Bryan Burke - SDAZ 270 Policy notes

Posted by request of SDAZ.
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Subject: New Swoop Restrictions at Skydive Arizona
Author: Bryan Burke, Safety and Training Advisor
22 March 2007

On Wednesday, March 21st, the owner of Skydive Arizona decided to limit turns in our north landing area to 180 or less, and turns in the south landing area to 90 or less.

This wasn’t a spur of the moment decision; Larry Hill and I had been discussing it – and talking it over with various regular jumpers and staff here – since the fatalities during our last Holiday Boogie. At past events, such as the Nationals or larger boogies, we implemented such a rule on a temporary basis. Now it has become permanent.

Obviously, how you feel about the decision is going to depend on whether or not you are a swooper. The roughly 20% of the population that does turns over 180 degrees is going to be outraged at a limitation on their freedom, and unfortunately this minority population happens to also consist of the most experienced, current, and influential skydivers on the drop zone.

The other 80% is going to breathe a deep sigh of relief. What makes the collision problem so different from past safety problems, such as low pulls in the seventies and hook turns in the nineties, is that canopy collisions are killing and maiming innocent people. Over the years I’ve seen countless letters to the skydiving press saying “if we don’t do something about (insert safety problem X), the government will!” In the past, that has always been wrong. An accident investigator knows perfectly well that if someone hooks it in alone, that’s operator error, no different from flying into a mountainside in an airplane. They don’t worry too much about that – the equipment was fine, the training was fine – the pilot did something stupid, and only the pilot died. Case closed.

Once innocent people start dying, the government takes a very different view. The recent collision in Georgia was the final straw in our decision making process. When highly experienced, current skydivers are being killed in accidents with the same common denominator (turns in the approach to the landing area) it clearly means that someone is doing something fundamentally wrong. The collision problem is one that can definitely be reduced by better training of our less experienced jumpers, and more restrictions on how the experts fly. We must do this, and we need to be firm about it. It goes beyond just swooping. Novices should be taught in their first jump class that extreme caution must be used before implementing any turn. Experts need to realize that mixing dramatic variations of horizontal and vertical speed, combined with large blind spots, is simply not working. It’s time to realize that a technique for swoop competition has no place in a normal pattern. It’s fine to do it in a specific context (no other traffic, period) but not in the general landing pattern.

Our restrictions on swooping come down to two issues, safety and economics. For those who think swooping is an economic asset to a drop zone, allow me to disillusion you. Far more people decline to buy fast canopies than select them. Canopy swooping is, and always will be, a minority element of the sport. The majority of customers are not swoopers, yet swoopers are a very demanding minority. That is the reason Skydive Arizona has never bid for a swoop event and specifically declined to bid for the Canopy Piloting event in the Nationals.

Low passes are incredibly inefficient. Putting out five passes at 5,000 feet for a swoop meet takes longer than putting out one pass at 13,000, and generates much less revenue because few skydivers are willing to admit that a low pass should cost as much as, if not more, than one at full altitude. In addition, low passes tie up a valuable resource: airspace. An Otter load full of swoopers will monopolize the sky over the DZ for a minimum of 18 minutes, usually about 22. (Yes, I do time these things. Five passes at three minutes each, including the time spent on jump run, plus another three minutes for the last canopies to descend below 1,500 feet.) In that time, we can’t drop anything else because we don’t have a dedicated landing area far enough away for parallel jump runs to work in the swoop context. The only logical time for us to host a meet would be in our off-season.

Even one pass at low altitude becomes a big timing problem if we are flying more than two aircraft, which is why we simply won’t do them much of the time. Low passes are such an incredibly small piece of the market that they aren’t worth doing except when things are relatively quiet and it can easily be fit into the air traffic pattern. It certainly isn’t worth holding an airplane or two, waiting for a clear jump run, when the airplane costs ten bucks a minute to operate and the lift ticket is only fourteen dollars.

Swooping presents other economic problems. The staffing and equipment requirements for a meet are quite high considering the relatively low number of competitors. Then there is the real estate problem. Why would a drop zone flood a significant swath of landing area to create a swoop area? Unless space is of no consideration, the available landing area needs to be dedicated to those who use it most, which is the non-swooping 80% of the customers. Even if space was available, the handful of people using a dedicated swoop park could never begin to pay for the sprinklers and the water bill, seeding and fertilizer, and maintenance.

To conclude this particular line of thought, swooping is exactly like Classic Accuracy: very low revenue, very high in demand on resources. We don’t encourage Accuracy, either, because we simply don’t have the resources for it. Skydive Arizona is too busy trying to keep up with the demands of our mainstream customers to court marginal ones.

Let’s move from economics to safety. Some of the rationalizing to defend the practice really concerns me. Statements like “a 270 is safer than a 180”, “they shouldn’t have been there, this is where the fast canopies land”, or “it’s OK, I never do a 270 unless I know where everybody is” show that swoopers have gone past mere rationalizing and into the realm of delusion. I’m guessing the “270 is safer” argument comes from solo runs at a blade course – maybe in that context the 270 does give a better approach. And I concede that if 20 people on an Otter were doing 270s, and two were doing 180s, that might be a special case, as long as all the 270s went the same way.

But in a heavy traffic environment the “270 is safer” argument doesn’t hold water. I’ve watched thousands of recreational swoops and a fairly open front riser 180 is much less likely to cross a lower canopy’s path blindly. Cross that path it might, but not blindly. It will also generate a little less speed and create less disparity in descent rates.

Just dirt dive it on the ground as an example. Imagine you are doing a right 270. Below and behind you is someone planning to do a conservative 90 left on to final. Both initiate their turn at about the same time. The low canopy is going to be in a blind spot to the high pilot for a long, long time. I see near misses from this scenario every week, sometimes more than once a day. In a 180, the canopy doing the 180 is essentially doing a normal downwind leg, a very short crosswind, and a fast but reasonably normal final approach. They can see everyone, all the time, unless someone is landing against the pattern. But that contrary pilot would create exactly the same problem for the 180 or the 90.

I’m opened to well reasoned arguments, however. If anyone can give me a convincing explanation of why a 180 is more dangerous than a 270, I’m sure the dz will be willing to ban those as well. 270s are already pretty well proven to be dangerous when done with other traffic around. If a 180 is even worse, we want to do the right thing.

The statement that a particular skydiver can be absolutely certain that they have spotted all the traffic has been proven wrong by every single collision. Obviously the collision never would have occurred if the traffic conflict had been recognized in time to take preventive action. Anyone who categorically states they are incapable of making such a mistake is someone I really don’t want in our airspace. Complete separation from traffic is the only guarantee of safety. Since we don’t have enough space to separate swoopers that way, it will have to be separation in time, on a low pass.

As to the argument that there is an implied swoop lane where regular pilots shouldn’t land, I’ll repeat the observation that the majority of skydivers do not do 270s, or even 180s. For a swooper to say the non-swoopers have no right to land in the same area is like a street racer blaming me for only going 20% over the speed limit, instead of 100%, and adding that it was my fault he ran me down because if I had been looking in my rear view mirror, I could have prevented the collision.

This has become a significant cause of apprehension among skydivers. Being run down by a swooper is a very real concern. Unlike most skydiving risks, this is not one that an individual action can reduce. It takes a communal action. Swooping strayed too far from mainstream skydiving, and now the community wants to bring a little order back to the landing area. Collisions are not to be taken lightly. In Skydive Arizona’s history of collisions in the landing area, we have had five dead, nine helicoptered off the dz, one sent out by ambulance, and one who survived with no injuries. In addition, one person has died avoiding a collision (that he was about to cause) and another spent several days in a coma after avoiding a collision that someone else was about to cause.

Swoopers are often working for the dz, perhaps as an instructor or videographer. Many more are partially or fully sponsored skydivers. That is how they become current and proficient enough to do big swoops. Your employer or sponsor has every right to regulate your behavior on the job to protect his image and the safety of his customers, as well as protect his investment. And just as commuters have every right to demand that street racers be driven off the streets, skydivers who chose not to swoop have every right to demand order in the landing area.

Finally, I’ll be the first to admit that many collisions are not caused by swooping. It often involves conservative or inexperienced jumpers who simply don’t see each other. However, the closing speeds and angles in collisions always involve some sort of turn in the pattern. What we are trying to get across to people at Skydive Arizona is that any turn in the pattern, under any wing loading, is potentially dangerous. Big, fast turns in a landing pattern are the most dangerous of all and set a thoroughly bad example.

>How many more DZs will feel the same way about low passes like the
>management of Skydive Arizona feels?

That probably depends on how many more deaths we see.

>What is Eloy going to do when people doing 180s flying directly at
>people come straight in on the landing pattern start conflicting with each
>other, or worse start colliding with each other?

Require 90's in the pattern, I would imagine. They have already done this in the 'student' area.

>But all you anti-swoopers have just signed the swooping death card . . .

I think swoopers are signing swoopers death cards by killing other jumpers. That's the basic problem. If swoopers did not regularly kill uninvolved jumpers this issue would not have come up.

But they do. So the question becomes - how do we prevent that?

One way would be to lay down the law, and implement a BSR that separates swooping from standard traffic patterns in the main area. If that happens, look for longer walks after your swoop.

Another way is for each DZ to do its own thing. If we keep going down this road, expect a lot more individual-DZ rules like this one - and expect to not be allowed to swoop at all (or to only be able to swoop by special arrangement.)

Lots of things are un-economical for drop zones. Second passes due to slow climbouts, for one. If second passes also killed people regularly, then I'd expect most DZ's to outlaw second passes. However, since second passes can _prevent_ accidents, there's a reason for DZ's to allow them.

In this case, swoopers are giving DZ's more and more reasons to give them the boot, since they cost the DZ more money AND they kill other paying customers. Personally, I would be quite happy if swoopers who are not able to follow a standard pattern when landing in traffic were booted off all the DZ's I jump at. The next person they kill could be someone I love.

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I think swoopers are signing swoopers death cards by killing other jumpers. That's the basic problem. If swoopers did not regularly kill uninvolved jumpers this issue would not have come up.

Ok, I'm sorry Bill but this statement just doesn't ring true. It is absolutely, positively NOT just swoopers or HP pilots.

From the fatalities database (worldwide):

A collision summary over the last few years (freefall collisions, crew, obstacles, etc excluded)

2004-03-10 Thailand. 2 Regular jumpers flying regular patterns. Both experienced 200+ way event

2004-07-04 Germany. 2 Regular jumpers flying regular patterns. Both inexperienced

2004-09-17 Australia. No swooping involved. Jumper spiralled down to try and get down first. After levelling out it's guessed that, with the sun in their eyes they didn't see an oncoming canopy

2005-07-04 USA (Cross Keys). 2 swoopers. Seperate landing areas wouldn't help as they would have both been there anyway

2005-10-11 Australia. Unknown, details are vague but at least one of the jumpers was inexperienced.

2005-12-02 Paraguay. Both jumpers were making left hand turns to final. No swooping mentioned. Details vague

2006-05-07 Germany. Details vague but no indication that either were swooping

2006-05-07 USA(Greene County). 2 swoopers (1 died), again Seperate landing areas wouldn't help as they would have both been there anyway.

2006-12-30 USA(Eloy). 1 swooper hit another (apparently non swooper) after the jumper did a 270 and the low man did a 180 (not sure why the 180 was done if they weren't swooping).

2006-12-31 USA(Eloy). 1 swooper avoided another jumper (non swooper) and impacted the ground. Even though it's not a collision I thought it should be included in this list

2007-03-09 USA(Eloy). 2 NON SWOOPERS. An AFF student turn 360 degrees into another jumper at 500 feet.

2007-03-19 USA(Dublin). Experienced pilot did a 270 into the low man.

So there we have it. Of the 12 (since 04) listed we have the following info:
1) 5 of the 12 (41.67%) were NON SWOOPERS.
2) 2 of the 12 (16.67%) were swoopers that would have (most likely) collided in seperate landing areas anyway.
3) 3 of the 12 (25%) were a result of swoopers that collided with another pilot who was not swooping. Seperate landing areas would, most likely, have made a difference here. This INCLUDES the jumper who did not have a collision.
4) 2 of the 12 (16.67%) appear, from reports, to be non-swoopers colliding but cannot be confirmed due to lack of information.

So....how exactly is this a 'swooper' problem again? No matter how I read it, it seems like it's a problem across the board. 25% is too high for sure for swoop related accidents that should have been avoidable. Of course, you could make a strong argument that the 41.67% (58.3% if you count the vague entries that appear to be non-swoop related) are from NON-SWOOPERS and should have been equally avoidable.

IMO it is a SKYDIVER problem and no amount of regulation will make this one go away.

Now, to be clear (again), I am very much in favor of seperate landing areas. Just like everyone else I don't want to be hit by anyone, or worse HIT anyone. But I can't help but feel we're missing the boat here......

Blues,
Ian

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Of course, you could make a strong argument that the 41.67% (58.3% if you count the vague entries that appear to be non-swoop related) are from NON-SWOOPERS and should have been equally avoidable

Depends on the above.

However, even if the percentage you quote is correct when you look at the breakdown there's a strong indication that seperate landing areas won't fix as many of the problems as people seem to be thinking. Of course if it'll remove the 25% from the list then that's a great start but it's not the only part of the solution.

Blues,
Ian

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Incidentally, how many cases of a swooper taking out an univolved jumper would be OK with you?

I guess you think 3 is acceptible?

Feel free to try and avoid the points I raised or twist what I'm trying to say. However, if you read my response you see that I mention 3 being unacceptable and avoidable.

It still ignores the big picture though IMO and too many skydivers are reading this as a swooper problem. Because of that, they'll never do what THEY need to do to help reduce these fatalities.

If you can't see that this is a problem across the board from that post, then I'm not sure what else I can do to help you with that.

Blues,
Ian

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Maybe 20% of skydivers?

Of skydivers, possibly. Of number of jumps per year, I'd say much higher.

In fact, I can't think of a single aff or instructor at our (or any dz's I frequent) who don't swoop.

Considering they do on average 20+ jumps a weekend and the 'average' skydiver does what, 10 a month? We cannot ignore that either.

I'm not a statistician so I don't know how it would all work out, but I know there are plenty of smart folks here who could probably come up with some interesting numbers....either way.

Blues,
Ian

>Is doing a 270 in traffic dangerous? Yes ... it's rolling the dice ...
>Is doing a 180 in traffic dangerous? Yes ... it's rolling the dice ...
>How about a 90 in traffic? Yes ... once again it's rolling the dice ...

Is pulling at 500 feet dangerous? Yes, it's rolling the dice.
Is pulling at 3000 feet dangerous? Yes, it's rolling the dice.

Therefore there is no reason to require people to pull by 2000 feet.

Is driving drunk dangerous? Yes, it's rolling the dice.
Is driving sober dangerous? Yes, it's rolling the dice.

Therefore there is no reason to have laws against drunk driving.


All the above statements are equally stupid. You will get zero traction with such a silly argument.

>All in all I guess we will not be visiting Eloy any time soon.

If by "we" you mean "people who do 270's in the pattern" then the absence of such people will be a big selling point for Eloy. Skydivers who want to survive will see that as a big plus over a DZ that allows dangerous, irresponsible behavior.