Behind the Scenes: Skydive Pilot
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- Опубліковано 15 січ 2025
- Everyone's familiar with the sport of skydiving, but how those thrillseekers get up to altitude is a very important detail that many know nothing about. Feature Contributor Mariano Rosales shows you the flying side of skydiving by taking you inside the cockpit of Chicagoland Skydiving Center's Twin Otter jump plane. We ride along on one flight from startup to shutdown and see exactly what goes on in that cockpit. Our busy pilot Jess talks us through his duties, which include talking to four different frequencies and the jumpers, looking for traffic, lining up the jump run, and of course flying the twin-engine turboprop airplane. This video is almost real-time, with very short bits of the "dead air" cut out for time. Its a fun ride and a lot of fun. Enjoy!
great coverage and well edited - easy to watch the full 16 minutes.
Thank you!
Happy Landings,
Guido
CSC's Twotter is a joy to ride! There are pictures somewhere on the internet of this airplane's overhaul. Absolutely great job they did keeping this great plane in almost factory-fresh condition. Beautiful airplane, great pilot and very watchable video. Blue skies!!!
What a thoughtful pilot, lots of communication with the passengers
I jumped from twin otters several times & LOVED these aircraft!
My girlfriend bought me a jump at CSC a few years ago then encouraged me to change careers and follow my dream of flying. Now I attend Lewis University's flight program so it was really cool to see this. Its great to hear the ATC for this type of flying and also the pilots plan for these maneuvers. Great Video. Oh by the way my girlfriend I was talking about is my wife now
Corre Lipp So are you flying now?
Hey man, no one like happy people who are in love and have their shit together! Ha ha. Just kidding. Congrats man! 🤪
Dude, as a Skydiver... you ROCK! Blue skies & happy landings... Ciarán/Ireland, D11292!
Love from Ireland and I've had the pleasure to skydive in the states and i loved every nano second of it... The beautiful, Twin otter! Its because of Pilots like you, were still alive!
Beautiful piece of Canadian machinery! Love the Twin Otter!
You Pilots Rock. Thanks for all of the good times
The real heroes of the skydive industry. .Thanks for the view behind the cockpit .
Grass landings are less wear and tear on the tires.
All Things Aero Was about to ask... thanks for the vid, great job!
I love what I just saw and it convinced me to become a pilot, Thank you.
You should all so try jumping
@@terriecotham1567 Just not on the same flight.
One pf the most interesting videos I have ever seen. Thank you.
Thanks for sharing, cool video.
Gave me some ideas for my Flight Vlogs.
great video. the idea of watching the prop blast was an interesting comment.
Agreed! I grew up near a turbine DZ and thought it was a signal to jumpers to be ready. I am a skydiver now and still use the pitch adjustment as a cue. This was the first time I've heard a pilot actually explain the purpose though.
Good video. Those jumpers sure took their time getting out! Hard to believe they were all headed for the same DZ; be interested to see if that last tandem made it. MANY years ago I landed in a corn field right around there in August. It is surprisingly difficult to find one's way OUT of a cornfield, with a deployed parachute, in August. It took over an hour to find my way back.
Twin Otter, one of my favorit aircrafts :) No fancy autopilot to fly for you, and an propper "mechanical" airfraft to work on :) And it can get you everywhere. No need for runways :)
Exactly. I do not like fly by wire, I like the grass roots of flying, the good old golden age :)
Very Informative
You lucky man - I slipped through the video a bot not realising it was a Twin Otter until I saw you hand on the throttle.
What a beautiful aircraft!
You stole my name which I stole from a book made into a movie. You basterd!!!
Very nice!
I didnt know that for the tires. Logical but never thought of it.
It seems that the do everything to keep the cost low.
I was even expecting after the skydivers exit, to make a dive with engines on low rpm and land in record time!
Very quality aircraft and superb film
I remember that day you were out there! Pretty cool to see. It's neat to see the other side.
Beautiful airplane, and very good Twin Nother.. Bye from Buenos Aires Argentina. Iam leerning english. Bye Bye.
The Twin Otter is a fantastic Aircraft to fly and handles pretty well and I learn a lot from as you contact Approach Control and 90 kts was my climb out speed
Great to See the opportunity to get to fly rightseat seat in a Twin Otter for the first time and I did four jumpruns from departure to 14,000 feet
Nicely done video. Nice job flying to.
No dice in the mirror? I thought this was a jump plane... ;) Blue skies!
I saw dice on the skydiving video I just watched before this one! The dice were placed right by the exit door. On that video the plane was spiralling out of control over South Africa with some of the skydivers still in the plane.
I'm glad to see this video. It answered questions about things I wanted to know. Great videography too!
Seems like an awesome way to build multi-engine time!
Thanks for posting I remember when the SST racer and Wounder Hog were hot
my first rig was a wonder hog :) c1985
Great video, thanks for posting.
Great use of the checklist tucked somewhere behind his seat I suppose!
He flies 20 runs per day. Who couldn't remember 10 items? Dash6 is '64 tech built for utility. Everyone aboard has parachutes. Relax. He's better than you. Get over it.
video inspector in the house... fuck off.
Very nice video !!!
Dude, that is Jess. You are fooking lucky to have flown with him. I'm jealous.
~14:06 "We're landing in the grass .. just so ya know." ;-) lol
Great video and a far too rare look inside the cockpit of a jump plane. Well done!
Exciting flying. No boredom with 15 minute cycles.
They run the plane like a yo-yo. More loads equals more money per hour. Stressful business with lots of personalities from the jumpers, making it even more difficult. Every jumper has an opinion on everything. Imagine dealing with that.
SanFranciscoBay kinda sounds like every pilot I ever heard.
great video thanks. Good guys too. Respect.
Otter pilots, they are the best.
This was really cool, he's obviously very experienced with that type of flying which makes it interesting to watch. =)
Tandem jumpers look funny walking to the door.
it's the only way I could do it tho. Thank goodness it's an option huh?
If you do something you love for a job you'll never work a day in your life! Great video!
Awesome Channel!
You have to stay ahead of the Otter while you scan your flight and temperature and TTG and flying the box and knowing where you are at at all times is so very important
God I'd love to go to work in shorts, great video!
The twin otter can get ya anywhere and do any kind of mission. Bad ass machine
That cockpit was way too busy! Kudos to the PIC for turning the airplane over to his CP.
No not relly
Okay, I have to admit, yesterday, I flew my first (solo) flight in an Otter (DHC-6 Twin Otter) as a Jump Pilot. Today, I did 12 more loads. Sky Dive Georgia.
I am an old guy. An old pilot. Way to scared to every be a Sky Diver. But, wow, what a thing, to say now, that, and I may be the least experienced, I am an Otter Jump Pilot!
How is the pay?
lol my first solo cross country was to this airport and this same plane cut me off in the pattern while it was in its dive
amazing landing, by the way :)
Thank you for sharing!
Bad ass man I'm looking for jobs other then CFI at 250 hours this seems like something that would be a fun job
Very nice! good info
Muti engine rating will pay off in the long term so go get it done and find a location where they are doing jumpers in a Twin Otter and fill out your paper work and wait for permission from the pilot to go ride alongside him or her when the opportunity comes
I'll be getting back out there to fly again
Oh and that rear view mirror is kinda reminiscent of the old MD-80's. I think they forgot about the compass until last minute!
Well done
Ginger Mavrick knows his shit!!!
What a nice aircraft to be able to stear one handed to land. Never seen that. Have a lot to learn about different aircraft. I love to fly but will not be getting a license cause too much can go wrong up there for me. I'll keep to motorcycles and water for now.
Dude, motorcycles is gonna be 100 times more dangerous than flying seriously and saying that out of caring for you and I don’t even know you I’m a pilot myself and I would love to have a motorcycle but it is just too dangerous and it’s not that the motorcycle is a dangerous machine necessarily is the fact that other people will run you down.
Who touches down first? Pilot or the jumpers?
12:40 the pilot says 15-17 minutes from wheels up to wheels down. 13,000 feet. That means roughly 3 loads per hour when you include taxi and loading times. They fly these airplanes like yo-yo's. Up and down as fast as possible. Time is money when you have twin turbines running.
True but in a piston aircraft you can drop like that unless its a emge- Due to whats call shock cooling and the Turbine is the only real way to work in a busy drop zone, They have the power, ease to fly , and reliable systems and engines as well.
Watch videos of Pilatus Porter or King Air jump runs. Both go inverted into vertical dives after jump run. Time is money.
A perfectly good airplane 😎
Didn't expect this to be from where I live
Shout out to Jump Twenty Six podcast! caught some of the intro soundbytes in there
So much for the lost art of spotting, other wise NICE!
I had a twin otter jump plane that was in a fast decent cut me off in Eloy AZ they jump there too
11:52 They don't close the door behind ?…
Sloppy jumpers !…
Just what I was thinking! On another video I saw the jumpers took the door with them! They opened it wrong by pushing the cargo door down instead of pulling it up and the wind took it clean off! That was on a Skyvan.
very bad manners.
Ahhh, glorious sarcasm.
Was a nice video, but disappointed that we didn't get to see the actual take-off or the landing, It's nice seeing what is going on in the cockpit, but most of the video was already done inside the cockpit,
Wouldn't mind doing this job on the weekends.I have a Commercial License and would love to use it before I turn gray.
No parachutes for the crew?
Not required in a multi engine aircraft
What adapter did you use to record audio?
The audio from the intercom/radio was captured using a custom interface that plugs inbetween the headset and the panel. Ambient noise was recorded on the rear-facing cockpit camera. A great affordable way to capture cockpit audio is to use a lavalier mic and put the tiny mic head in your headset earcup.
published October 19 2013. in 360p oh come on man
You call it out jumpers in one minute and the jumpers away and there they go to the last and then it's power back props back because it's less noticeable for the people on the ground and turn and down I go at 140-160 from 14,000 feet and the time was at right on 15 minutes and load up for the next run
Is that skydive Chicago in ottawa Illinois?
2:46 When the Pilot pushes those handles forward, does that control the pitch of the propellers?
3:14 After take off the Pilot pulls some handles rearwards, is that decreasing the RPM of the engines?
At 2:46 it is the throttles, he push them to get more rpm from motor. On 3:14 it is the prop setting.
Why does he land on the grass?
Its better for the tires
whats the extra wear and tear with all of those cycles and high power settings?
Cycles don't affect this airplane. It's unpressurized. The climb out is at best climb rate and descent is at idle. Hot restart of turbines can cause increased wear on the engines, but otherwise it's designed this for this utility. DHC-6 is a rugged airplane.
Great! What's the app. descent rate after the jumpers went out?
I believe it's 10,000 feet per minute descent rate. 15-17 minutes from wheels up to wheels down to 13,000 feet.
Twin otter!
Hey that last guy out forgot to shut the door! j/k :)
nice flippy floppies
Why a grass landing?
why not?
Tires last a lot longer.
I did this once and it made my head feel like it was going to explode with the quick decent.
Oxygen required above 12,000 msl? Wow. As a comm/inst pilot I'll say this looks like a reg-respecting, responsible jump pilot, unlike my experience during AFF & multiple videos watched. Very impressive video indeed. I will add that from my jumping experience and several jump pilots I've known, and what I've heard & watched, most jump pilots don't fly with anywhere close to the level of responsibility shown in this video.
Yep, that's the reason why you descent down to FL100 if you have a depressurization. This is survivable, but as a pilot you still have to wear masks to make reasonable decisions under stress.
12000 for more then 30 min
Turbine jump planes routinely drop PAX from 13,500 with no oxygen for crew or jumpers. 15,000 is available at some DZs. Duration above 10,000 is under 5 minutes. Very mild hypoxia at worst.
No shoulder harness on departure?
I was looking for them also - if they are installed, I'd use them. Never can tell, right? (face full of yoke and panel would ruin your whole day!)
Can anyone tell me if the door is closed after the last jumper because as we saw it was opened manually
Sinfuldavy The jump door in this Twin Otter stays open during the decent. This drop zone's other aircraft, a PAC 750XL, has a door that can be closed in-flight by the pilot.
Twin Otter. Jeep in the sky
You don’t see too many aircraft with a rear view mirror! 🤪
It's to check for imminent birdstrikes in the Twotter.....
Seat belts? Is that a requirement? Back in the day we sat on the floor, no seat belts. Twin otter, c182, dc3, queenside, twin beech, c130
+Pay Way I remember my first jump in a 182 had no seats at all !
Well, if it's a bit bumpy you would enjoy the seatbelts ;)
Roger that! 1 Pilot seat, one jumper against the panel, 2 jumpers in rear facing forward, and 1 jumper with back against the pilot seat...all good! :)
we all ways had seat belts even when setting on the floor
Enough crashes where everyone was found jammed into the cockpit. Yes, we wear seatbelts until minimum reserve deployment altitude. Some DZs are 1000' here 2000' apparently. Seat belts save lives.
The crew aren't having their seat-belts fastened ?!
Feeling jumpy? See how this "Diver Driver" does it!
#Aviation #SkyDive
cool
Interesting He ignores V1, and keeps his hands on the throttle AFTER V1.
Someone stated that some drop zones don't require a commercial license. But in the US, at least the FAA certainly requires a commercial license for hauling skydivers.
The Twin Otter takes off by itself. V1 means almost nothing. There is no rotation. In fact, DHC-6 can lift off with full flaps while riding on only it's nose gear. Main gear can be off the runway before the nose. Full span flaps.
Why isn't this in at least 720p?
did i hear it right 14000 ft or 1400 ft
don't ya need oxygen up there? here in canada its 13000 when we need oxygen
lol
Jumps are at 14000 feet but you don't stay there more than 5 min so no need for oxy
ok. not familiar with parachuting. all i know it the military para jumps at 1500 agl (static line jump that is)
14,000 feet AGL
PIC is Jesup.
Great video !!! Jess will you take me up as your co-pilot on a flight ? I'm a former skydiver and have never seen this angle before. working on my private license and would love to be a jump pilot
pilots dont wear rigs there?
No need on a Twin Otter, only Cessnas seem to do that.
Pilot's choice.
@@NickButler no need while you still have a tail
added a wonderful experience sitting on the right seat of the sky diving went up 13500 and open door went to a stall and when these guys were all out we plunged to the ground at an incredible speed past the air speed max still with door open. we beated the diver to the ground. rush rush rush.
Haha check the rear view mirror, just to see the sky divers have left.
Landing on grass just so you don't mess your underwear up
Wouldnt mind doing this if I take a gap year...
Looked like the pilot completely ignored/stepped on the guy in the Archer transmitting that he was inbound…..
SMaze17 2 different radios and frequencies