Green Horn: C-182 Jump Pilot; any tips?
 

Hello everyone. I recently acquired my first commercial job as a 182 job pilot. I was just wondering if any of the seasoned jump pilots out there had any tips when it came to 182's and hauling these crazy people up to their desired altitude jump out of a perfectly good airplane.

Thanks for the advice

What model 182? Old straight tails or new ones (E model or newer, I believe)?

That's mighty presumptuous to consider the 182 that you're flying a "perfectly good airplane". Dropzone A/C aren't known for being cherry, so always plan for the worst and be pleasantly surprised by a better outcome.

Learn how to use the cowl flaps to not shock the motor, you can avoid some of the bad stuff by treating the gear nice.

Start jumping. If you have to get out the airplane because of the bad stuff, you don't want your first jump to be a crash course accelerated free fall.

Read drop zone accident reports and try to learn what went wrong and why. Here's a good head start: http://www.ntsb.gov/search/search.as...&x=-1042&y=-45

Have fun, be safe.

Ignition in the center near the throttles? If so, guard the keys with your life!

I know a few operators that will take the keys with them on the jump as an initiation flight.

Make your own copy, and keep it easily accessible.

Side note on Cessna ignition keys: there are very few variations unless the bird has been rekeyed. IIRC, there are only five versions for the 150.

Its an older straight tail model.

Watch those jumpers, they can have a pretty twisted sense of humor :$

Never use the parking brake to hold the wheel! Watched a pilot forget and blew both mains on landing. Buh-bye...

My first aviation job was flying a '58 and a '59 model C-182. This was out of a dirt strip in Maine. What a fun bunch of nutcases! Here's my memories:
1. Yes, they will steal the ignition key as they jump out, so stay over the top of the DZ.
2. How much fuel is in the tanks? You have to stick the tanks with a calibrated dipstick every single time. Then you, and only you make sure the fuel cap is secure or else a loose cap will allow all the fuel to be siphoned out by the low pressure air in flight. Ask me how I know...
3. Cowl flaps... full open in climb, full closed in descent.
4. In summer, the engines were quite prone to carb ice, a blast of carb heat every so often clears it out. Or...the engine occasionally would lose power completely, causing all jumpers to bail out right then and there. Keep your eye on the MP, if it begins to sag, full carb heat before it loses all power, and ability to heat as well.
5. You may be the one to call AFSS to insert the parajumping NOTAM over your DZ, don't forget.
6. Avoid aggressive slips with flaps 40 in the C-182, especially the old ones.
7. Don't forget to call ATC, like appch control, etc. or UNICOM if that's all there is with the 1 min to jumpers away, and the jumpers away call.
8. Jumpers love to mess with the pilots, like pulling control cables, stealing the ign key, etc. Sometimes the airplane would pitch down, maybe in retaliation, and make them weightless. My seatbelt was on, they didn't have any...
9. Have fun!

Currently at the airlines and built all of my time flying jumpers, if you get good at it you can score a twin otter or king air job pretty easily.

Always dip your tanks and know your fuel load. Check your fuel selector before every take off because the jumpers will inadvertently bump it while they are getting situated, also if the engine quits all of a sudden, check that first.

If a jumper pulls your ignition keys, when you get on the ground, punch him in the face and then rat him out to the DZ owner because he just shock cooled that engine way bad.

As far as technique, find the best indicated climb speed for that airplane and lock that in, don't bank more than five degrees unless you have to, in a turn more than 5 degrees keep your pitch attitude instead of speed, it's a better climb. As the jumpers are climbing out pull the prop back to the bottom of the green arc and keep the airplane level, don't try to hold altitude and slow it down to about 80 Kts or whatever you are comfortable with, if you stall it, you are in deep S&@T. Keep some power in the descent, the owners will tell you how much but it's around 20 inches and bottom of the yellow arc for speed. To get into flap speed, keep the profile going till just before you hit the planet and pull up steep to kill all the airspeed and go straight to however much flap you intend to land with. Then you're good.

Learn how to "Spot" get the upper winds for that day, the 12,000 ft winds are what you fly the plane into then you offset left or right depending on the 3000 ft winds or "canopy" winds. Now do a 90 degree left turn onto jump run so you can look down at the planet and line up your jump run, then call "DOOR!" About a mile short of the DZ. In the jumpers eyes, you are a hero if you get good at this. So the language is like "jump run is 310 degrees offset left" when you step up to the turbine aircraft it's GPS spotted and we use something like "run is 310 degrees offset two tenths left, starting .5 prior ending 1.2 past"

Jumpers wanna jump, they will try to talk you into flying through one tiny blue hole (sucker hole) in broken to overcast layer, don't let them push you around but be cool about it. Tell them your willing to push the limits but you have to keep it within reason, but really just keep it legal. Once in the sky, they want extra altitude, proper payment of this is to be shown some boobies or at the very least bribed with alcohol for later, don't cheapen the industry, boobies or booze, no exceptions.

What else, oh, on the long days, pack a lunch and don't forget sun screen. Have fun! It's way better than flight instructing.