In article ,
"Morgans" wrote:


Not to be a smart ass, but I don't get it. Do you mount seatbelts to the
floor, or switch the seats around, or what?

Better your ass smart than nothing at all! G

Part of the paperwork for using an airplane for jumping specifies
seatbelt installation. In the 182 or 206 all but the pilots seat are
removed and the seatbelts are installed in pretty much the normal
location as when the seats are installed with the exception that belts
will be added since you're normally carrying one extra person. In the
182 a pilot and four jumpers, in the 206 a pilot and 6 jumpers. In my
182 a seatbelt was installed at the rear bulkhead for the "extra"
passenger.

For many years seatbelts were pretty much ignored in jump planes. The
airplanes I first jumped from had the belts installed, but they were
tucked under the carpet out of the way. Then in the late 80's or early
90's a Twin Otter crashed in Perris, CA killing many jumpers in what
should have been a survivable crash. Parachuting is mostly
self-goverened, we realized that unless we wanted the FAA taking control
we needed to do better controlling ourselves and the use of seatbelts
became common almost overnight.

As soon as I started flying jumpers I started telling them to strap
in...the last thing I want is a skydiver crushing me against the panel
if things don't go right.

--
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