Scary skydiving
I have flown my share of “reasonably airworthy” airplanes and helicopters in the past. I don’t even want to elaborate on those stories on this website since our mission is to “attract” folks to aviation, not scare them. But here is what my brother did with some of the stories I told him……
I’ll not tell the whole story of a Cessna 172, a vulture in flight, a Pipeline run, and two full rolls of duct tape.
Lets just say, the pilot was lucky I had lots of sprint car racing temporary wing repair experience. He sure didn’t know how to get it right. . . .
That is very funny, it seems that I will also jump from the aircraft if Chuck was flying LOL
Actually, it is NOT like jumping: it’s DIVING into the air (I know; everybody says JUMPING…it so much more pleasurable to dive!) & joy.
Once I didn’t Skydive for 3 years in a row. When I went out of the Cessna 182, I froze on the step, grabing the wing spar. Had to go back inside, land on the jump-plane…to face nasty comments & plenty of crap from the whole crew!
I had another turn at Sunset time, over Puerto Escondido (Oaxaca state of México) at 15,000 ft altitude, with a spectacular sky & view. My best Skydive so far!
My training was on a Cessna 180 (taildragger) and the 182 has tricycle gear, this particular one had sand wheels: I felt it would hit my jaw if I let go the wing spar…(excuses; fear disguises itself well!)
Heh heh. I thought I’d cornered the market on the “birds-jumping-out-of-planes” cartoons, but it looks like you beat me to it here.
Chuck’s comment in panel 1 is heard the world over by ALL skydivers… we used to hear it in the UK when I was in a Free Fall club, no matter which pilot we had. Scarily enough the rest of the strip is almost as real-life too, our “Chuck” was actually Nigel (naturally, being English and all). Happy memories of filling the jump plane from a barrel, and of one jump from a B-N Islander over Morcambe bay when it landed and hit and killed a stray sheep on the runway. There was a butcher amongst the skydivers who conveniently never went anywhere without his knives. Let’s just say a good lamb BBQ was had by all.
I’ve only “dived” twice but have been asked the same question. Considering the stripped down interior of the plane & the simple small size my response is always: “You haven’t seen the plane!”
Prin Air, flying from Puerto Rico to Saint Thomas, a few decades ago. The pilot looked like he was 15-16 years old. First thing he did, when he came aboard, was to take a chain spot welded to the door frame and wrap it around the handle. I felt an immediate urge to make alternate flying arrangements.
As an airborbe soldier, my response to that question is “there’s no such thing as a perfectly good airplane when you in an Airforce C130.