Scary Skydiving

[Rooster Cruiser]

Hey Gibbo!  Where are you?  We need you to comment on da Scary Skydiving!  After all, YOU are the expert who does this for a living!  Hehe.

RC

[Oddball]

Ah he's probably kicking them out of his crate some where.

[Frank N. O.]

Hey, the return of the red minivan

Is it just me or wouldn't you also be really scared to board an aircraft where the mechanic asks for a parachute!? 
Edit: I really should wake up before reading, I skipped over the Chuck piloting part which so much more explains the desire for a chute.

Frank

[BrianGMFS]

When I worked for Heritage. One of our Challenger Captains was an avid skydiver. Mike would always pack his chute with the rest of his luggage. He was always sure to hide it behind his suitcase though. Might give the passengers the wrong idea if the Captain had a parachute....

[Oddball]

Thing is seeing that 20mm nut falling off would say some thing about Julio's Mechy skills 

[ZAIZAI]

My oh-my! The amount of times I have been asked why I want to jump off a "perfectly good airplane".
I always point out (especially to pilots) that there is no such thing, and they tend to agree after a bit of thought. My mates that work at Airbus deplore the fact that they don't have parachutes issued on their company flights 

My club leased an Antonov AN-2 for a few years. Boy, I was happy I had a parchute on me every time I stepped into that thing.
We quite often had passengers next to the pilot, the amount of times they got roped in to doing "in flight maintenance" by the pilot is staggering...
-"Oh, would you mind putting your hand on the instrument pannel to stop it falling to the floor...?!"
-"Ah, can you hold down the parking break leaver, the catch doesn't seem to be able to hold on...?"
-"Uhm, can you go check in the back if the leads to the battery havn't fallen off, I seem to be running on one battery."
-"Could you step down and help the others (skydivers) wind the propeller up? I want that rubberband to supply us with lots of power at take off!"
.
.
.
Good thing though, there is lots of room to stow spare parts for the plane.


If I am going to be in an arplane crash I wish it was in an AN-2, it is so slow that it will most likely bounce off the ground anyway. 

[BrianGMFS]

An-2 are cool Even when they're hot.

There's an aircraft importer based at the Highgate VT Airport (Mom's home town) Back in the mid 90's he imported a former Polish AF AN-2 to the states. While Ferrying it across the pond, he had a little trouble.

A little trouble as in no oil pressure.

Imagine the predicament. Two hours out from Reykjavik over the North Atlantic, in March in a fixed gear airplane with no oil pressure. He knew it was truly no oil pressure due to the sudden and sharp rise in the Cylinder head temp and some oil on the windshield.

The pilot called in the Mayday and got ready to ditch. He decided to keep plugging on until it quit and then go swimming.

The engine kept running and running and running.... until he shut it down on the ramp in Iceland. He let it sit for a few minutes and then hit the starter. Nothing.....

they tried to spin the prop by hand... Locked tight.

What little oil was left in the crankcase was a slurry of mostly metal. A month later and another engine and the AN-2 made it to Vermont.

[madpilot44]

From the wikipedia AN-2 page....

A note from the pilot's handbook reads: "If the engine quits in instrument conditions (blind flying when you can't see the ground) or at night, the pilot should pull the control column full aft (it won't stall) and keep the wings level. The leading-edge slats will snap out at about 64 km/h (40 mph), and when the airplane slows to a forward speed of about 40 km/h (25 mph), the airplane will sink at about a parachute descent rate until the aircraft hits the ground." [1]
The An-2 indeed has no stall speed quoted in the operating handbook. Pilots of the An-2 say one can fly the aircraft in full control at 30 mph

seems incredible, being from wikipedia and all... but hey, makes engine out emergencies a lot easier lol

[Fabo]

Nicknamed "The Lift Factory" by us here in Czech rep. & Slovakia.

[ZAIZAI]

I find it suprising that the engine continued to operate with no oil pressure, I thought about 20% of the power came from burning the oil in an AN-2 
A new engine slurps about 5-8 litres an hour and it is time for an overhaul when it consumes ~15 litres an hour, oil trough takes 150 litres though so there is plenty to burn!! 

I have taken off in an (empty) AN-2 at about 40 kph (the Ruskies use metrics) in a bit of head wind and we used less than 50 metres of the runway. I have seen one of our pilots take off ACROSS the runway!! 
So the thing about the stall speed and engine out procedures actually sound believable, even if they are from wiki.

If you ever see a mech do a wire inspection in the wings, don't look to carefully at how he seals up the fabric afterwards...our used duct tape 

[YawningMan]

Duct tape? the ordinance Marines in our squadron called it "100 mile per hour" tape. It was is often used on the helicopters for battle damage repair. That, or normal maintenance. I think our helo squadrons were satisfied if they got band-aids for their birds.

[YawningMan]

My oh-my! The amount of times I have been asked why I want to jump off a "perfectly good airplane".
I always point out (especially to pilots) that there is no such thing, and they tend to agree after a bit of thought. My mates that work at Airbus deplore the fact that they don't have parachutes issued on their company flights 

I think my question from now on will be, "Why would you want to jump out of a reasonably airworthy airplane?"

If the mechanic chuckles when he hears that question, bringing a parachute probably is a good idea.

[Frank N. O.]

My oh-my! The amount of times I have been asked why I want to jump off a "perfectly good airplane".
I always point out (especially to pilots) that there is no such thing, and they tend to agree after a bit of thought. My mates that work at Airbus deplore the fact that they don't have parachutes issued on their company flights 

I think my question from now on will be, "Why would you want to jump out of a reasonably airworthy airplane?"

If the mechanic chuckles when he hears that question, bringing a parachute probably is a good idea.

Wow, I must've missed this post the first time around because after Zai Zai's reply I think Yawning Man's post should be made "Words To Live By (literally!)". Could look great typed on the wall of an aircraft hangar, just imagine the looks on non-aviators seeing that just before boarding

Frank