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Dear Folks, I have missed writing to you all. My life has been quite chaotic lately but I usually read the coupers list messages. I haven't had the $ for lessons for awhile, but that doesn't keep me from flying with friends and I do get to do that fairly often. Not often enough. :-) As most of you know, I'm fond of Cessnas, and yeah, I like station wagons too, Greg, but then there's no one plane or car, that can fulfill every need. Anyway, the first Sat of June, Jim and I were up, out, and about, flying around. Since we were already at Lampson Airport (Clear Lake, CA), it's a short flight over to Yolo County Airport. Jim had skydived from that airport before and wanted to show me the enterprise. Jim doesn't consider himself a "real" jumper as he's only done it a few times, but he knows I'm somewhat interested and more importantly to me, the jumpers use Caravans. To switch subjects for a moment - I am getting to be quite good at navigating using my eyes, the wheel, plotter, and charts, and telling Jim what VOR frequencies to use, periodically recalculating the true air speed, etc. We don't need no stinking GPS! Actually, I think GPS is great, being somewhat of a nerd, and I have used it for mapping in my grad work. However, as a student pilot, I think it's good for me to learn the old way of navigating. Besides, I am starting to recognize, just by sight, where I am in our mountains. It might make all the difference some time as there are (very) few places to make an emergency landing. But, in spite of being able to spot obscure features in our mountains, the central valley threw me. One flat ag field look a lot like any other. With all that flat land and the chart, though, it seems like it would be easy to locate the Yolo County Airport, however it took about 15 minutes longer to find it that it should have. Once there, Jim pointed out the jump planes and the area where the jumpers landed. I think I'm not quite ready to commit to jumping out of a plane. I love being IN the plane and don't have much desire to EXIT it in midair, but I am curious, which sometimes gets me into trouble. Besides, Jim does have a good point in that every pilot or wannabe pilot should jump at least once to make sure s/he can really do it if s/he has to in an emergency. That is if s/he happpens to be wearing a parachute. However, I was mainly interested in getting to ride in a Caravan. Jim notices how I'm always looking at the FedEx planes that tie down near our flying club. I talk to the pilots and one of them even let me climb into his Caravan and sit in the left seat for a few minutes. It's strictly against FedEx rules for the pilots to take any passengers so I'd never be able to ride with him, but I sure liked sitting in it. So, over at Yolo, Jim encouraged me to find out if the Skydiving outfit would let me ride in one of their Caravans without having to jump. Turns out they do offer that option for a fee. The policy is that "observers" must also wear a parachute, and if s/he has never jumped, jump instructor must go along. Also, I was given abbreviated instructions in how to exit the plane if necessary. I was certain that wouldn't be the case, as I have a lot of faith in the plane, but I do understand the policy. Skydivers are an interesting bunch. Very few of them seem at all interested in planes and flying. The plane is just a conveyance to get them to where they want to go. It might as well be a bus. To some of them, the plane is an annoying but necessary nuisance. Others seem almost afraid of it. All of them pretty much ignored the pilot. This is kinda surprising to me. I guess that it's fairly unusual to be equally interested in jumping and flying. Right. It's preferable for a person not to try to do both on the same flight. :-) Conversely, I was very interested in the plane and what the pilot was doing and only somewhat interested in the jumpers. Sometimes the observers have to sit in the back with the jumpers. What I really wanted to do is ride in the right seat so I could watch the instruments and maybe talk to the pilot. I think that because I'm a student pilot they let me sit in the right seat. They knew I wouldn't be grabbing and touching what I shouldn't and I didn't have to have all of that explained to me. I had hoped to be able to plug in my headset so I could at least hear the radio. But because of the potential of having to exit the plane, the jump instructor didn't want me to have to be concerned with unplugging a headset along with everything else I would have to do quickly. The jump instructor was a little twitchy. He had never ridden in the plane all the way to the ground before! I could tell that he was a bit nervous about that. Like I said, they are a bit different than we are. Just as passionate as us but with a different emphasis and focus. Settling into the seat, which isn't that easy with a parachute on, I was delighted to see such a familiar instrument panel. In many ways, the Caravan is like a big, fancy, turbo powered 172 or as one friend says, " a 172 on steriods". As we took off and started ascending to the jump altitude, 13000, I paid close attention to the instruments. I was even seeing some of the same numbers that we use in the 172. We ascended at 1000 fpm. I was enjoying hearing the smoothness of the turboprop and it wasn't as loud as I thought it would be without headsets on. The jump instructor, who was sitting on the bench seat in back of me, kept tapping me on the shoulder and asking if I was OK. I understand and appreciate his concern, but in my head I was wishing that he would leave me alone. He was interfering with my enjoyment of the aircraft. When we got to altitude and the skydivers started to jump out, I was impressed at how skillfully the pilot kept the plane stabilized. It can't be all that easy with the weight and balance changing so rapidly. After all the jumpers finally got out, the best part started. Down we went at 3000fpm. That's 3 times as fast as I have ever descended before and I was loving it. :-) The poor jump instructor, however, kinda freaked. I guess he wasn't expecting such a rapid descent. He was frantically hitting the pilot on the shoulder. Evidently the parachute I was wearing is supposed to automatically deploy when the descent rate exceeds a certain speed and we were over that line. Nothing happened, but it would have been rather ackward if it had opened in the cabin. The jump instructor was really worried about me otherwise too and started tapping me again after he had words with the pilot. Again, I was having a great time and wished he wouldn't keep tapping me. The only problem I had with descending quickly is that the ride was over too soon. Sure was fun. Spook PS Attached photo is of me and jump instructor before we flew. He didn't look as relaxed afterwards. ==^================================================================ EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?aVxiLm.aVzvvT Or send an email To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] This email was sent to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
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