dninness

Its plenty of time to have stopped and started a turbine when you don't care about prolonging the life of the engine. (the "20 minute rule" is more of a guideline for avoiding things like coking the seals in the hot end, etc, which leads to maintenance issues) If you're not expecting for that PT-6 to be used ever again, shutting her down and then spooling her back up again in a short period of time is probably the last thing you're worried about. Then again, 11 minutes is barely enough time to shut down and restart a piston plane, too, so maybe he kept things running. Don't forget: Flight Aware is often a little goofy as far as when planes really arrive and depart places. Maybe he never really stopped there, but Flight Aware thinks he did. NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

I read thru some of the prior threads on Conquests and just want to make sure I have some up-to-date guidance. My girlfriend picked up a Conquest 190 and is in the process of huffing and puffing over here in the living room stuffing it into my D-bag so I can test jump it for her. We did a complete 4-line, line inspection, a visual once over on the cells, top/bottom skin, etc. Anything special I should be looking out for? I've been jumping a nice old Monarch 195 "SkyTruck" for the last 10 years or so, with a smattering of jumps on different canopies (Pilot, Sabre, Sabre 2, etc) here and there over the years, so jumping something different doesn't bother me, just want to make sure if there are any "gotchas" I'm aware of them beforehand. Packing tips? I'm not a front-riser flyer, really, so I don't anticipate that I'll be doing anything that will induce problems under the whole "do not front-riser a Conquest!" tuck under problem as has been reported elsewhere. I plan to give it a good workout up high before doing anything stupid down low. :) TIA NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

Laurie Oh, yeah, i sure wanted to, but I had the kids and all, so I figured you guys were working your butts off getting things organized/fixed up, last thing you need is a gawker. (hehe: "Here, Darin, here's a paintbrush. If you're gonna stand there, paint something!") That baby is sure coming along, but I see what you mean about the siding contractor taking their damn sweet time. Geez, don't these people know we want to get into the airflow? NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

Since Laurie's been busy with all this nice weather (whew!), I drove by today with my wife on our way back from Trader Joe's and snapped this pic. :) Its coming along! NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

My favorite sound in skydiving (apart from the ruffle of fabric over my head following the pilot chute toss, obviously!) is the word "DOOR!" Starting as a static-line student at a C-182 DZ will do that to you. I thought I was going to crap myself the (beer) time the pilot shouted "DOOR!" in my face.. So multiple doors, even louver doors, is cool :) NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

I was chatting with Rob (Laurie's lesser half..) at the DZ one day about just that subject. I forgot that even though we're talking a large scale, we get to deal with Charles's Law (pressure and volume vs. temperature), so speeding up a large volume of air in this way is, in some aspects, pressurizing it, which will tend to cause the temperature of the air to rise. Add to this some friction (I would have thought friction would be negligible, but in a closed loop, and at the speeds we're talking about, friction will likely add up) and the heat of the motors at the top of the tunnel. You can see very quickly that you'd want a few vent doors to keep the air cooler. whew, I'm sweating just typing that. :) Spring _cannot_ come soon enough.. NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

Yeah, make sure they don't route the brake lines thru 'em... NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

Not anymore I don't.. the Army kept it when I got out. Bastards. NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

Not to be pendatic but it was less than 60 other skydivers..

"Grab the handles" (often accompanied by a hand motion) = Lets get the hell out of here. (This is a two-fold meaning thing here. "Grabbing the handles" in skydiving usually means getting rid of something that's useless to you. ie. your newly malfunctioning main. "Grabbing the handles" in jet fighters means "ejecting", which is a similar but not matching connotation to cutting away..) Neck-cracker = A unusually hard opening. NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

Yeah, they totally left out the part about absorbing oxygen thru the skin in freefall... I hate it when the fail to fact check.. NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

Removing the door on the 182 we were going to do it in is not an option (the plane doesn't have pinned hinges, and my buddy isn't interested in ripping the hinges off to install pin hinges..), so that was the reason for the un-modified airplane. The fellow at the FSDO (the jumper) said "You know, you can do it, sure. Its like dealing drugs: you can do it, right up to the point where you get caught.. Lots of people have gotten out of a C-182 like that, sure.. But its not a good idea. We don't really approve of doing it that way. The aircraft door wasn't designed to be opened on purpose like that in flight. If something were to happen, and you were doing something with the airplane, like opening a non-inflight door in flight for the purpose of putting a jumper out, that's not what its designed for, then you'd have some problems.." I couldn't argue with his logic: Can't remove the door easily on the plane, and the door isn't really designed to be opened like that in flight. Like he said "It would be a bad time to discover that you have a stress-crack in the hinge.." (a local FBO just recently lost a door off of one of their nearly-new C-172s, from what I understand..) So I'm looking now for a 172 (which you can remove the door from w/o getting the STC) or something like a Cherokee Six (which you can remove the rear door from without an STC as well..) Or a Decathlon. Which apparantly some folks have jumped (as well as things like Champs and Citabrias..) NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

Hey, gang, I appreciate all the feedback I've gotten from this one. Its come in handy when dealing with the FSDO (especially the document 8700 & the special provisions contained therein..) Unfortunately, the ops inspector from the FSDO called me up the other day and indicated that jumping from an unmodified 182 without the door removed is something they have heartburn with. He put me on with one of the other ops inspectors who is also a skydiver and we were able to "talk the talk", so to speak. The long and the short of it was that opening the door of the 182 in flight is not what its designed to do. If something were to happen while doing that, the words "unsafe operation" and "careless & reckless" would probably be repeated in the report several times, and of course aviation insurance companies don't pay on claims made while operating an aircraft in a manner deemed "unsafe" or "careless & reckless" by the FAA. Bad news, but better we're told this now than later. OK, that's cool. I half expected this... As per usual, I'm back to square one on the plane. This is always the case... :) I start looking around for someone who will let me yank the door on their 172 for this purpose, as according to the guy at the FSDO, you don't need hardly any paperwork at all for that transaction. So a friend emails me today, says "Hey, I've got a Decathlon that I fly for aerobatics, can you jump it?" I've been digging thru the AC 105-2C and the Internet for about an hour now, and I can't seem to find anything that pertains to the Decathlon (Aeronca Series 7s, yeah, but Decathlons, no) and jumping. Anybody have any experience with a Decathlon and jumping out? Is it going to be a lot like getting out of a Piper Cub? Can you leave the door off? I'd like a couple informed opinions first, before I call our buddy the ops inspector at the FSDO and start poking around in the hornets nest. Thanks! NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

OK, that pic is just cool! I can see the grommets in the d-bag, but what are those round/oval things above them? The slider stops (poker chips) in the main? If so, that packjob is pretty ugly. The guy who packed the reserve did a better job NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

As the woman who ran the student operation at the DZ where I started jumping said to me one day (as I'm throwing quarters in my jumpsuit pocket): "Darin, if you land out, where are you going to put those? In a corn stalk?" Good point. Cellphone is probably a better bet than change. NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

I crew a balloon (that I've jumped out of), so I have a lot of experience with landing unexpectedly in people's backyards, fields, school yards and even in the middle of an un-opened highway bypass, albeit with a balloon and not a parachute. I'd say that 99% of the people whose backyards we land in are quite happy to have us there. Its a thrill and a surprise early in the morning to have this big ass balloon come in and land. Only once or twice have we had any problems (that time we landed on the grounds outside of the state mental hospital, well, the security guard we dealt with could have stood to be a *little* nicer..), and that's when you have people who generally don't "think before they bitch." I recall one guy who was a real asshole about our landing. He had a wide open field next to his house, and we were able to go up to his door and ask permission to land before the balloon landed, but we had absolutely no more outs past this guy's land.. He says "Can't you go someplace else?" Hello! Its a friggin' balloon! We go where the wind takes us. Cork-smoker took our bottle of champagne, though. Landed in a big field behind some houses on a balloon demo once (typical: this time the balloon didn't go where expected...), and the folks lounging by the pool were mighty surprised to see me. NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

Buddy of mine just got hired to fly PC-12s, and I did some "back of the envelope" calculations based on the numbers he gave me. As I recall, it would be "King Air-ish" in terms of number of jumpers to haul (ie. 10-12) vs. fuel load, etc. Cheaper to fly, hopefully, due to only one engine. I don't have the numbers right in front of me, but I think we figured its performance (ie. rate of climb) would be similar to that of a Caravan when loaded, but slightly better as its a LOT cleaner than a Caravan.. Then there is that pesky detail of the door.. NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

OK, maybe this is just me.... You broke at 6 or 7, which you said was "early," and didn't understand the 3-second track signal (understandable, particularly if it wasn't pre-briefed to you), tracked and eventually pulled at 4 on the alti, yet you said you saw the low clouds and thought "WTF?" My first thought is that something is FUBAR with your alitmeter! If you broke at 6 or 7, and you thought it was early, tracked a little and were still oddly "high" by your altimeter, then threw out at what your alti said was 4 but looked lower... You see what I mean? The MkI Mod0 eyeball can be a lot more accurate than we think, even at 25 jumps. You knew the clouds were "low" and when you deployed, your alti & your knowledge of the relative altitude of the clouds didn't coincide. Not only that, but your "internal clock" was saying throughout the jump "Hmmm, why am I 'high'?" when you looked at your altimeter. You could have been showing 6 or 7 on the alti, and yet really been at 4 or 5. And maybe that's why the coach was like "3 second track!" Perhaps he was caught a little unawares, too. Was watching your alti in freefall and then when he looked at his said "Uh oh..." Who knows. When you were tracking and looked at the alti and it said "5", you may really have been at 3000 ft. If you tossed at 4, that could have really been 2000.. You see where I'm going with this? If the alti you were using belongs to the DZ and you can ID it out of all their altimeters, have them get it tested or have someone jump it doubled up with a known correct altimeter to see if its off. If its your alti, borrow one of the DZ's and double-up (know which one is which! hehe! ) on your next jump to test it. They can read correctly in the airplane on the ride up, but not unwind correctly on the way down. /me had an altimeter stick once. It was 7000 ft for a LONG time... NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

Guys, Thanks for the input here. :) The C-182 I'll be doing the demo from is an UN-modified aircraft. Not even the door removed. Since it doesn't have the STC or a 337 applied for removal of the door, I take it the bailout rig part is not legally required under the FAR, correct? (the airmanship issues are another matter, but I do take your meaning.. I will strongly recommend this to my friend the pilot..) I am conversant with the FAR 105 and the AC WRT demo jumps, for the most part. My concern from the FSDO situation stems from their interpretation that the "file for a waiver/don't file for a waiver" criteria is based on whether the airport has parachuting listed as occuring at that airport in the Airport Facility Directory. (which is NOT a criteria listed in the FAR) If the local glider or balloon club wanted to fly from an airport for a day or two that they normally didn't fly from, and that airport does not have glider or balloon operations listed in the AFD, do they too have to file for a waiver with the FSDO (I'm guessing "not."). That's my point. I'm guessing the FSDO is preferring to err to the side of caution, and for that I have no problem. I'm just worried about having to comply with fairly arbitrary requirements that have no basis in the FAR or reality. Thanks! (Oh, yeah, and suggestions about how to easily get out of an un-modified Cessna 182RG are greatly appreciated...) NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

Guy I work with found out I was a skydiver, and he said the prototypically whuffo thing: "Dude, don't you know you could be killed doing that?" I put my hand against my head in mock horror. "Holy shit, I didn't even think about that! Wow, man, thanks for warning me." I then grabbed him by both shoulders and leaned in, saying "Thanks, man, you may have just saved my life!" He doesn't talk to me much anymore. Not sure if its the skydiving posters in my office, or the t-shirts... NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

Talked to the local FSDO yesterday about a small demo jump at a local fly in and whether or not I would require a Certificate of Authorization for the demo. My slant was that I wasn't going to require a Certificate of Authorization due, partly, to the nature of the event and its location (on an airport). Its definitely a Level I demo, right on the line with an "Open Field" demo. The gentleman from the FSDO said that since parachute jumping does not normally occur at this airport (as indicated in the the Airport/Facility Directory), a certificate must be obtained for the jump. Now, I'm filing the request, that's no sweat. It doesn't terribly bend me out of shape to do so. But I am curious that since there is no mention of this particular qualifier in the FAR, why does the FSDO use it? FAR 105 doesn't seem to require you to request a certificate of authorization for jumping at an airport that doesn't list parachute jumping in the AFD any more than, it seems, any other part of the FAR requires you to file for a certificate if you're holding, say, a fly-in breakfast or a spot landing contest at an airport where those activities are not listed in the AFD. I've been told the the FSDO is supreme in their interpretations of the FAR, and thats cool, I'm just worried about having to hit a moving target. Its bad enough trying to read and comply with the convoluted FARs without having to worry that the FSDO has "unwritten" rules or procedures.' On a similar note: does anybody know if, when jumping from an unmodified C-182, the pilot has to wear a bailout rig? I seem to recall that the bailout rig requirement was associated with the STC of aircraft that had been modified especially for jump ops (ie. step, jump door, seats removed, etc), not for unmodified ops. Any ideas here before I ask my FSDO guy again? Thanks NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19