Lousy safety culture...

jrh

jrh

Well-Known Member
For those of you out of the skydiving scene, it's not uncommon for a jump plane to do a low flyby of the skydivers' landing area after dropping the last load of the day. Sort of a friendly salute to a good day of jumping.

The problem is that a lot of jump pilots don't know how to do a flyby safely. It's one of my pet peeves about the industry as a whole. I'm amazed that there aren't more accidents/incidents related to jump pilot training and standards.

Here's an example:

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Who's dumber/luckier? The pilot, or the mullet/ponytail dude in the white shirt?
 
jrh said:
The problem is that a lot of jump pilots don't know how to do a flyby safely.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, many people just don't know how much they really don't know. And they assume a flyby is some normal operation akin to simply passing over an object on the ground. While that may be true of a medium/high altitude flyby, a low altitude flyby is anything but normal, where the margins for error are extremely thin and consequently the opportunities to salvage something bad are few.
 
MikeD said:
Unfortunately, many people just don't know how much they really don't know. And they assume a flyby is some normal operation akin to simply passing over an object on the ground. While that may be true of a medium/high altitude flyby, a low altitude flyby is anything but normal, where the margins for error are extremely thin and consequently the opportunities to salvage something bad are few.
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Indeed.

The problem is compounded by others who don't know what's going on, egging the pilots on. I remember a couple years ago one of the videographers (non-pilot skydiver) at my home DZ asked me to do a flyby after the last load. I gave him a pass, going downwind in the middle of the yellow arc, wings level, about 40 feet off the ground.

After I landed he came up and said, "That's all the lower you could get?! Come on man, I've got a video of a 182's landing gear almost taking my head off. You should get closer next time."

I said, "Nah, I'll just let you fly it next time. That way you can be responsible for taking someone's head off, or clipping the wind sock at 160 mph. If you don't like the way I do flybys, don't ask me to do flybys."

But that was coming from me, a 2000+ hour pilot who was a regular at the DZ. Had he said the same thing to a starry-eyed 500 hour wonder who was brand new to commercial flying / flying jumpers, who knows what "next time" might have looked like.
 
Hadn't seen you around for a while jrh, summer at the Skool o' Flite must be keeping you busy.

Ps. I too am a fan of a good flyby, but that video is just stupid.
 
I was only kidding. The airplane in the video looks like a Caravan, and remembering your recent employment flying one I took the liberty of circumstantially placing you at the scene of the crime. :)

This other story sounds pretty good though...
 
There is a reason that seasoned airshow and aerobatics pilots sometimes take 5 years of shows and competition before the FAA certifies them to have the ground as the floor of the box
 
MikeD said:
Unfortunately, many people just don't know how much they really don't know.
Click to expand...

One of the greatest things I've ever been told..

Was at the dog track with my dad, he could handicap like a saint handing out miracles. Teaching me the basics, I won two bets he made for me, thought I had it dialed in. Lost every guess afterwards. He told me, "You know exactly half as much as you need to know, to know that you don't know s***." Words to live by.
 
jrh said:
Indeed.

The problem is compounded by others who don't know what's going on, egging the pilots on. I remember a couple years ago one of the videographers (non-pilot skydiver) at my home DZ asked me to do a flyby after the last load. I gave him a pass, going downwind in the middle of the yellow arc, wings level, about 40 feet off the ground.

After I landed he came up and said, "That's all the lower you could get?! Come on man, I've got a video of a 182's landing gear almost taking my head off. You should get closer next time."

I said, "Nah, I'll just let you fly it next time. That way you can be responsible for taking someone's head off, or clipping the wind sock at 160 mph. If you don't like the way I do flybys, don't ask me to do flybys."

But that was coming from me, a 2000+ hour pilot who was a regular at the DZ. Had he said the same thing to a starry-eyed 500 hour wonder who was brand new to commercial flying / flying jumpers, who knows what "next time" might have looked like.
Click to expand...

The safety culture at skydive outfits is almost non-existent anyways... it starts with a run-out, nearly broken down airplane taking off over-gross in the summer time on a short runway filled with adrenaline junkies who will have a cut-away... not think twice and just grab another rig for the next jump.

I definitely did some crazy stuff that represented less than marginal safety considerations... probably wouldn't try it again... but had a great time doing it and learned a lot. Never got that low though!
 
inigo88 said:
I was only kidding. The airplane in the video looks like a Caravan, and remembering your recent employment flying one I took the liberty of circumstantially placing you at the scene of the crime. :)

This other story sounds pretty good though...
Click to expand...

Statute of limitations hasn't worn off. ;) But no, I've done a lot of low level work, for survey, fun, or to figure out if the beaches I was flying over daily were safe to land on (turns out most of them weren't). I worked at an outfit where I didn't get above 1000'AGL more than twice for a whole year, and have been down a lot lower than that quite a bit (probably enough to satisfy the forest services "sub 500'AGL" requirements). Regardless, its something that takes practice, patience, and discipline. There's no margin for error, and given that I've spent most of the last year above 1000' AGL in my flying career, I wouldn't be going sub a couple hundred feet anytime soon without some time to get used to it again. Its something that requires training - even informal training - by more experienced and familiar operators and the perspective is totally different, things happen at different speeds, and your brain can't process everything at once - so you've got to prioritize what you're doing. Is this dangerous? Yeah, that's pretty damn low - one hell of a stunt - but pretty damn low. Is it safe? No, but no low level work is. Is it necessary? I don't see the point of this other than to show off. Cool video though.
 
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