Cos it doesn't matter when you're wearing a rig??
Nah... it's just a joke.. after all it IS hard to explain why one enjoys throwing oneself into space...
However.. any a/c used
exclusively for jumping will likely LOOK pretty shabby pretty quickly!
Example? ... the trim around the frame of the door used for exit will rapidly be destroyed - by jumpers hanging on from OUTside the aircraft while waiting for the folks they are jumping with to get in to position... the strut/wheel strut etc (as applicable) will take a beating also....
(with 4 exiting a 182 together you'd have - fr'instance - one on the wheel/strut.. one facing the rear "leaning/squatting" on the strut ("front floater"), one squatting in the door and the "rear floater" with his/her right foot just in the door, hanging on and wrecking said trim!) with both hands in the rear of the door frame... So three are actually OUTSIDE the cabin already..."Ready.. Seeeet, GO!"
All out together..... If leaving in a conventional "Star" formation then the person in the door would have a grip on the front floaters right arm and rear floaters left arm... person on the wheel would have a grip on the rear floaters left arm and his right arm would be gripped by the front floaters left hand... Clear as mud?
Wait till I try to describe the arrangements if the first formation out the door is a 'donut" or a "bipole"!!!
Larger aircraft allow more "positions" to be used... when jumping the Twin Otter - as a freefall cameraman I was sort of.. "Rear, rear, REAR floater"!
I was standing on a step attached well behind the door.. holding on with one hand to a rail mounted above and behind it... (still camera shutter release in t'other hand! I soon went to a mouth switch!) If the jump was cancelled AFTER we had climbed out I wouldn't have got back in without assistance....
They were good days... especially jumping the Starlifter!!!... but I don't really miss it....
Linear Mode
