Swooping banned at SD Arizona

[dlee 0]

Here is the message from Larry Hill:

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March 21, 2007

In the past 90 days seven skydivers have been lost to canopy collisions. Collisions are now the leading cause of death in skydiving. Manufacturers have provided us with safe and reliable equipment, but also equipment that is fast and highly maneuverable. The technique used by some to fly these canopies is the cause for the increased loss of life in the sport.

It used to be that the low man had the right of way. Now he is the target for these small, fast canopies as their pilots swoop down from above. In spite of the illusion of control, it is obvious that even the most current and well-qualified pilots are making mistakes. These mistakes are killing innocent people as well as the canopy pilot performing the maneuver.

I have been in skydiving since 1967 and have lost too many friends. As the operator of one of the world's busiest DZs, and having had more than my share of fatalities caused by canopy collisions, I feel that I must take action to prevent them from happening again. I know this will not eliminate all future collisions at Skydive Arizona, but I hope that it might prevent some.

Effective immediately, turns over 180 degrees onto final will not be allowed in the North landing area. In the south landing area, patterns are now limited to turns of 90 degrees or less.

The sole exception will be for skydivers exiting on low passes to practice for or participate in swoop competitions, and then only after having received approval from the management.

These rules will apply to everyone at Skydive Arizona. I know I will take heat for this, but I have a thick skin to absorb it and I believe this action in necessary. I will be in contact with other DZOs and hope to convince them to follow suit.

If one of my staff observes a violation of these landing rules, the person involved will be grounded for that day. A second offence will result in a one week suspension of jumping. A third offence will result in being permanently barred from jumping at Skydive Arizona.

I hope USPA will take action to address the canopy collision problem and I will support any such action. We need to protect the general skydiving population from the reckless actions of a few.

Larry Hill

Owner, Skydive Arizona

[brenthutch 444]

I fear the law of unintended consequences.

The 270 turn, HP landing developed as a SAFER alternative to lover degree turns done at LOWER altitudes.
I am afraid that in an attempt to develop the same speed as a slow carving 270 people will start doing quick snap turns at lower altitudes, and take us back to the "Whippy the Toggle Monkey" days of the 90s. (make that 1990s)

I don't have an issue with restricting HP landings, regardless of the size of the turn, when landing with traffic. But if a swooper(s) wants to get out last, open high, and land last or have a low pass (on the way to altitude), I just cant see why anyone would have an problem with that.

[billvon 3,078]

>But if a swooper(s) wants to get out last, open high, and land last or
>have a low pass (on the way to altitude), I just cant see why anyone would
>have an problem with that.

I don't think anyone would have a problem with that - if it worked. So far it hasn't. In two recent cases I can think of, the incident happened when one person wasn't flying the pattern (i.e. doing a 270 or a 360) and there was only _one_ other person in the air near them.

If a swooper hangs out until everyone else is about to land, and is at his initiation altitude, and he sees that that last person is just about to touch down - is he really going to bail and then try to get onto a straight in final? I doubt it. He'll start his turn, confident that that last person will be on the ground before he gets there. If he pulls it off, and someone calls him on it, the answer will be "everyone else was on the ground." If not, then we have another fatality (or two.)

Separate landing areas eliminates that problem.

[brenthutch 444]

"Danny routinely went big in traffic and let his desire to impress the crowd get in the way of using good judgment. RIP, Danny, but you had a huge ego. To me the "watch this" mentality continues to be an enormous factor in many, many canopy collisions and other swoop-related incidents."

Well said Beezy. I couldn't agree more, we need to outlaw hubris not 270s

[brenthutch 444]

"If a swooper hangs out until everyone else is about to land, and is at his initiation altitude, and he sees that that last person is just about to touch down - is he really going to bail and then try to get onto a straight in final?"

He should, I do. Shooting video on a tandems I routinely bail on swoops because, in spite of getting out last and opening high I catch up to traffic.

[flytrybe 0]

Quote

I wish I could end this post with the magic answer to the problem, but no such luck. However, I have to believe that a more effective and enjoyable solution exists than what is currently being considered if those involved and affected put their collective efforts behind it.

exerpts of a conversation i'm having:

I respect Brian's knowledge, but...
they need to separate, 4 landing areas, Military should NEVER be close to the rest, then regular 90 and straight in, then students, and a hi-po landing area.
Elsinore is pretty good like that.
Elsinore has the room... so does SAZ... not sure why they haven't done that already. The military is a real pain in the ass the should be more segregated, not much training... no attention to obstacles and bad landing patterns or non-existant landing patterns
and huge f%^&*g canopies that just hang there like anti-aircraft blimps.
The students need to be safe, and the regulars need to know, that if they go into the hi-po area, they might catch a cold!

[b1jercat 0]

You can go to to skydive Oregon, I can assure you the DZO Joe Webber has his shit together and a swoop only landing area, It's too bad more DZ's aren't modeled after this one.

blues skies

Jerry

[polarbear 1]

I have to say I'm very irritated about this, mostly becasue of Larry's/Bryan's attitude that they're right and they're going to go on a crusade to convince other DZOs.

Skydive AZ could work this problem if they wanted to - without to much effort, I might add. They have a tremendous amount of landing area; it would be easy to set up an HP landing area (even if it's out in the desert with no grass). They could do hop n' pops, but they don't. They claim they can't fit in low passes with multiple planes running, but every other multi-plane DZ I've been to doesn't have too much trouble fitting in low passes. SDA just doesn't want to do low passes - hell, they've even prevented me from doing low passes in the past even when they are running one plane. I've even had them not allow me to do one, but then they do allow one of their staff members to get out low...it's totally bogus. The truth is they just don't want to work the issue.


And as far as economics goes...the way SDA does low passes it doesn't surprise me they lose money. Every time I see them do one the pilot flies away from the airport until he gets to 4,000 feet, then he turns and does like a 4-mile jump run and STOPS CLIMBING for the whole run. Why can't they setup such that they hit 4000 feet just as they pass over the DZ? The door opens, one or two guys get out, no fuel is wasted. Or, keep climbing on jump run...if the hop n' pops get out at 5 or 6K, so what? Even if they didn't pay for 6K, it wastes less fuel to keep climbing than it does to stay at 4K for several minutes.

As I see it, SDA is increasingly focusing on a specific demographic...they want either 1) competition teams doing large numbers of practice jumps or 2) coaching students who are doing large numbers of jumps. If you don't fit that demographic, they don't want to work with you. That's fine, it's their right...but why can't they just say so?

If SDA just doesn't want to work the issue, I guess no one can make them. But Larry Hill's attitude of 'I'm going to contact other DZO's to get them to follow suit' is bunk. He apparently thinks he's fixed the problem at his DZ. Leave it at that , Larry...don't go on a crusade to kill serious swooping just becasue you don't want to work the problem. There are lots of ways to address this issue; yours isn't the best.

"Holy s*** that was f***in' cold!"

[polarbear 1]

Two questions I have:

1) If banning anything over a 180 is such an obvious and necessary solutionto this problem, why didn't Larry/Bryan have that rule in effect at the holiday boogie, where it might have actually done some good?

2) If 270s are so inherently dangerous, why were they practiced for so long without much trouble? (Hint: becasue the people executing them were paying more attention...)

"Holy s*** that was f***in' cold!"

[phoenixlpr 0]

Quote

2) If 270s are so inherently dangerous, why were they practiced for so long without much trouble? (Hint: becasue the people executing them were paying more attention...)

If it has happened several times why is that a question that it can even happen?

[polarbear 1]

I'm not saying there is no danger. I'm not saying this isn't a problem. It is...the one thing I agree with Bryan Burke on is that when we start killing innocents becasue of our stupid mistakes, we WILL receive all sorts of unpleasant attention.

I am saying that the attitude that 'it is impossible to do a 270 when anyone else is in the air without lethal results' is simply untrue. Yes we've had three recent collisions...but we've had tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of successfully and safely executed 270s. What's the difference?

Judgement. Seems to me as swooping gets more popular, as more people are doing it more often, we are losing the critical skill to abort. Don't know about you...but I'd rather see this problem go away becasue the participants use their heads then see DZs try to substitute rules for brains.

"Holy s*** that was f***in' cold!"

[b1jercat 0]

And as far as economics goes...the way SDA does low passes it doesn't surprise me they lose money. Every time I see them do one the pilot flies away from the airport until he gets to 4,000 feet, then he turns and does like a 4-mile jump run and STOPS CLIMBING for the whole run. Why can't they setup such that they hit 4000 feet just as they pass over the DZ?

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I cry bullshit, the plane doesn't know the different between 3500 and 4000 in terms of 3-5 jumpers getting out on the way to tude. Please tell me how a pass on the way to tude, is non profitable?

[phoenixlpr 0]

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Judgement. Seems to me as swooping gets more popular, as more people are doing it more often, we are losing the critical skill to abort. Don't know about you...but I'd rather see this problem go away becasue the participants use their heads then see DZs try to substitute rules for brains.

They want to stay in business. A dead skydiver is not good for their business, more are even worst.

[diablopilot 2]

Quote

Quote

I wish I could end this post with the magic answer to the problem, but no such luck. However, I have to believe that a more effective and enjoyable solution exists than what is currently being considered if those involved and affected put their collective efforts behind it.

exerpts of a conversation i'm having:

I respect Brian's knowledge, but...
they need to separate, 4 landing areas, Military should NEVER be close to the rest, then regular 90 and straight in, then students, and a hi-po landing area.
Elsinore is pretty good like that.
Elsinore has the room... so does SAZ... not sure why they haven't done that already. The military is a real pain in the ass the should be more segregated, not much training... no attention to obstacles and bad landing patterns or non-existant landing patterns
and huge f%^&*g canopies that just hang there like anti-aircraft blimps.
The students need to be safe, and the regulars need to know, that if they go into the hi-po area, they might catch a cold!

Careful, don't fuck with the military dollars.

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You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[ORANGENBLUE 0]

The biggest common denominator that i see in all of these canopy collisions is not swooping, 270s, patterns. its having too much volume for the given size of landing area. there are other "destination DZs" (Deland, Elsinore, Paris) that don't seem to be having this problem.

Hum? Could it be the size of the landing area for the # of jumpers being put out? No.....no. Its the 270s

[superstu 0]

it will be interesting to see the next ban they implement when the next canopy collision occurs even though all the "swoopers" are gone. my bet would be no more steerable parachutes.

Slip Stream Air Sports
Do not go softly, do not go quietly, never back down

[phoenixlpr 0]

Quote

it will be interesting to see the next ban they implement when the next canopy collision occurs even though all the "swoopers" are gone. my bet would be no more steerable parachutes.

Wow! Just a little boy who's favorite toy has been seized. Notice they want to keep you alive.

[ianmdrennan 2]

You are totally missing point of his post.

The problem will not go away with seperate landing areas....collisions will still happen. There's no fix for bad judgement.

Performance Designs Factory Team

[superstu 0]

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Wow! Just a little boy who's favorite toy has been seized. Notice they want to keep you alive.

oh i'm sorry, i guess i wasn't supposed to say anything when i am passionate about something, my bad, next time i'll keep my mouth shut. oh and as far as i know no one other than me has pulled my pilotchute or has saved my life besides me. so you can go ahead and have SDAZ keep you alive, but i think i'll keep myself alive.

Slip Stream Air Sports
Do not go softly, do not go quietly, never back down

[CanuckInUSA 0]

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oh i'm sorry, i guess i wasn't supposed to say anything when i am passionate about something

No more swooping for you. From now on, you'll be some bellyflier load organizers whopping boy. Please return all of your swooping gear to PD and pick up that Triathlon 220 on your way out. Fly nice predictable patterns and don't forget to flare.

Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

[ORANGENBLUE 0]

HA HA HA! You guys are too much fun!
No, no, it's pick up your tandem rig so we can make money on your way out.

[CanuckInUSA 0]

Could be worse Smiley, no more swooping for you either. You've been relegated to being either a full-time Tandem packing bitch or Tom Sander's bitch. Your call ...

Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

[polarbear 1]

I'm saying low passes can be profitable...it's just that SDA is stupid about the way they do it, so for them the probably do lose money. My whole point was that if SDA was a little smarter about how they did low passes they wouldn't have an economic problem.

But again, they don't want to work the issue.

"Holy s*** that was f***in' cold!"

[ORANGENBLUE 0]

Tom's bitch? I'll slit my wrists!

[ORANGENBLUE 0]

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I'm saying low passes can be profitable...it's just that SDA is stupid about the way they do it, so for them the probably do lose money. My whole point was that if SDA was a little smarter about how they did low passes they wouldn't have an economic problem.

But again, they don't want to work the issue.

Ya, but if it's not an economic problem then they wont have any excuses for not allowing low passes