I had planned a flight out to Bathurst this morning, but had to cancel at the last minute because of a U/S Transponder in the aircraft. Having noticed the Shorts Skyvan parked over near the Tower everytime I fly in and out of Bankstown, I thought I would go and have a closer look this morning. Hardly a thing of beauty from any angle, close up, or from afar, it could best be described as "utility". The condition of the aircraft is fairly poor, and it would take a lot of work to get it back to anywhere near flying condition. By the look of the cockpit door, one operational requirement must have been tall thin pilots. The shape of the aircraft does not suggest "performance" at all, however it looks like you could fit quite a few skydivers on board.
VH-IBO SC7-3 VARIANT 100
Powerplants Garret TPE 331-2-201A (single shaft)
Stallspeed @ 8500lbs and Flaps 50 is as low as 49Kts
MTOW of 12.500lbs
From Diverdriver.com :-
"Coordinated flying is extremely important as the huge sidearea of the "Shed" will produce tremendous ammounts of drag with any slip or skid."
"Now that the jumpers are standing up in the airplane you need to worry again about your C/G! Maximum number of people in the door should be 11 Jumpers! This number is already pretty uncomfortable as you will be very close to the forward stop of control collumn travel. Generally you can say as many people as in the door should be behind the mid cabin for ballance reason. This requires a bit of briefing for larger RW exits. To get anything bigger than a 10 way out of the door at once you need the ones further back in the plane start towards the door at SET, so that they all leave the plane at GO, without making the plane uncontrollable."
An interesting read
http://www.diverdriver.com/Aircraft/Skyvan/skyvan.htm
