Jumpers
 

I have dropped jumpers in a Turbo 207 and a Twin Otter. Not a lot of time with either, but it is a blast. The drop zone is a little far from my house, and I have other flying gigs, so I don't get to do it as much as I would like. We are northwest of Atlanta. 2 minute call, 1 minute call and jumpers away on both approach and unicom. Unicom is more detailed.

I don't jump yet. Never really wanted to until I started dropping meat missles, but I am intrigued now. Maybe this summer.

I didn't get to jump myself either. First - I wanted that $10/load. Second - I was only months away going to OCS and didn't want to take the risk of straining or breaking anything :eek: It was good while it lasted though and the atmosphere around the school was a good time.

USMCFLYR

We've had some close calls with the Brits and others in the DZs around El Centro. I also had a squadronmate get a little too close to a flight of CH-46s with SPIE riggers on the string. One of them happen to be the BLT Commanding Officer :eek: No more airfield attacks after that :(

USMCFLYR

How come you stopped? What did you make? I love to so much man, if I could make 25K+ flying a turbine, I could easily do this for quite some time, I am getting super sucked into jumping, the scene, and the dropzone, I will be sad to let it go! I got a audio line in on my audio panel, and get to fly for 20 min with a takeoff/landing, and a few new faces each load, I can not imagine better flying.

i got busy the last couple of years flying floats and living in alaska so jumping kind of went to the back burner. but my last jump was a 8 way wing suit formation so that rocked, and im getting my rigs repacked for this up coming summer want to hit some dz's around my new home and get back to it. frankly i got burned out, 2004 i did 800 skydive. a break was needed. base jumping got a hold of me and really want to go huck some high cliffs. never enough time

where you livin now?

Start of the day have a couple people show you their packing slip for their reserve chute, you are responsible. Sort of a mini ramp check. Plus nothing gets your heart racing like when you turn final and see an ambulance headed midfield.

i live in big rapids michigan right now. i would not recommend checking reserve packing card it makes u look like a douche. the dzo should be taking care of that, and at some time in this carrer u have to be able to trust the people u work with that they are doing ther job. but always use the trust with verification method. if u dont trust the dzo to do it then ya i would ask jumpers, because as twin wasp says its your ticket. we do tend to operate on the edges of what most would consider rational. legal is grey area. ther is the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. as far as ambulances death and injury are an inherent part of the sport ther are plenty of warnings before u go
jump out of a perfectly good airplane, it aint for everyone. i personally have 5 fatalities out of my airplane, guess that makes me an ace, viva la sportdeath.

Ive seen over 2500 tandems, over 4000 jumps in my time in the sport, not me personally doing them, but been either flying or working on the ground, worst ive seen is a broken leg and sprained ankle, both from Students, i flew the ankle. I will not work around an unsafe place, but I do accept the risk when I jump, and know its there each load I fly. USPA just put out that 2009 was the safest year in a long time with close to 3 million jumps and I think 17 or 19 deaths, which is amazing, most of those where either canopy raps during CREW, ie formation flying.....and experienced jumpers doing something they should not have done. It has risks, but as we saw last year, being heads up can cut the risk down a ton!

The hardest part of flying jumper for me has been dealing with local pilots, guys that ignore a unicom and fly right through a dropzone, and other locals who can not accept jump ops and have had a twin otter bomb down on the runway in front of them. I fly a 182 I try to make everyone happy, but I have caught my share of flack from local weekend warriors. Today I had a nice incursion with a hot headed guy with an anger problem, my DZO had to call the cops to put our plane away. Got mad about a busy pattern with some ultra lights and him. If you fly jumpers you would understand this from our end. I never put myself in a situation on my descent that I could not safely make the runway. PERIOD!

ther is always going to be hot heads out ther, sometimes u can explain thing so them sometimes u cant. try and take local pilots on a load with u and show them the ops. u have to lead some by the hand and explain explain explain. the dz pilot, has to be the mediator. it helps if ya have some neutral ground to talk to them. most think jump ops is just a bunch of crazyness. and they have to be shown it is not.