USPA is once again entertaining Safety Day March 8, 2014 for skydivers. It’s a day designed to refresh everyone on managing the threats associated with skydiving. Often dropzones will have their pilot or visiting pilot give talks on aircraft safety to the local skydivers. Discussions on loading and exiting, weight and balance, proper use of restraints on the aircraft, preparing for jumprun, communication with pilots during emergencies and the grand daddy of them all… how low can I bail in an emergency?
But who talks to the pilots? What is the Diver Driver safety day? Well, let’s have one here. Take a day and stand down. Your job today is to go through the training syllabus on this website and apply it to your operation.
- Verify your weight and balance computations. Are your loading tables realistic to the jumpers you actually carry? (using 1980s skinny minny weights or middle U.S. corn fed boys weights?)
- Determine how much fuel you need for a load or multiple loads to any given altitude. Do you truly have reserve fuel on board? (or are you still using SWAG? Scientific Wild Ass Guess)
- Review the FARs pertaining to skydiving operations Have you read the latest revised Advisory Circular 105-2e on skydiving?
- What are your procedures for mixing with local traffic?
- Review your POH/AFM on systems and procedures.
- Go to the Accident Section of this site and choose your aircraft type from the list. Read reports there for at LEAST the last five years. (I know, there are more 182 accidents than any other. Just take the time.)
- Go to the Accident Section by year and read ALL reports even if preliminary for the past two years.
Now, utilize the Jump Pilot written test on this site. Answer all the questions as they pertain to your operation. I would expect people to score high on the test. It’s what you do all the time. However, you may come across that one item in your self evaluation that you become thankful for down the road.
Let’s make 2014 the BEST year for jump plane accidents.
Safety, is NO accident.
Blue skies and safe loads.
DD.com