Patriots and Parachutes

by: Neil Amonson Additional Photos: HFB and Lisa Flory

By KAVU

July 28^th, 2020

In the desert outside of Tucson, AZ , there's a dirt runway most of the local pilots don’t even know exists. Rumor has it, the strip was built by drug runners long ago who were moving contraband between Mexico and the US.

Now, it serves as a quiet, private fly-in community where I’m lucky enough to have a friend who owns a hanger-home. A hanger-home is just what it sounds like. A hanger, and a house!

The approach is beautiful and involves flying low over the top of some tall Saguaro cactus, a common sighting in this area.

On this day, we gathered as a group of friends who share one particular and common interest....

Skydiving!

We also happen to be affiliated with the military in one way or another, either as veterans or active duty/reserve. Usually to go skydiving, we'd have to go to a larger airport and buy lift tickets from something called a “dropzone”. In this case, we had an airplane, a landing area, and some parachutes so..... we had everything we needed to have a serious KAVU day!

We started the morning off with a safety briefing covering the unique aspects of the jump aircraft we would be using, a 1953 Cessna 170B. Many jump clubs around the world used Cessna 170s back "in the day", but now most have been replaced with larger, more powerful machines.

But, for today's operations it was the perfect tool.

One of the fun parts of using this particular Cessna 170 is that, instead of having a skydiving specific door that you can open up at altitude, we just removed the door completely!

The whole ride up..... the jumpers get an excellent view.

After the skydivers open their parachutes, I (who was flying the plane) would wait until they safely landed before I would follow suit and land the airplane. Since we were jumping out over the desert, the landing area for the jumpers was smaller then usual due to the abundance of cactus. So, I wanted to make sure they had the option of landing on the runway if they wanted.

Being the pilot of a skydiving aircraft, or a “diver driver”, as it’s sometimes called, is actually pretty fun! I get a great view of the jumpers falling out of the plane and it’s a nice mix from the more “normal” type of flying most of us do.

Plus, after the jumpers get out, it’s just you in the plane and you are free to maneuver back to the ground whichever way sounds the most fun to you. Ha ha ha. Klear Below, Visibility Unlimited;-)

After a few jumps we started to get creative. One idea was to have the dirt bikes escort the aircraft next to the runway on take-off. There is a movie from 1986 called Iron Eagle which some people might remember. I didn’t know about the move at the time, but after hearing references to it from this photo I looked it up and watched it.

I highly recommend it!

Another idea I casually mentioned to one of the jumpers was, I have always wanted to climb on top of the wing and jump off. I didn’t realize they were going to try it on their next jump and the next thing I know during jump run, they managed to climb on top the wing!

I had to hold the controls in a pretty unusual fashion to keep the plane going straight with so much drag messing with the control surfaces, but overall it worked out really well!

The multi colored parachutes were a great addition to the typical desert scenery. If you didn’t know this already, civilian parachutes tend to be very bright! Much like the personalities of the people that use them.

Like they say, "time flies when you’re having fun".

Before long, the heat and winds started to pick up and we decided to call it quits and head inside for a good old fashioned BBQ. I made my last landing of the day into the dirt strip and was excited to get out of the plane and hear how everyone's jumps went.

With the plane parked safely in the hanger, the cold beverages started flowing, food was eaten, and stories were told. It was an excellent morning of old friends and new friends sharing an adventure that reminded me of what aviation was probably like back in the years this airplane was made. When all you needed was an airplane, a place to land, and some parachutes to have your very own skydiving “boogie” (It’s what skydivers call a party).

I’m thankful that in this phase of my life, my friends and I are able to host such special events and make memories like these that we will cherish forever.