As we skydivers like to say, "No s*it, there I was..."

Saturday, August 2. 13,000 feet over Skydive Lost Prairie in Marion, MT ... we'd just exited the Skyvan and were leveling out the base of our formation (3 skydivers), hoping to build it to 14, when I look down on the beautiful Montana scenery below me and into my field of vision pops ... a plane, a couple thousand feet below and about a half mile off to my right.

Knowing there was a Twin Otter also carrying jumpers I looked at it and thought "That's waaaaaay too big to be an Otter!"

Finished off the skydive, got to the ground and compared notes with the other person who saw it and we figured it had to be a Horizon Q400 on its way in or out of Kalispell. Usually ATC vectors them quite a bit farther away from the dropzone, though.

So while it was an interesting view of a Horizon aircraft, I think it's one that I don't really need to see again. We do our best to look for aircraft before we get out, but we can't see 'em all and sometimes our pilots miss communications with other aircraft. This one had just enough horizontal distance to be safe, but it did increase the pucker factor just a wee bit.