiving in Thailand, she would be enjoying the warm sun and doing all the stupid little shopping things that mothers & daughters do. It was perfect.... then the sad news came yesterday. So here I sit. No massively awesome skydiving Herc boogie to go to and no other trips planned for the -30 winter in Canada. Looks like I'll be spending a few weeks in Arizona, in a condo, with the kids, and wife and the mother-in law. Damn karma.

I am reading the companies sales presentations but I don't trust everything they say. What I am looking for is real world experience in what DZO have found. Does one need more service than the other? At replacement time is one always condemned because of too much work where as the other can be reconditioned and good to go again? Google is great at finding blind facts like the 3 blade kit (including all parts and the STC) sells for $9,750. I can buy a new McCauley two blade prop for $4,250. Is what you gain worth double the price?

Everything in the world is a compromise. You may gain something but you lose something in return. NASCAR is fast but not so good on transport safety, Yellow school bus is awesome on passenger safety (why children take it to school) but has a terrible lap time on the NASCAR circuit :) For skydiving operations, is a 2 blade prop better than a 3 blade prop? (Cessna 206) The 3 blade prop I’m told is better for comfort and cruising. There are more radians to dissipate the engine vibrations through and therefore, the passengers enjoy the smoother ride. The 2 blade prop has longer fins because it can use up more surface area as compared to the 3 blades. I’m told it can chop through the air more aggressively but the ride is less comfortable. The 2 blade is also cheaper to purchase so you would have to calculate the benefit you would receive in buying a new 3 blade instead of reconditioning your 2 blade you send in. I’m also guessing there are additional dingle widgets to install when converting from a 2 up to a 3 blade. So what are the issues in choosing between the two?

I think I got ya beat Rob :) I went on an expedition waaay North a number of years ago and when the Russians picked us up to take us to the ice camp, my seat belt was really short. Seems that it had a problem and was fixed "en route" by a qualified AME/AMO I'm sure.

I am shocked and amazed that the FAA isn’t the shining star of organization and order :) I found this on line database but for the life of me, I can't even find the STC for seatbelts that I know do exist (widebody 182): FAA Database I've sorted by aircraft make but the FAA is still a mess. They list: Cessna Aircraft Company and Cessna Aircraft Company, The then they list 206 206 series Their database sucks. Double redundant and things are missed in each. I would like to find the STC for extra seatbelts in a 206…and then I found this web page: Web Page 6 skydivers in a U206 but where in the FAA database is there a listing for the additional seatbelt for a U206.

So if you had an American 206, could you install the extra seat belt under the FAA rules then import it into Canada and get it certified? Sounds like trying to get it done in Canada after the fact is a hard thing to do.