Yes. "Some gig" would depend on your point of view, but if you want to start in a 182 and move to a Caravan or Twin Otter, then yes, you're going to need a little experience. Operators don't want to hand you their expensive equipment unless they can trust you with it, and insure you in it. Jumpers don't really care to fly with you unless they can trust you. Some jump pilots make the circuit and stay busy year round, others don't. Some jump flying is highly specialized.
Have you ever opened the side of a 182 at minimum controllable airspeed, had four or five people climb outside and hang on the wing while directing you to make turns to arrive over an exact point in space, at 15,000? Have you ever been required to make a descent to beat an object you dropped at 18,000' or 15,000' to the ground, without doing any damage to the engine or airframe? Have you thought about what it's like to fly an airplane with a student hung up on a static line, hanging below the airplane while you fly at minimum controllable airspeed with the door open? Can you imagine what happens when a tiny bit of silk gets out of a container and exits the door, peeling the side of the airplane back like a can of tuna fish, and straining the attached jumper through the side of he tear in the airplane before it separates your empennage...and have you thought about what it may be like to exit tha spinning wreckage with the other jumpers in a panic to get out? Or have you just thought about letting "passengers" out before making a nice pretty descent to go get some more?
That would really depend on what you mean by experience or "gig," but some people find it enjoyable, fun, even rewarding. If you don't want to fly jumpers, then don't. Nobody has put a gun to your head and forced you to do it, have they? Then again, it's doubtful anybody has offered you a job doing that, or that they would want you to do that, given your attitude. That you don't see you have an attitude is perhaps a bigger problem for you, because others clearly do.
VFR daytime flying can be excellent experience, and if you have a head on your shoulders, any flying experience can be valueable to you. A poor carpenter blames his tools.
Drop zones do hire pilots. Usually ones, unlike yourself, who give a stuff about what they're doing. I don't know what "lifer" means, but some jump pilots do stay with flying jumpers. I have a friend whom I haven't seen for several years who travels through the year with an airplane, working and living at drop zones. It's his life. He carries his motorcycle in the airplane, lives at the DZ, and in the winter travels overseas where he's a foriegn language translator for a national library. That particular lifer has a masters degree in electrical engineering. He likes what he does, and those who fly with him like him and the job he does. He's an avid jumper, and there's a distinct difference in the way he does his job vs. other who don't have his experience. It certainly shows up in the bottom line for the DZO (drop zone owner).
Drop Zones usually fly Twotters? The most common jump airplane is the 182. 206's are common. Caravans aren't uncommon, and yes, Twin Otters, Skyvans, and other capable aircraft are found.
Yes, everybody who responded has jump pilot experience. Again, why are you asking in the 135 forum?
You do know that 135 isn't applicable to jump operations...right??
