allseeingeye

I have never owned a 192, but have owned several 182s. Make a pattern from cardboard. Buy some 1000 denier cordura and buy some 1" fire resistant closed cell foam to fit in it. Then sew it together. Buy double of the raw materials in case you screw up. If you get it right first time, yer set up with a spare in the case you wude remove one to wash it. Yer profile says yer a senior rigger so you shude have enuff skill to do this. If you do not have enuff skill, this cude be good practice for you and its possible it wude help with yer future sewing projects. Put a couple of velcro or bungee tie down loops on the down facing side so that it wude not follow the jumpers out of the plans. PS When you see how ridiculous this response looks (even thought it is valid), it shude give you an idea as to how serious people take yer comments.

Hmmm, are you stating that sherry butcher offered sexual favors to Glenn Bangs (who has not been on the board in quite a few years) or others, to earn the office of president? Or is it more likely that you are a misogynist that can hardly stand the fact that an attractive intelligent woman achieved an office to which you personally could never become elected because your brain is polluted with conspiracy theories and an anti-authority attitude. Please fill us all in on your incredible insight and knowledge as to what it takes to be USPA's president. It is apparent that you are one of the smartest people in the world to know all about everything to do with this entire incident.

Thank you Mr. Totter for an explanation on shock cooling and on correcting my erroneous statement about compressor RPM - Ng or N1. - It has been a while for me. I am well aware of the problem with blade creep which appears to be more prevalent but not limited to PMA blades, I still think that blade creep and the resultant catostrophic failure when it goes unchecked is an anomaly on a properly operated and maintained engine rather than an epidemic. A properly maintained engine might be getting scoped on a regular basis and this problem could be noticed. Maybe not all of them are caught in time, but probably most of them are or we would be hearing a lot more about it. I would also like to point out to those who are talking only about the C208, I am talking about failures of all PT6 powerplants on all skydiving jump ships. Think about those of which you personally have knowledge, and then think about those of which few people know, and then think of .3 per 100,000. I think the industry rate is somewhere between 5 and 10 times worse than this rate based on my opinion and some fuzzy math.

I can see some issue with shock cooling but not enough to cause the high failure rate. At most, it could shorten over all engine life and be a cause for a more frequent HSI interval. 100% of torque is usually used for takeoff and even then it is (or should) be flown within the temperature limitations. Some engines torque out before temping out and some are opposite. Regardless, neither limit should ever be exceeded. These limits are published by the mfg. and the engine should be able to take it if maintained properly otherwise. (HINT, HINT) In the descent, the compressor is still generating plenty of heat at flight idle of 48% N2 (I think this N2 number is accurate - correct me if I am wrong).

In regard to the recent C208 deadstick landing, I would never condemn a pilot for running off the end of the runway, especially in a Caravan. They are notoriusly efficient gliders with the prop feathered and the best of the best could easily float one right down the runway. In fact, it can be difficult to settle onto the runway with the prop governor/beta being slightly out of rig. Caravans are not STOL aircraft by a long shot although they are often treated as such due to the effective reverse thrust available. What bothers me is the rate of turbine engine failures in the skydiving industry. Pratt & Whitney claims an in-flight shutdown rate of .3 per 100,000 flight hours. I seriously doubt if the skydiving world flys 100,000 hours per year in and of itself. I suspect that this number is derived from operators who participate in formal reporting which would most likely include only Part 135 and 121 operators. Why are there so many failures? I have my own ideas but would like to know what the thoughts of others are on this subject. Just from reading these forums one can find one or more failures every year and those are just the ones which we hear about on this website. I know of several operators who have had more than one over varying lengths of time.

*** In which case you would still be wrong. A 16 year old may jump at a USPA DZ without any board action. Whether the DZ allows them to jump is a different matter decided by the risk management policy of the individual DZ. Jumps taking persons younger than 16 require a waiver from the BOD unless you are a sitting regional director ordered by your wealthy boss to take his underage son on a tandem. In this situation, you are exempt from these rules providing that you falsify a waiver from the tandem manufacturer, and make up a sob story about how sick the child is and post it on dizzie.com so everyone feels sorry for you.

Anyone who becomes an instructor should do so with full knowledge that there really is no way to completely shield one's self from liability. When you are 'hands on' with a student, virtually everything that you do is a personal act and therefore personal liability generally can not be circumvented through a corporate veil. Most waivers are little more than a 'feel good' document which serves a dual purpose. First, it makes us as instructors think we have something protecting us and therefore we go about executing our duties without a huge amount of fretting and concern about best practices. If DZs used a 'best practices' policy, about half of the skydiving we do and many of the students we take skydiving would never get off of the ground. Secondly, it does discourage most of the minorly injured jumpers (student or otherwise) from filing nuisance lawsuits because they do believe what it says, and it is a minor stumbling block for personal injury lawyers who may not take the case when there is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Unfortunately there are several aspects to waivers of which most instructors and DZOs are unaware or do not wish to consider. The most significant of these, is that your waiver does not apply to anyone other than the signatory party. That person does not have the right to sign away the rights of others, such as mommy, daddy, wifey and little Johnny, the survivors. There is plenty of case law which backs this up and seldom if ever, is a lawsuit filed by a survivor dismissed on the merits of the waiver. Another aspect is that in order to have anything dismissed, you must pay to defend the waiver. A law firm capable of doing this effectively is going to charge $300.00 to $400.00 per hour in most parts of the country, and probably more in the People's Republics of California, NY, and Mass. In order to get to a stage to even have a case considered for dismissal you can count on spending between $10K and $20K. Usually that is the starting ante. It only goes up from there. Do not think for a minute that the DZO or the equipment mfg. or the aircraft owner is going to pay for your defense as an instructor. First, their defenses are probably by nature, going to involve a different strategy than the instructor's. In fact, their best defense may be to blame you, the sub-contractor. Do not think it will not happen. In the world outside of the puffy clouds and pretty rainbows in the simple minds of people who enjoy dropzone life and dizzie.com, things often work this way. If you are going to instruct, there are a number of means to shield personal assets by placing them in the spouse's name or using different investment vehicles which are unattachable. (even OJ still gets his pension). However, most of these are beyond the scope of planning and forethought of your average broke skydiving instructor, and none of them save you from paying for your defense. In most cases, your average broke skydiving instructor/defendant will have no choice but to be a no show or a minimal participant in a lawsuit. The net result of which, is a default judgement against the instructor. In many cases this can then be discharged by personal bankruptcy, in which case you had best hope that your other assets were protected in some way shape or form. However, there are judgments that are not dischargeable, and they differ from state to state. This of course brings us back to having to pay tens of thousands of dollars to defend yourself to the point that if a judgement is granted, it is structured to your advantage so that it can be dischargable by bankruptcy. You as an instructor by all means should comply with the BSRs, FARs, and industry standards. However, do not delude yourself into thinking that comliance and a waiver are going to keep you safe from the tort boogieman. Any student, or another jumper, or an event with which you had only minimal involvement can change your life and financial future for ever. I am the allseeing eye. I have more years, jumps and knowlege about the business and instructional end of this sport than most of you combined and I am anonymous for damn good reason.