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Old 9th Jan 2015, 09:37
  #57 (permalink)  
cattletruck
 
Join Date: Apr 1998
Location: Mesopotamos
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I've regularly seen ambo and police helicopters land in this unofficial zone (North of Point Ormond), I've even seen Bob Jane's A109 land there for him to take a p!ss at Riva Bar (old age I guess).

As a regular bike rider along this route I often come across the parachutists activity, they average about 1 jump an hour in peak daylight on weekends and it wanes off either side of the day and completely stops when summer ends. Weekdays is mostly desolate.

I've seen traffic divert, I've seen the jump delayed, I've even seen a Dash-8 of all planes plough through the jump zone at 3000ft while the jump plane was overhead .

I've spoken to some of the organisers and can assure you they are not overnight cowboys, they do know there stuff and told me this was in the planning for a few years before it became a reality. Most of them head to the other hemisphere (USA/Canada) in our winter.

One thing that still fascinates me is watching the faces of their first-time-jump clients. About 50% of them are totally blase about stepping out a plane at 5000'+, free falling at over 100km/h and landing on a designated spot safely. So what does that say about how much the general public these days give a hoot about GA?

I think this crowd is doing us all a service in the end so we shouldn't be too critical about their operation.
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