Jumping Out Of A Perfectly Good Vehicle

Jumping Out Of A Perfectly Good Vehicle

by Rob Sexton

Publication Date: March 1998

I am by nature a creature of the air. I've loved flying things since I was small, and took up skydiving at the age of eighteen. Since then I've moved on to hang-gliders, and more recently, sailplanes. I've never stopped being a skydiver, and I'm always on the lookout for new and interesting things to jump out and off of. Small aircraft and ultralights have been on my list for a long time.

When a friend of mine took up flying ultralights, the wheels began to turn. At the time most ultralights were single seaters, so finding an ultralight that had sufficient capacity was a challenge. It was not to be, despite lots of investigations.

All of this changed when the Pegasus Q2 came onto the scene. The Pegasus Q2 is a trike; a hang-glider with a wing above and a Rotax-powered go-kart below. Like most hang-glider wings, this one has a vertical kingpost and lots of supporting cables above and below the wing. It's designed for training, so it seats two in a tandem arrangement with the rear seat at the CG. The only thing that remained to solve was how to get out during flight.

The pusher prop didn't make things any easier for us. This carbon fiber prop has nice sharp edges, and seemed like just the sort of thing for making Skydiver Puree´. Most of this was just signs of an active imagination. It would actually be tough to get all the way back to that prop while in flight.

I knew when I saw the trike that this wasn't going to be easy. First of all, it's very cozy...too cozy, in fact. The instructor sits in front with the student immediately behind. The passenger seat is located directly above the landing gear, so the old standby "fall out of your seat" technique was not only ungraceful, but impractical. My intrepid pilot, known here only as "Dave," would have to bend down low while I swung a leg over to get side saddle, and then support me while I used his shoulder.

We rehearsed for a while on the ground and worked out some hand signals. We finally came up with a plan as we approach jump run, I would swing my leg over to sit side saddle and then I would spot, using hand signals to direct the plane over the correct exit point. When it was time to exit the plane, Dave would cut the engine and I would depart the plane. Not only would it be fun, but it would save me the excitement of a landing with Dave.

The ride up was great. It was my first time in a Rotax Go-Kart, and I enjoyed myself immensely. The trike had a good rate of climb and leapt off the ground. I don't think it climbed much quicker than a Cessna, but the open chariot made it feel faster. On the way up, I spent some time as the sole manipulator of the controls (I flew the plane). I liked the way it handled - just like a hang-glider, only with power. We had a nice climb out of the local hills and even tried to center a thermal or two.

It's been a long time since I jumped out of a plane from only 3,500 feet. The ground looked close as we flew over the airport towards the exit point. After a clearing turn, we headed across and I unbuckled my seat belt for jump run. Our first in-flight attempt at moving around was a little clumsy. I got my leg as high as I could, but it was tough getting over Dave's head (It worked OK, and the brace will be coming off his neck next week!) The exit was safe and worked surprisingly well. I prefer to exit headfirst, so I braced my hands on the seat's back and Dave's shoulder, and did a little headfirst roll down under the wires to safety. From there it was a ten second ride down to deployment altitude, and a nice landing under canopy a few minutes later.

Back on the ground with the local club guys, we weren't sure if the Rotax had started back up for Dave. He had landed the trike at a neighborhood field and everybody climbed into their planes to go help/ridicule.

Apparently the engine had started up with no trouble, and Dave had gone to visit the local hang-glider pilots. In the meantime, the local constabulary showed up to investigate reports of a parachutist careening out of control. It still isn't clear who they were looking for, as I was the only skydiver there.

We went up for a second jump later. Things went well, although it was getting a little chilly at that altitude. This time I stepped off the main landing gear axle, and had a nice plummet, pausing only to wave goodbye to Dave on the way down. Much to our surprise, there wasn't any appreciable change in the flight characteristics of the trike when I exited.

For our next trick, we'll mount a camera and get it all on film. "Till then, you'll just have to take my word for it."