The best way is to grab your log book , jump in the car and go and have a look and meet them face to face after an initial phone call.
I did it part time for 6 years in Australia , if you find a good operator it can be a lot of fun.
However like most things the clubs slowly become businesses and they will push you to break the law, we have all bent the rules but be prepared to walk when it gets out of control.
By out of control I mean 'IFR' parachute drops and really dodgy maintenance. I refused to fly once when they wanted to put an old leaky lead acid car battery in the C182 , I made them wait 3 hrs while they got a proper battery , and I copped a LOT of flack for that.
The jumpers won't jump when the wind gets over 15 to 20 knots but they will push the pilot to fly in all conditions. Pilots are a consumable commodity.
I got out when they started carrying tandem skydives which were basically members of the public rather than hard core skydivers.
The last flight I did I flew into what I thought was a thin layer of 8/8ths cirrus cloud at 9,500 ft which happen to have a CB hiding inside it. At 11,000 ft it was totally black and the turbulence unreal so I told the jumpmaster I was descending and dropping them at cloud base. The jumpmaster was also a pilot and gave a thumbs up. We broke out of cloud dropped them at 9,000ft and I got balled out by the 'club manager' and partial aircraft owner but not a pilot (Turbo Porter) for not taking them to 12,000ft , I told him what happened (the Jumpmaster was present) and this guy's response was a smart ass 'what cloud ?' ... I could see he couldn't care less about my licence if anything went wrong. I stopped flying skydivers there and then , I'd had enough.
Just remember YOU are PIC so when you break the rules it's you that has to answer.
Great flying , good people but when the operators start getting unreasonable it stops being fun.
Last edited by aseanaero; 6th Mar 2009 at 04:57.