In article ,
"Roger Long" wrote:

I was watching skydiving operations for the first time this week. The first
three jumpers climbed into the 182 and it rocked back on the tail tiedown
ring. The next two got in and it came down on the nose gear, barely. There
appeared to be an attachment to the tie down ring to turn it into a tail
skid. Or maybe to keep prematurely opening chute's from snagging?

As the plane taxied out, it was rocking back and forth on the mains and it
appeared that the only thing keeping the nose gear in solid contact with the
ground was the thrust and the drag of the wheels in the grass. Takeoff
appeared normal although climb was pretty anemic.

Is this kind of loading and far aft CG typical?

I've flown 182s and 206s a lot hauling jumpers. With reasonable loading
it's actually pretty hard to get a CG aft of the limit.

Was there a pilot in the seat when the airplane rocked back onto the
tailstand? It's normal when loading for the airplane to rock back some
since you load from the rear to the front. Most of the single Cessna
line will set tail-low if you have the rear seats filled.

--
Dale L. Falk

There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing
as simply messing around with airplanes.

http://home.gci.net/~sncdfalk/flying.html