Just noticed this on the news – http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/accidents/plane-skydiver-collide-in-polk-county/2169284 – quite scary pics, fortunately both survived. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard about an accident like this, which makes me thinking :)
I’m not based at an airport that has skydiving, so I’m not particularly used to the situation. I’ve received the calls on the radio at nearby airport that there are skydivers in the area, so I try to stay away during those times and delaying my arrival or departure. But how well can the skydivers themselves stay clear of us? Once the chute has deployed I guess that they do have some time to steer away from the aircraft and with the ground in the background they ought to see us pretty easily?
Presumably they can hear you pretty well. I wouldn’t bet on them being able to get out of the way. You’d be going much faster than them, so would have a proportionately greater chance of being able to avoid them.
In my hang-gliding days the word was that if a fighter jet could be heard approaching, you should go into a steep turn to increase the chances of them seeing your wing. Of course this would also increase the chances of them hitting you if they didn’t.
There was a skydiver who fell through the wing of a GA plane in France.
The pilot got prosecuted, allegedly because the skydiver (who got killed) was the son of a senior military figure, but the prosecution did not win.
I did most of my training at an airfield that was also a busy parachute centre. There was a difined drop zone that was frequently missed and not always by accident as parachutists are very high with adrenalin when they land, and some like to show off and land, or try to land in front of the clubhouse..
So our procedure, if lined up or about to taxi was to listen to the drop plane and if there were parachutists in the air we would ask the number of canopies and not until we’d spotted them all and they would remain clear did we procede. If they seemed that they may be going to land in our vicinity we’d switch off, a bit of a pain as we had a hand start, but better than chopping somebody up. The other standard procedure was not to join the circuit unless the drop plane was on the ground and all the canopies landed, it didn’t take too long as they were up and down all the time.
It seems to have worked as over the years I have heard of no accidents involving a parachutist and an aircraft and the airfield still works in much the same way
bq.but better than chopping somebody up Quote
It would be worse than that – the engine would need a shock-load test.
Very true, and doubt my carbon fibre prop would like it much either
