Re: 206 Crash into Dam West of Ipswich
I am a helicopter pilot, commercial, and in the past I have conducted parachute operations in the SY area. Not many, in fact only about six drops. The thing is, for me to do this type of operation I had to be working under the umberella of an AOC, the company operations manual had to have parachute operations included, we had to have everything in place and we could have been subject to audit by CASA. With this in mind, we had to have all of the usual paperwork, passenger manifests, weight and balance etc. all available if required.
I obviously know nothing of how the fixed wing world does its parachute work, only what is read on this forum. A lot of very good points put across but it's not that easy to understand the actual ins and outs of this type of operation.
Maybe CASA should change it to a commercial/air work operation, maybe they should stay away from it. There would be some improvements and some restrictions. Make it safer? Who knows. Make it easier to do? Who knows. As someone has said earlier on this thread, it does come down to the PIC, he/she does have the ability to say "no".
Just a comment from a neutral observer.