Meatbomber

Well i can't really help with the original question but anytime i stand with a couple of skydivers and someone ask the above question they usually all turn and point at me saying: the plane's perfect but HE is the pilot! Har har har ;)

yea i meant weight and ballance. too few seatbelts available THAT is a blame on the operator for sure.

you know what i man tho don't you quade ? I know my responsibilities full well, and i think skydivers should think about theirs a couple of times too.

one thing i stumbled over in the thread was that skydivers wouldn't get on a plane that wasn't loaded correctly. This is good.... BUT YOU as a skydiver are most responsible for knowing where to sit in a particular airplane! If you don't ASK!! So an aircraft being loaded wrong in my oppinion it's the skydivers to blame rather than the operation (not for nothing skydivers are also fall under the category SLF... self loading freight ). MB

It was PINK, and it has the "Super -2" Conversion Engines. Drop Alt as confirmed by London ATC FL306. Took us only 30 minutes to get there :)

no actually a Pilatus PC9

Anyhow i find that flying our Skyvan up to FL305 was quite a thing :) Cheers MB

Hyas, just found a cool video on www.dieschurken.com: look http://www.freefly.com/data/preview1.rm

Woooaaa no Skyvan bashing please... yes it is not the easiest plane to maintain and to operate, but if you are able to it is a great jumpship. Comparing a standard Skyvan to a super Otter is also an unfair comparison, rather look at a Super Otter and a Skyvan with TPE331-6 or Super -2 Engines and you will find out that the "Shed" doesn't compare so badly anymore. Oh yea and the Skyvan has 2 distinct advantages over the Otter: Real Stand up cabin and a rear door besides in the modern world the twin-otters are just as old as the Skyvans ! Cheers MB

Oh yea .. the PINK just got a new smile! The stupid looking guy below is me ;)

Oh see here the nearmiss: http://www.pink.at/bilder/sc7nosnearmiss.jpg

Well he crawled out on the right hand side of the centerline (ditching hatch above co-pilot seat), the r/h enginew is feathered and he never got anywhere close to the left hand side... when he let go he actually felly pretty much straight down away from the a/c missing the nose wheel by quite a distance so to either hit the engine/strut/stubwing you must be pretty far back when you fall off (the whole thing was done at some 75-80Kts). I know it .. i was there, i flew the camera ship. Cheers MB

that has been a big discussion on other formums too... i think it's setteled that skydivers are no passengers :) but rather they are aviators thus the defeinition is somewhat different. i'm sure chris can explain better ! Cheers MB

Had the pleasure of flying at the Skydivecenter SPA, excellent organization and very motivated and helpfull staff, plane (C208) is in great shape too! The DZ offers pretty much all the facilities you need, the only thing that wasn't perfect was that the aerodrome is being worked on and the landing zone wasn't quite perfect... yet :) MB

better leave spotting on rear exit planes to the pilot and the GPS IMO (and my IMO is considering i`m trhe driver too) A lot of folks dislike the Skyvan door for the big gap that's between the end of teh floor and the beginning of the door.... that`s because a lot of owners have the SPLIT door installed where the forward part is big enough to reach down to the ground and act as a bump stop when loading (in the normal config ... don`t try that with the plastic doors ;)) The PINK Skyvan for example has the normal flip-door where the gap between floor and door is no more than 8-10 inch so you don`t have to lean over a gaping hole when reching for the latch.... our door also has automatic up locks so there`s no fideling to get the locking pins in just push the center of the door all the way up and let the locks slide in.. works very nice and it`s really easy to open and lock without feckking it up :) Cheers MB