.... i say on Frequency 130.12 to Cham INFO.. the airfield i'm approaching.
At Cham they have a fly-in and an hour before we dropped a load of 24 skydivers as part of the show program.
The Altimeter reads 300 feet, 2 miles distance click over on the GPS and the Airspeed is 175 Knots... i check the Torque gages and the EGT, the temperature is at 550°C our companies max continious temperature limit and the Torque is 55 PSI.
"PINK Echo you're cleared for the overshoot Runway 28" Says the guy on Chams INFO frequency, and at that moment i reach up and switch the two landing light switches on "Roger 20 seconds" i reply.
There's a purple Cessna 182 on the holding point and waiting, a few other aircraft are lined up on their grass apron and a Remorquer is sitting on the far end of the Runway, waiting to backtrack on this ultra narrow runway. Cham is actually a glider only strip and their "runway" is a 1000 feet long, 15 feet wide strip of concrete and a grass overrun that is used for the glider winch.
a slight push on the cloumn right after passing a powerline and a few trees bring the howling Skyvan down to a mere 5 feet above the overrun. 175 Knots at 5 feet, engines howling at max continious power i'm racing past the shack that's being used as their tower and the crowd. The end of the runway is approaching rapidly and i pull back on the column into a 2g climbing right turn to open up for an immidiate left turn to land 10. Power levers back to flight idle, watching the airspeed decreasing to flaps extension speed, i'm manouvering into final 10 with a 40 degree bank turn to the left.. finally speed is coming back to 100 Knots and i move the flaps handle to the down position.
Seconds later the Skyvan is established on a short final Runway 10 at 65knots. With slight corrctions i guide her down onto the centerline and the wheels screech shortly after with about 5 inch on each side of the main wheels to the grass.
The whole operation to backtrack on the runway and and picking up the skydivers takes about 3 minutes, after which i apply takeoff power again to depart from runway 28. The skydivers ahve left the tail gate open and are dangling their feet out.. they still are wehn we do another overshoot in the other direction as we head for home...
we left smiling faces, good memories and the smell of JET A-1
what a day
Cheers
DW6
Skydive PINK Klatovy
