Skydivers vs. Gliders?

Look on the bright side: if the operation employs a rigger who can pack
round chutes it could end up making your life a little easier.

We shared the airport in Monroe, Georgia with skydivers for many years. We
were there before them, and they are now gone--evicted for rent arrears, and
too many dead bodies (one through the roof of an apartment bldg, and a
couple more in back yards). A nasty divorce among the Principals
contributed.

The novice divers often had (and still have) problems avoiding the runway,
and the old hands liked to jump through clouds. The FAA was no help! One of
the management promised to correct the situation but these were false
promises. The Pilots for the operation--King Air mostly--were arrogant and
vindictive--blasting our gliders while turning around. Our single runway had
no taxiway.

When that management person left, and they got new pilots who were courteous
and coooperative, things got much better. They still had no "defined" drop
zone. One of them damaged the parked auto of one of our members..One
severely damaged the wing of a Piper Cherokee by falling on it--he'll never
do that (or anything else) again.

After we got a real taxiway, things got much better but--glider launches are
frequently delayed to allow jumpers to land. We don't take off if they are
within 1000' of ground. Final glide to a "contest" finish for record flights
is out of the question. Moving gliders on the ground requires real awareness
of the jumpers. Expeditious clearing of the rumway is a must.

Having a drop zone away from the glider runway would help a lot!.
Minden-Tahoe airport is large enough to permit this. Radio contact on the
CTAF with the jump plane is, amazingly, not required by ATC! A "2 min to
jumpers away" and a "jumpers away" call helps a lot! Delicate diplomacy and
courtesy go a long way to prevent a lot of the problems. Brute force does
not. Don't involve the FAA unless desperate!

--
Hartley Falbaum


"bumper" wrote in message
...
A Skydiving company has approached airport management, wanting to open a
skydiving operation at Minden-Tahoe Airport, Nevada, USA. Minden, as you're
probably aware, is considered by many to be one of the true soaring Mecca,
with superb soaring conditions, beautiful scenery and much more. It also
has a mix of powered aircraft traffic including business jets, with over
half the airport operations being glider related.

There are a number of other airports in the US, and probably elsewhere,
that support both gliders and skydivers, though I'm not sure they have the
same number of operations was KMEV (60 to 70K per year). Safety, is a
primary concern, as is the potential for driving away soaring pilots.

If you have any experience, good or bad, in sharing an airport with
skydivers, please post.

all the best,
--
bumper ZZ (reverse all after @)
"Dare to be different . . . circle in sink."

snip Don't involve the FAA unless desperate! /snip

That is VERY good advice, and DO involve the United States Parachute
Association before you get desperate! USPA has been historically
responsive in mediating situations like this (it is part of their
charter), and skydiving operations are smart to cooperate.

(For insurance and other reasons, almost all jump operations are USPA
group members, and must adhere to a minimum set of rules to maintain
that membership.)

~ted/2NO

The mix works well at Elsinore, and Dillingham, but I think there
might be problems at Minden. At Dillingham there's a unicom, and the
jump operations are at opposite ends of a 9000' runway. When the winds
shift the gliders and the jumpers swap ends of the field. At Elsinore
when I was last there, the two operations again were opposite each
other. Unfortunately the jumps don't always go as planned, and off
field landings do occur. Also Dillingham doesn't see any corporate jet
activity. It could work, but I fear at the expense of some airspace
presently used for glider training and local flying.
Rich

Derek Copeland wrote:
People who throw themselves out of perfectly serviceable
aeroplanes ....

I jump pilot I know answers this quip with "well, you haven't seen the
typical jump plane". The point being that the next venue for many jump
planes is the scrap heap.

For many years, The Greater Boston Soaring Club (http://soargbsc.com)
co-existed at the Pepperell MA airport with the Pepperell Skydiving
Center (http://www.skyjump.com/)in peace. They leased the airport and we
were their tenants. At one point, when the runway needed resurfacing,
the club financed the runway work in lieu of several years rent. But, at
the end we parted company on unfriendly terms. I will only say that we
thought that their demands became increasingly unreasonable - fully
understanding that there are two sides to every story.

Jumpers want to be on the upwind side of the field for exactly the same
reasons that the glider pilots do. This will be a problem. Much depends
on what kind of glider club you have. If a large portion of your
operations are training flights there will be more conflicts than if
your club does mostly XC, natch. Every one being on the radio is a big
plus but even so, there WILL be conflicts. This can mean a jump pilot
calling a glider with a request to move downwind or a jump pilot holding
a jump until a conflict is resolved. The airport area was divided into a
pie cut into six pieces - each with a letter designator. At the start of
the day, they'd give us the letter of the pie wedge where they were
getting out and we'd stay clear - mostly. If the wind changed..... well,
you can figure it out.

If every one stays on polite terms it CAN be done. There WILL be
conflicts. There WILL be increase risk. We left for personal/political
reasons not safety. In hindsight, life is much more relaxed without the
jumpers. If your jump operation has the choice of moving elsewhere,
encourage them to take it.

Tony V.

HL Falbaum wrote:
We shared the airport in Monroe, Georgia with skydivers for many years. We
were there before them, and they are now gone--evicted for rent arrears, and
too many dead bodies....

I have never jumped out of an airplane but believe that sky diving can
be a safe sport. When my club co-existed with a large sky diving school,
it got to the point that I no longer looked up when an ambulance rolled
onto the field. If only the jumpers would make nice, stabilized,
approaches to a landing - but that doesn't impress the ladies (and, yes,
the "scenery" is MUCH better than at any soaring site). So, what you see
is a lot of radical maneuvering close to the ground ("hook turns"?)- and
some times they would miss-judge. One time, an ambulance was on the
field and the next jumper tried to impress the ambulance crew. He got to
ride in the ambulance too.

Tony V. LS6-b

We have 2 sky dive and 3 glider operations at our field.. and with the
support of airport management, the "drop zone" is 4 miles south of the
runways. We have been very adamant about no drop zones on the airport.

We have two parallel runways, 4500 and 3500, feet long and separated by
300ft centerline to centerline. Power aircraft operations are on the west
runway (longer) and maintain their traffic pattern on that side. Glider
operations are on the east (shorter) runway and maintain glider and tow
plane operations on the east side.

Our primary concern with the jump zone "on airport": If the jump plane calls
2 minutes to jump or even jumpers away and the glider is on the wrong side
of the airport in serious sink, the glider cannot safely approach the
airport and land without fear of striking someone in free fall or under
canopy. Some glider with a radio failure would never hear the call. There is
not a lot of "cleared landing area" safely away from runways, aircraft ramp
parking or powerlines for a parachute operation, even though they say they
can "hit a bullseye", because they land "off airport", we do not have
statistics or witness to discredit their statements.

We know when jump operations are in effect (sunrise to sunset 7 days a week)
so we give the jump zone a 2nm radius clearance. Even then we have been at
10K MSL (7500AGL) well outside the 2nm ring and had meatballs in free fall
pass within meters of the wing. Even though the Jump Master said they never
jump more than 1500meters from the zone center. Meatballs in free fall can
track a good horizontal distance out and return to the zone.

As another mentioned, by Federal Airport Funding rules, you cannot keep a
jump school off the airport, just the same as ultra lights. But be friendly,
and negotiate a jump zone outside the airport traffic patterns by at least 2
nm for safety.

The jump school will complain of the added cost of manning a off airport
landing area and providing return transportation. But you need to market the
increased volume of jumps possible because the jump master is not waiting
for the airport to clear from a departing or a series of landing aircraft,
whether they be gliders, powered.. or at MEV.. FIRE BOMBERS.

BT

"bumper" wrote in message
...
A Skydiving company has approached airport management, wanting to open a
skydiving operation at Minden-Tahoe Airport, Nevada, USA. Minden, as you're
probably aware, is considered by many to be one of the true soaring Mecca,
with superb soaring conditions, beautiful scenery and much more. It also
has a mix of powered aircraft traffic including business jets, with over
half the airport operations being glider related.

There are a number of other airports in the US, and probably elsewhere,
that support both gliders and skydivers, though I'm not sure they have the
same number of operations was KMEV (60 to 70K per year). Safety, is a
primary concern, as is the potential for driving away soaring pilots.

If you have any experience, good or bad, in sharing an airport with
skydivers, please post.

all the best,
--
bumper ZZ (reverse all after @)
"Dare to be different . . . circle in sink."

Bumper,
Please don't take anything Derek says as the truth.
He is very anti, well everything! He has a big problem
with 'the menace of parachutist'
I fly from a club where we share an airfield with parachutist's.

We have a set agrement with them and set the airfield
up in the morning, and sometimes this does have to
be changed in during the day. There has been one fatal
accident a few years ago. But it was a accident. And
we have all learnt from it. Other than that we get
on very well. There is also another club very close
by and I have flown there and all seems well with the
set up.
As for Derek saying they don't talk to us! They do!!
I think its just a case of Derek does not listen!
I have heard gliders call up and ask if they are active,
and the drop zone are more that happy to talk to them.
There are also many gliders that don't and are still
flying in the drop zones, this is not helping the gliding
movement and the case for the CAA making us all use
transponders, even better! Sorry got a bit side tracked!

Regards
Damien
Derek, Please don't waste your or my time by replying
to this post!




At 17:12 11 July 2006, Derek Copeland wrote:
People who throw themselves out of perfectly serviceable
aeroplanes at 15,000ft and then plummet almost vertically
at over 100mph for 14,000ft are an absolute menace.
If you are flying a glider or a light aircraft, you
will almost certainly not see them coming and they
have only very limited manoeuvrability to avoid you,
even if they do see you. There have been a number of
fatal collisions and very near misses between skydivers
and gliders in the UK and Europe.

One of the problems in the UK is that the Skydivers
won't talk to the gliding movement and guard their
'drop zones' like dogs in a manger, even though they
are often not being used.

If you can get them to agree to set times and to inform
pilots by radio or other means when they are about
to jump, there may not be too much of a problem. I
have flown at a site in Spain where the two sports
do liase and there didn't seem to be a problem combining
them there.

Derek Copeland

At 16:12 11 July 2006, Bumper wrote:
A Skydiving company has approached airport management,
wanting to open a
skydiving operation at Minden-Tahoe Airport, Nevada,
USA. Minden, as you're
probably aware, is considered by many to be one of
the true soaring Mecca,
with superb soaring conditions, beautiful scenery and
much more. It also has
a mix of powered aircraft traffic including business
jets, with over half
the airport operations being glider related.

There are a number of other airports in the US, and
probably elsewhere, that
support both gliders and skydivers, though I'm not
sure they have the same
number of operations was KMEV (60 to 70K per year).
Safety, is a primary
concern, as is the potential for driving away soaring
pilots.

If you have any experience, good or bad, in sharing
an airport with
skydivers, please post.

all the best,
--
bumper ZZ
'Dare to be different . . . circle in sink.'

Damien is a member of a Gliding Club that shares an
airfield with major parachuting organisations, and
as such is in a very different situation to me who
flies from a gliding only site. I find it very difficult
to find out if parachuting is taking place or not.
In the absence of any information to the contrary,
I have to assume that the drop zones are active, which
cuts out lots of useful airspace in our crowded little
country. The fact that you cannot get a radio reply
from a parachute site is unfortunately no guarantee
that they are not operating.

Derek Copeland

At 15:12 12 July 2006, Damien Dyer wrote:
Bumper,
Please don't take anything Derek says as the truth.
He is very anti, well everything! He has a big problem
with 'the menace of parachutist'
I fly from a club where we share an airfield with parachutist's.

We have a set agrement with them and set the airfield
up in the morning, and sometimes this does have to
be changed in during the day. There has been one fatal
accident a few years ago. But it was a accident. And
we have all learnt from it. Other than that we get
on very well. There is also another club very close
by and I have flown there and all seems well with the
set up.
As for Derek saying they don't talk to us! They do!!
I think its just a case of Derek does not listen!
I have heard gliders call up and ask if they are active,
and the drop zone are more that happy to talk to them.
There are also many gliders that don't and are still
flying in the drop zones, this is not helping the gliding
movement and the case for the CAA making us all use
transponders, even better! Sorry got a bit side tracked!

Regards
Damien

What Ray said +
I flew at North Raleigh for a short time. Practically all cc. Honestly
I never felt comfortable with the whole operation (which Ray accurately
described).

Why? A little confusion on the part of a glider pilot relative to their
position and they can be directly in the path of falling jumpers or the
dreaded King Air in vertical descent. It was a primarily a jump
airport, no doubt. They fall through cloud decks (broken or otherwise)
and otherwise do their thing. The glider guys chase local thermals.
Seemed like a matter of time before these 2 things would meet at this
particular operation. It was just too tight with the drop zone being
1,000 feet or less away from mid-runway.

And then I can remember using N. Raleigh as a turnpoint when flying out
of other airports - what the hell was I thinking?

However, a large airport like Minden is a different matter. The glider
ops are well organized commercial enterprises. drop zones and glider
ops can be separated. The old Bermuda High op out of Chester used to do
the co-exist thing. It worked well at contests, I wonder how on normal
weekends.

Ray Lovinggood wrote:
Bumper,

I flew at a private airfield that was mainly a jump
center and the gliders were just a little side business.
My time there was from about 1990 through about 1994.

When I started flying there, the jumpers used 182's
(also used for tow plane) and Twin Beech's. Then,
they moved up to Queen Air, then King Air, then CASA's.
As they were moving to CASA's, I changed airports.
Not because of the jumpers, but I wanted to move to
a club that was based on a much larger and more open
field.

Anyway, all we were flying then were 2-33's, an L-13,
and a 1-26. Basically, we were pretty much within
the area where the skydivers were since we didn't go
cross country. The gliders didn't have radios. We
just kept up of where the jumpers were by checking
to see where the jump plane was. If the jump plane
was on the ground, you were safe from any collision
from someone in free-fall: they were either on the
ground or under canopy. If they were under canopy,
they were easy to spot. We also knew each day where
the drop zone would be, based on the winds. Once the
jump plane started its climb out, again known by watchting
the field (remember, we weren't flying cross country,
but just around the airport), we knew to stay well
away from the jump zone.

The skydiving operation was, and probably still is,
one of the largest around, at least in the Southeast.
They lease out their King Airs, Twin Otters, and CASA's
to other jump operations.

We operated safely for the five years or so that I
flew there. I would think with radio equipped gliders
going cross country, there wouldn't be much problem
at all. Just get to know and understand each other's
operation and I think it will be fine.

The airport is North Raleigh (00NC) and the business
is Carolina Skydive (I think, it's been a while since
I've been there.)

You might find that there's usually a nice crowd of
pretty women at jump centers, too! I'm used to NO
women at our glider field. So, the scenery may improve
even more than it naturally is at Minden!

Ray Lovinggood
Carrboro, North Carolina, USA
LS1-d


At 16:12 11 July 2006, Bumper wrote:

A Skydiving company has approached airport management,
wanting to open a
skydiving operation at Minden-Tahoe Airport, Nevada,
USA. Minden, as you're
probably aware, is considered by many to be one of
the true soaring Mecca,
with superb soaring conditions, beautiful scenery and
much more. It also has
a mix of powered aircraft traffic including business
jets, with over half
the airport operations being glider related.

There are a number of other airports in the US, and
probably elsewhere, that
support both gliders and skydivers, though I'm not
sure they have the same
number of operations was KMEV (60 to 70K per year).
Safety, is a primary
concern, as is the potential for driving away soaring
pilots.

If you have any experience, good or bad, in sharing
an airport with
skydivers, please post.

all the best,
--
bumper ZZ
'Dare to be different . . . circle in sink.'