Jumpers (was F*cking hell!!)

Gus, hope you don't mind that I cross posted this. The video is incredible
from the jumper perspective. I noticed the plane in the lower left of the
video frame,... and I remember the pilot mantra: if it aint movin in the
windshield, you will hit it.

Jumpers are the only real scary aviation experience I've had. Back in the
late 90's I was acting as safety pilot for a friend and we wanted to fly the
whole approach so we didn't get ATC involved. Well it was quite a surprise
to me when a half dozen chutes "appeared" about four miles ahead. We never
heard the jump plane's call on unicom! And we cleared the area promptly.

Since that event I've permanently changed some of my routine vfr xc habits:
1. I try to get flight following every time.
2. I don't directly overfly airports on xc.
3. I specifically look for and circle the para symbols enroute.

"Gus Cabre" wrote in message ...

Mentioned in the Flyer e-group: skydiver nearly hits aircraft:
http://www.fugly.com/videos/6103/sky..._airplane.html

"Mike Isaksen" wrote in message
news:lhAWg.5278$ms1.4384@trndny05...
Gus, hope you don't mind that I cross posted this. The video is incredible
from the jumper perspective. I noticed the plane in the lower left of the
video frame,... and I remember the pilot mantra: if it aint movin in the
windshield, you will hit it.

Jumpers are the only real scary aviation experience I've had. Back in the
late 90's I was acting as safety pilot for a friend and we wanted to fly
the whole approach so we didn't get ATC involved. Well it was quite a
surprise to me when a half dozen chutes "appeared" about four miles ahead.
We never heard the jump plane's call on unicom! And we cleared the area
promptly.

FWIW,

There's a "little bit of skydiving" gg going on out in here in the desert
between Phoenix and Tucson but I don't think I've ever heard jump ops
talking on their airport's CTAF at the actual time of jumpers away. They're
either talking to Albuqurque Center or Tucson Approach.

Since that event I've permanently changed some of my routine vfr xc
habits:
1. I try to get flight following every time.

Ditto

2. I don't directly overfly airports on xc.

Ditto

3. I specifically look for and circle the para symbols enroute.

Double Ditto both enroute and during flight planning.

Jay Beckman
PP-ASEL
Chandler, AZ

In rec.aviation.piloting Mike Isaksen wrote:
1. I try to get flight following every time.

And if you don't/can't get flight following, monitor the appropriate
frequency anyway. They often announce jumpers on the local Approach
frequency here.

3. I specifically look for and circle the para symbols enroute.

And get a life briefing from FSS. They often tell me about scheduled jump
activity.

.... Alan

--
Alan Gerber
gerber AT panix DOT com

Jay Beckman wrote:

There's a "little bit of skydiving" gg going on out in here in the desert
between Phoenix and Tucson but I don't think I've ever heard jump ops
talking on their airport's CTAF at the actual time of jumpers away. They're
either talking to Albuqurque Center or Tucson Approach.

Hey Jay,

If you're referring to Eloy, I'm in that area quite often and they
usually do both. They talk to ALB center on one radio and make
periodic anouncements on the CTAF 122.8. After a close call a decade
ago (when they first moved the dropzone from Coolidge to Eloy), I
always monitor the CTAF AND avoid overflying the airport. CTAF
announcement are usually 3 min. to drop, 1 min. to drop and jumpers
away.

John Galban=====N4BQ (PA28-180)

"John Galban" wrote in message
ups.com...

Jay Beckman wrote:

There's a "little bit of skydiving" gg going on out in here in the
desert
between Phoenix and Tucson but I don't think I've ever heard jump ops
talking on their airport's CTAF at the actual time of jumpers away.
They're
either talking to Albuqurque Center or Tucson Approach.

Hey Jay,

If you're referring to Eloy, I'm in that area quite often and they
usually do both. They talk to ALB center on one radio and make
periodic anouncements on the CTAF 122.8. After a close call a decade
ago (when they first moved the dropzone from Coolidge to Eloy), I
always monitor the CTAF AND avoid overflying the airport. CTAF
announcement are usually 3 min. to drop, 1 min. to drop and jumpers
away.

John Galban=====N4BQ (PA28-180)


Hey! Hi John...

Yup, Eloy is the particular place I had in mind.

I may be guilty of over-avoidence but I will go out of my way to give E60 a
wide berth. If I'm headed to Tucson, I'll go straight south out of Stellar
over Phoenix Regional and then bend southeast for the really extended
straight in to 11L gg (I try to not go buzzing right through the practice
holds at TFD either.)

Usually I'm either already with ZAB or TUS Approach ... I'll make a mental
note to monitor 122.8 on Comm 2 after I get the ATIS at TUS next time I go
down that way.

So far, I've only seen jumpers under canopy once and it was on my first dual
XC as a student pilot ... a little un-nerving at first but it was a very
high overcast so they were easy to see and avoid.

Jay B

"Peter" wrote in message
...

"Mike Isaksen" wrote

1. I try to get flight following every time.

So easy to tell which poster is in America

A service from air traffic every time???? How is that done?

Simply by keying the mic and requesting it.
Of course, there's no guarentee that the controller will be able to
accomodate you, but most times they will (at least here in Arizona.)

Jay Beckman
PP-ASEL
Chandler, AZ USA

We had a jumper hit a plane about 10 years ago, I think. Jumper broke his
ankle. All 4 in the plane died. He hit the rudder and jammed it. I think the
jumper sued the pilot's family.

Whenever we have a safety seminar and the subject of overflying the airport
to check the windsock comes up, I in variably have to pipe in with "unless
you see a little parachute next to the airport." If you can confirm that
there's no jumpa ctivity at the time, go ahead and overfly. If you can't,
stay outside the cone surrounding the landing pattern. This is where the
jumpers will be and that cone varies with wind direction.

I guess this guy actually didn't see the plane. For a second, I thought he
was aiming at it.

mike

"Mike Isaksen" wrote in message
news:lhAWg.5278$ms1.4384@trndny05...
Gus, hope you don't mind that I cross posted this. The video is incredible
from the jumper perspective. I noticed the plane in the lower left of the
video frame,... and I remember the pilot mantra: if it aint movin in the
windshield, you will hit it.

Jumpers are the only real scary aviation experience I've had. Back in the
late 90's I was acting as safety pilot for a friend and we wanted to fly
the whole approach so we didn't get ATC involved. Well it was quite a
surprise to me when a half dozen chutes "appeared" about four miles ahead.
We never heard the jump plane's call on unicom! And we cleared the area
promptly.

Since that event I've permanently changed some of my routine vfr xc
habits:
1. I try to get flight following every time.
2. I don't directly overfly airports on xc.
3. I specifically look for and circle the para symbols enroute.

"Gus Cabre" wrote in message ...

Mentioned in the Flyer e-group: skydiver nearly hits aircraft:
http://www.fugly.com/videos/6103/sky..._airplane.html

"Peter" wrote in message ...

"Mike Isaksen" wrote
1. I try to get flight following every time.

So easy to tell which poster is in America
A service from air traffic every time???? How is that done?

My experience, confirmed by several pre 9/11 ATC open houses (op
rainchecks), is that ATC wants you to call in for vfr services IF you are
either enroute or operating where you could be a conflict for their ifr ops.
The enroute callup is very low workload for them, and if your callup request
is succinct with a landing ID & only a few intersections they will usually
type up a quick strip for you. To make this process even easier I still use
the victor airway system for my vfr enroute, even if it takes me a few miles
out of the way.
The second reason (potential ifr conflict) is where they benefit greatly by
your callup. Since you will be there anyway as an unverified target, you are
the "great unknown to a control freak", and his workload just went up. Once
you callup, you verify your altitude transponder reading and your intension
not to play tag with his ifr traffic, his workload goes down. I can't
remember the exact details now but I recall the seperation requirements also
drop when both targets are verified and either one sees the other. Once
again workload goes down; they like that, and so do I.

On your other point, there is the danger that we (US) are slowly moving in
the direction of the Euro Control model, and that would change GA in America
greatly. Besides the concept of ATC user fees, I can envision in the long
term the lowering of the Class A floor to 8000 ft and other draconian
changes. The only long term solution is getting the active Private Pilot
body count moving in the upward direction. The latest AOPA focus on this is
long overdue. They need to set a quantified goal of 100000 new members in
five years. How we get there is by each of us bringing one new person into
the rank of pilot, and by offering some right seat time to those oldtimers
who may be working on their medicals. Think about it.

OK,... I yield the soapbox.

In rec.aviation.piloting Mike Isaksen wrote:
"Gus Cabre" wrote in message ...
Mentioned in the Flyer e-group: skydiver nearly hits aircraft:
http://www.fugly.com/videos/6103/sky..._airplane.html

Original version in better resolution he
http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/...n=file&id=2836

Discussion, started by the guy who shot the video, he
http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/foru...i?post=1183486

Note that both of these sites require registration. The guys that run
SkydivingMovies have said that this is a deliberate filter to keep their
bandwidth bill reasonable; I've been registered there for about a year
and a half and haven't gotten any spam from them. Most of Dropzone.com
does not require registration, but the above post is in the Incidents
forum, which does.

Another site, by one of those strange people that wants to stay in the
airplane all the time, is http://www.diverdriver.com/ . It mostly
focuses on piloting jump planes but it might be another place to
discuss procedures for flying near dropzones in general.

Disclaimer: I have less than 50 jumps at this point and I don't know
everything. But at the DZ I've jumped at where I can actually see
what the pilot's doing (Cessna 182), I've seen him switch over from
the ATC frequency to the local CTAF to make an announcement when we're
about to jump. At some other DZs, when I've been on the ground I've
listened to the CTAF on a scanner and I usually hear an announcement
from the jump plane.

I've got a couple of VFR sectional charts that have the parachute symbol
next to some of the airports. These tend to err on the side of caution;
I haven't seen any airports where jumping was going on that _didn't_
have the symbol, but I know of a couple of dropzones that have closed
down (in one case, a few years ago) whose airports still have the
parachute symbol. An alternate way (not valid for navigation, advisory
only, your mileage may vary, etc) to find active DZs might be the
database at http://www.dropzone.com/dropzone/ (no registration needed).
It has a map-based lookup for the US and the UK and a list for
everywhere else.

Matt Roberds

Mike Isaksen wrote:
Gus, hope you don't mind that I cross posted this. The video is incredible
from the jumper perspective. I noticed the plane in the lower left of the
video frame,... and I remember the pilot mantra: if it aint movin in the
windshield, you will hit it.

Jumpers are the only real scary aviation experience I've had. Back in the
late 90's I was acting as safety pilot for a friend and we wanted to fly the
whole approach so we didn't get ATC involved. Well it was quite a surprise
to me when a half dozen chutes "appeared" about four miles ahead. We never
heard the jump plane's call on unicom! And we cleared the area promptly.

Since that event I've permanently changed some of my routine vfr xc habits:
1. I try to get flight following every time.
2. I don't directly overfly airports on xc.
3. I specifically look for and circle the para symbols enroute.

"Gus Cabre" wrote in message ...

Mentioned in the Flyer e-group: skydiver nearly hits aircraft:
http://www.fugly.com/videos/6103/sky..._airplane.html





Hi

As a skydiver and former pilot wannabe, who, after discovering
keratoconus in both eyes does neither now I must comment on this from a
skydiver's perspective. Also understand that with over 11 years jumping
I've known a great many pilots.

Check your NOTAMs.

Check them again.

I've only experienced one close encounter of the "plane" kind under
canopy and that was on a cross country canopy glide. But he was close
enough (c-1??) to wave at. This over Waller County Texas (I hate IAH
and all the rest of that- post the name or don't post).

This video shows to me, as a skydiver and as a former freefall
videographer, surprise. "Oh ****!" is not the exclamation of someone,
who, from other posts in this thread seems to think, was "aiming" for
the plane. And which makes me wonder...if you step off a curb into
traffic do you (moron) aim for a car? I doubt it.

'Nother point. Traffic under power is "burdened". 'nuff said?

Regards,
Richard
USAP D-11950