Skydive Drop Plane Down in Hawaii, Nine Dead

Tantalum said:
Why such a big difference? $30 sounds cheap while $300 is crazy. Is there really a 10 factor cost difference? Are most jumpers novice, or solo?
Click to expand...

The list price for a tandem rig is about $15,000. A tandem canopy has a recommended replacement interval (1400-1600), so does the drogue chute (600), drogue bridle (300) and a number of other components. Now each component may just be $3 or $5 per jump, but it adds up. Then you need to pay a rigger to maintain and inspect the equipment. Then you need to pay for 2-3 seats in the plane and staff both on the ground and during the jump. Unless you are in a year around tourist location, you also have only a brief tourist season when you can make money. I don't think anyone gets rich on this.
 
nauga said:
It's a PAC 750, designed and built in New Zealand, and it's probably considerably more economical for a small jump op to operate than a nice slick PC-12.
Click to expand...
I remember when I first saw it at Oceanside I had to do a reverse image search on Google to figure out what the heck it was

Seems like it would be a fun plane to fly, but definitely not the most pretty. That wing design seems like it would have great handling characteristics at lower speeds. I wouldn't think there's a market for purpose built drop planes but obviously there is

I have a sweet spot though for goofy Russian designs, like the Kamov helicopters with the twin rotary engines on them and pretty much all the Antonov products
 
nauga said:
It's a PAC 750, designed and built in New Zealand, and it's probably considerably more economical for a small jump op to operate than a nice slick PC-12.

Nauga,
who understands utility over appearance
Click to expand...

Yeah, but it is so ugly it's gotta sneak up on the gas pump...
 
PeterNSteinmetz said:
Thanks. Sounds like insured operation and possibly a bigger one are a good idea. I had been thinking to do the accelerated training for a solo jump. Seems like it would be a better simulation of what will happen if I need to jump out of a glider or aerobatic plane someday.
Click to expand...

Not really. AFF is geared towards jumping out with a long freefall. In an emergency operation, all you need to know is how to get out of your disabled plane, the static line is going to deploy your chute for you (or you immediately pull once you clear the tail). Just for emergency use, doing an entire AFF course would be kind of expensive.
 
weilke said:
I don't think anyone gets rich on this.
Click to expand...
It makes you appreciate that anyone can make a living, and that a handful can make a successful living, in the aviation world. Howard Hughes must have been living on Cloud Nine
 
SoCal RV Flyer said:
Unless that skydiver is H.W. Bush! Hit his head on the horiz. stab when bailing out of his Grumman. Wasn't exactly a recreational jump, or a proper skydiving plane, though.
Click to expand...
And he was climbing out the top of the cockpit, not the side of the fuselage (at least I would think that was the case).
 
nauga said:
PAC's ag offerings
Click to expand...
Am I crazy or does that thing have eight exhaust stacks?

I almost want one of those now just to have the ultimate novelty plane at the next fly out
 
nauga said:
Phhhbbbt, the jump planes are beautiful and pristine compared to PAC's ag offerings. Let's see you do this with a PC-12.[/MEDIA]

Nauga,
loaded
Click to expand...

Loaded is right. Gas pump's gotta be to plug into that thing... ;-)

I'm not sure it is possible to drink that thing pretty.
 
Oahu Parachute Center was/is a member of the USPA. Their listing says that they only had the one King Air.

https://uspa.org/dzdetails?accountnumber=322830

That AP story says that the same plane was damaged a few years ago in California. Then they moved to Oahu. NTSB is investigating the general condition of the plane and the repairs that were made after the CA incident. (Of course.)

Edit: this is a treacly nitpick, but Oahu Parachute's Webpage (linked at the USPA) has a typo in the title. Not a big deal, but that doesn't inspire confidence. Not to me, anyway.
 
weilke said:
The list price for a tandem rig is about $15,000. A tandem canopy has a recommended replacement interval (1400-1600), so does the drogue chute (600), drogue bridle (300) and a number of other components. Now each component may just be $3 or $5 per jump, but it adds up. Then you need to pay a rigger to maintain and inspect the equipment. Then you need to pay for 2-3 seats in the plane and staff both on the ground and during the jump. Unless you are in a year around tourist location, you also have only a brief tourist season when you can make money. I don't think anyone gets rich on this.
Click to expand...
Also remember that tandem jumpers WILL get hurt. They will break ankles, they will injure knees and backs etc. And even though you make them sign dozens of pages of waivers, when they get hurt they WILL sue you. And although those waivers will protect you in most of those suits, you still have to pay representation to defend each and every suit.

Honestly if you told me you were going open a drop zone I'd probably encourage you to just put your money in a big pile and set it on fire instead.
 
Juliet Hotel said:
Also remember that tandem jumpers WILL get hurt. They will break ankles, they will injure knees and backs etc. And even though you make them sign dozens of pages of waivers, when they get hurt they WILL sue you. And although those waivers will protect you in most of those suits, you still have to pay representation to defend each and every suit.

Honestly if you told me you were going open a drop zone I'd probably encourage you to just put your money in a big pile and set it on fire instead.
Click to expand...

There are dropzones and tandem operations that have been in business for decades. I dont think its wildly profitable, but in the right location it seems to be a sustainable business.
 
weilke said:
IO720
Click to expand...
Holy crap! A 12 liter 600 lb beast churning out, for the size, what I would consider a modest 400hp. Allegedly the cost of the engine was $114,000 in 2009.. flat out bonkers.. granted, from a dollar per horsepower perspective it still far cheaper than a pt6
 
weilke said:
There are dropzones and tandem operations that have been in business for decades. I dont think its wildly profitable, but in the right location it seems to be a sustainable business.
Click to expand...
That's it exactly. Its a business model where not losing your shirt is the absolute best case scenario you can hope for.
 
Juliet Hotel said:
That's it exactly. Its a business model where not losing your shirt is the absolute best case scenario you can hope for.
Click to expand...

I don't see how you would get to that conclusion based on what I wrote. I said that in the right location, it seems to be a sustainable business model.
 
weilke said:
I don't see how you would get to that conclusion based on what I wrote. I said that in the right location, it seems to be a sustainable business model.
Click to expand...
Not losing your shirt is what I consider a sustainable business model to be. It isn't going to grow, isn't likely to ever be worth more than what you've put into it, you might retire on it if you're lucky, but you also won't go bankrupt. That's what I think of when someone describes the best case scenario for a business as being sustainable. That's just how I see it, your perspective might be different.
 
weilke said:
I don't see how you would get to that conclusion based on what I wrote. I said that in the right location, it seems to be a sustainable business model.
Click to expand...

Speaking specifically about the operation at Dillingham Field, I don't think it could be much of a moneymaker. The airport is on the far northwestern tip of Oahu. It took a good hour to drive there from our condo on the Ala Moana canal in Honolulu.

There was almost a complete absence of activity at the airport. We were there to fly tandem ultralight trikes, which was a blast. The trikes had a Rotax 912 engine and a gimbaling weight shift sail.

It was the closest thing to hang gliding I had done since the 70s. The ultralights cost around $40K.
 
Last edited:
3393RP said:
Speaking specifically about the operation at Dillingham Field, I don't think it could be much of a moneymaker. The airport is on the far northwestern tip of Oahu. It took a good hour to drive there from our condo on the Ala Moana canal in Honolulu.

There was almost a complete absence of activity at the airport. We were there to fly tandem ultralight trikes, which was a blast. The trikes had a Rotax 912 engine and a gimbaling weight shift sail.

It was the closest thing to hang gliding I had done since the 70s. The ultralights cost around $40K.
Click to expand...

A two place trike with a 912 is a light sport trike. There are ultralight trikes, mostly powered by 40 hp two strokes, and are single seaters. Light sport trikes have two seats, and are usually powered by Rotax 582 or 912 engines. A new 582 powered trike starts in the low $40,000 price range while a 912 powered one is about $10,000 more.

They are a lot of fun, and can go cross country as well.

36f366e3a103423b362ad5ba5a63160e.jpg
 
I had a great time flying it. First time I'd grabbed a control bar in 30 years. Control inputs were necessarily large, and it took a lot to bank it over 30°, but it was fun. We were on flight following, and climbed to 5,500'.

I tried catching some thermals off of the west end cliffs, but pretty much flew through them. Did I mention it didn't turn nimbly? :D
 
3393RP said:
I had a great time flying it. First time I'd grabbed a control bar in 30 years. Control inputs were necessarily large, and it took a lot to bank it over 30°, but it was fun. We were on flight following, and climbed to 5,500'.

I tried catching some thermals off of the west end cliffs, but pretty much flew through them. Did I mention it didn't turn nimbly? :D
Click to expand...

Were you in the back seat? My instructor told me that it would be much easier once I moved to the front. Since flying a trike would involve owning a trike, I decided not to pursue this further at this time, so I don't know what the bar feels like in the front. It did seem easy to put the aircraft where I wanted to , but the arm position wasn't the best.

There are ultralight trikes just for soaring, I assume they're easier to turn, but much less stable in turbulence.
 
Stephen Poole said:
Oahu Parachute Center was/is a member of the USPA. Their listing says that they only had the one King Air.

https://uspa.org/dzdetails?accountnumber=322830

That AP story says that the same plane was damaged a few years ago in California. Then they moved to Oahu. NTSB is investigating the general condition of the plane and the repairs that were made after the CA incident. (Of course.)

Edit: this is a treacly nitpick, but Oahu Parachute's Webpage (linked at the USPA) has a typo in the title. Not a big deal, but that doesn't inspire confidence. Not to me, anyway.
Click to expand...
That video of the previous incident with the plane is quite familiar to some of us. It was perhaps a little more than an "incident", and it's rather fortuitous that a load of jumpers made their way out in time.
 
This is nuts.. when the diver is out you can actually see the plane stall and start to enter what looks like a spin.. and later you see a piece of debris also falling. Absolutely crazy

I'd always thought skydiving would be cool, but after seeing how shoddy these operations are I'm rethinking those desires

 
Letting this accident keep you from skydiving makes as much sense as letting any particular accident keep you from flying. There are skydivers with tens of thousands of jumps. Most operations are very safe. Remember that the pilot and jumpers have a vested interest in their own safety even though they participate in an activity with a fair amount of inherent risk. They would not knowingly assume the added risk of an unsafe operation. If you want to jump, jump.
 
^I'll still go, but I always assumed the risks were related more to the act of jumping OUT of the plane, then the plane ride up itself. C'est la vie. I feel like, if I fly a plane with a parachute I may as well experience that at least once in my life sans-aircraft
 
Tantalum said:
This is nuts.. when the diver is out you can actually see the plane stall and start to enter what looks like a spin.. and later you see a piece of debris also falling. Absolutely crazy
I'd always thought skydiving would be cool, but after seeing how shoddy these operations are I'm rethinking those desires
Click to expand...
Think about the life of that, or any, jump plane: Load it up to gross (plus or minus), hammer it up to altitude, drop the load, chop the throttle and dive (locally, they really come down fast!) for the runway, drop it on, rinse and repeat. The airplane ends up with multiple landings per hour, and I wouldn't be shocked to see gross weight limits and flap speeds exceeded.
 
Tantalum said:
This is nuts.. when the diver is out you can actually see the plane stall and start to enter what looks like a spin.. and later you see a piece of debris also falling. Absolutely crazy
Click to expand...
Spin? I dunno, looks like the typical end of jump run/transition to dive to me. It was common for me to simultaneously pull power to flight idle, bury the rudder on exit side (varies by plane) and jam the stick into my gut as the last jumper went out the door. Quickly pulls the plane up and over into a sort of lazy split-s and allows you to get a sight on where in the sky the group is falling as the nose falls through vertical (so you can plan your route down to avoid them). Once the nose gets pointing straight down and is transitioning through to level again, you slow the rate of pitch change so as to stop the increase in airspeed right as the ASI hits the red line. Then you hold that airspeed down to about 3000 or so and then start rolling the speed steadily off right up to touchdown. Get it down fast is the name of the game and turbines don't shock cool so idle and point it down is how its usually done.

I know nothing about the falling piece but my assumption would be something inside the plane came loose and went out the door. Don't thing I ever had it happen in a jump plane but I've lost things and nearly lost things out the window of banner planes when going negative at the top of the pick up maneuver. Its a long sh*ty day in a banner plane when your lunch box goes out the window on the first pickup of the morning.
 
SkyDog58 said:
Remember that the pilot and jumpers have a vested interest in their own safety even though they participate in an activity with a fair amount of inherent risk. They would not knowingly assume the added risk of an unsafe operation.
Click to expand...
Meh I don't know that I entirely agree with this. Its not uncommon for jump pilot to be time builders working their first or second flying job. Low time, low experience, low pay. They have a very vested interest in not wanting to screw up the career path they've just put several years into getting started. And its amazing how much that interest in not getting fired and/or not wanting to have to find another low time pilot job can walk all over that vested interest in their own safety.
 
Juliet Hotel said:
Spin? I dunno, looks like the typical end of jump run/transition to dive to me.
Click to expand...
Oh perhaps. I assumed since it was related to the 2016 incident, in which the plane reportedly stalled and spun 3 times (according to AP) due to a rearward CG that this was the divers bailing and the action caught on a GoPro, especially given the hurried audio and shouts for everyone to jump. The apparent debris would suggest that this was in fact that, but I am not positive.
 
Juliet Hotel said:
Meh I don't know that I entirely agree with this. Its not uncommon for jump pilot to be time builders working their first or second flying job. Low time, low experience, low pay. They have a very vested interest in not wanting to screw up the career path they've just put several years into getting started. And its amazing how much that interest in not getting fired and/or not wanting to have to find another low time pilot job can walk all over that vested interest in their own safety.
Click to expand...

The two pilots I saw disregarded safety by repeatedly barrel rolling the 182 at altitude after dropping skydivers and performing a high speed spiraling descent (enough to whistle as it was turning...) directly over the airport, not to mention the steep zoom climb immediately after taking off for thrills. IDK about other drop zones but this seemed to be a standard attitude. YMMV
 
Juliet Hotel said:
So many questions here. Jumpers are money. How did they not know how many jumpers were on the plane? And how does a king air spin to the ground and fly again? Something doesn't add up there.
Click to expand...
It doesn't add up because:
1) The pilot recovered from the spin and landed the plane.
2) Flying Magazine screwed up.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top