Dropping Skydivers out of Helicopters

[pilot51]

Thanks to all for your advice.

 

Actually it took me a while to get it organized but last weekend I did 6 loads with 3 skydivers on board out of a R44. And it was a blast.

 

I did a thorough ground briefing and made it clear to them that if a hand deploy is coming out we are all dead. They were pretty professional actually. I only had a few situations where a skydiver on the co pilot seat would interfer with the cyclic while exiting (yes I had the controls removed..). Not a big deal after I started yelling at them...

So here is my experience to share:

 

1. Ground briefing is important. They need to understand a helo is a delicate piece of machinery

 

2. Remove anything in the cabin. All doors off. Buckle up the seat belts. You even can store the seatbelts in the rear behind the seats in the back. No head phones, except your own one. No floor mats. Remove controls on the copilot seat.

 

3. W&B and Climb. With 3/4 in the main tank weight and balance is not an issue and climbing to 5000 ft AGL is done in a about 10 minutes, even below MCP. Well, this was a Raven II.

 

4. Airspeed while dropping. I maintained at least 30 kts and a little bit of a climb to avoid settling with power.

 

5. Exit. While the skydiver is climbing out you noticeably have to counteract the shift in CG. Maybe about an inch or two. Then I watched them let go with my peripheral vision and in the second they let go I immediately put the cyclic back to neutral. After a few drops I had no noticable change in attitude anymore.

 

6. Dropping sequence. I wanted to have a balanced CG as long as possible. So I had them get out in the following sequence: 1. guy on the co pilot seat. 2. guy behind me. 3. guy in the back behind the copilot seat. That seemed to work just fine.

 

7. Descending. I pretty much did not accelerate the air speed much to reduce cooling of the engine and maintained 15 inch MAP to keep the pressure in the pistons. Temp and MAP are important to have a long engine life.

 

So thats it from my side to share.

Thanks for all your comments and help. After all your advice made it a safe experience. And I definitely can say this is nothing for a low time pilot without any experience in dropping skydivers. So now I have some experience in dropping out of a helo besides my few hundred hours dropping out of fixed wing.

 

Be safe

 

Pilot51

[ChprPlt]

Sounds like you did your research and glad everything went well.

 

Watch the person in the front left seat and make sure that person is briefed well. I had a scary situation where a guy turned his back towards me to get out and his chute was pushing my cyclic forward and to the right (yes the left controls were out btw).

 

That wasn't my last drop but I have since decided not to do anymore. Too much can go wrong.

[pilot51]

And here is a video:

 

 

Enjoy

 

Pilot51

[uberchris]

i would give ANYTHING for a helo jump, as i still have not had the chance to exit one.

 

for a while, we had a balloon pilot taking us up to a few grand and dumping us out, for about 80 bux per person, with a few people on the load, but some a**hole told him that FAA regulations require a dual parachute system, and at the time we were jumping our BASE rigs and taking it nice and low.............he got hip to that real quick, so game over.

 

good to know there are fellow skydivers on this website.

[rick1128]

I would have issues with jumpers in anything smaller than a 206. And even then, I would do a great deal of research and thinking about it. It can be done, but there will be issues and limitations that need to be dealt with. One is the skids. How much of a downward load can you put on them. For a lot of helicopters, the answer is not much. Yes, you could get away with it the first few times, but it will catch up with you. The interior. Belts, seat cushions, headsets and so on, could be pulled out of the helicopter and into the tail rotor. If you avoid tail rotor damage, you will still have an issue with the FAA. You are responsible as PIC for anything that is dropped out of your aircraft. Ease of entry/exit. Getting out of the helicopter for the jumper may be a problem. Things like door lips, doorway size and so on. Remember jumpers gain a lot of weight and size after they put on their jump gear. So you really need to make them do some demo exits on the ground and they need to be in their full get up. If they make an equipment change prior to the jump flight, a whole new demo exit is required, in my view. Remember, as the PIC you are totally responsible for the jumpers' safety until they are clear of the aircraft. And you share some responsibility for the jumpers' total safety. If they jump with out of date repacks, non-certified gear, etc., you could be held to be responsible.

[Goldy]

If somebody would STC a skid kit to give you 300 pound standing loads per side would be great..I think I would want to be with a pilot that has done it once or twice before I did one the first time..and I'm thinking the beefier 206 would be a good choice. Thats a lot of pack trying to get out a very narrow doorway.

[naflight]

1. Check with your insurance company;

2. Read this http://www.robinsonheli.com/srvclib/rchsn13.pdf ;

 

Although the SN addresses "attaching" loads, a 250+ pound skydiver stepping on (or hanging from as I have seen) is quite a load.

 

We chose not to do it first because of #1, and probably would have not done it anyway because of #2. Not to mention all the other risks.

 

An operator near us had a picture of 2 skydivers hanging from the skid of their 44.

 

And we wonder why insurance rates go up?

 

Curt

[Utility Pilot]

I've got many "Diver Dropping Missions" flown in a Bell 206! I have even taken 4 divers at a time to 10,000 AGL and slowed back to about 40MPH as they all climb out onto the skids, (2 each side)! I then begin a slight climb just before they Step off the skids together! I have even had an experienced Sky Diving Team hang from the skids and hook there legs together before releasing! As everyone said previously, there is a lot of preparation before an event, including a good briefing and several "Practice Exits" on the ground! Seat belts are warn loosely before exit and then removed and refastened behind each person before exiting! With an experienced pilot and divers, a good safe fun time can be had by All!

[Boatpix]

I saw a video of a guy jumping out of one of my helicopters in 1999 and I thought that was an unacceptable risk and still think so.

[sikorskypilot]

We dropped some skydivers off last year. Kinda of a odd thing watching people jumping out of the helicopter. Did a vertical climb straight up to 2800' agl. Nice vid of the 44 jump.

[Hawkeye0001]

@Curt: You are not from one of the very northern states close to one of the big lakes by any way, are you?

Because I think I saw the same picture and it made my blood freeze (I HOPE I saw the same - god forbid that becomes common practice!)

Telling them a year ago that the skid design is not made for 3 people standing on them they apparently went from "standing" to "hanging" them off the skids. Not sure if it suddenly qualifies as an up-load if the skydiver is not ON the skids Anyway, not a very smart idea in an R-44 and if you ask me it's just a matter of time if the gear gives up the ghost under a non-uniform, dangling and shifting load that is more than almost 10x it's own weight.

[d10]

@Curt: You are not from one of the very northern states close to one of the big lakes by any way, are you?

Because I think I saw the same picture and it made my blood freeze (I HOPE I saw the same - god forbid that becomes common practice!)

I think it's become a common practice.

 

[Gomer Pylot]

Look at how the skids are attached. They're designed to keep the aircraft upright, and will hold lots of weight from above, but very little from below. It's not that hard to rip the skids from the aircraft and leave you with few options for landing. I'm not sure I would trust the skid mounts of a 206 to hold 100 pounds pulling down. Those are some pretty small brackets and screws. They're only designed to hold the weight of the skids.

 

We used to drop paratroopers, both standard military configuration and civilian skydiver configuration, from UH1s way back in the day. They didn't get on the skids, though, they sat on the floor and pushed out over the skids when it was time to go. I've also been on the parachute, and it's a great jump, probably the best you can find, far better than any fixed-wing jump. And anything is better than jumping from a C-123 or a C-130.

[sikorskypilot]

[280fxColorado]

 

Wow. That made me nauseous. Be careful with the skydivers and make sure EVERY ONE gets a thorough ground safety briefing.