combat flights melbourne
Great example of the traffic around the DZ.. But you forgot to add the new start up venture doing two ship combat aerobatic flights ex YMMB out over Rickets/ Carrum @1500-4500 ' in a couple of Nanchang's!
See combatflightsmelbourne.com.au ( free plug?)
To be honest the weather the other day was rather sudden ( and I say that as a 18000 hour 330 captain ) and extreme ( I was in the garden at Brighton watching it )
SDTB pilots ( and I know a couple) have so far impressed me with their professionalism and ability. The incident the other day was perhaps unfortunate but ended relatively well. SDTB is one pf the few success stories of aviation to be honest , so let's stop bagging them.
In fact, the other day they canned jumps in 25 knots at Barwon when I flew in with my Nanchang - and found it a tad of a handful in the all cross wind grass landing! So they do think about what they are doing, it appears to me.
I also agree that chutes deployed at 4-5000 feet are easy to see and unlikely to be an issue if you generally avoid the DZ by a small margin and keep your eyes and if needed, ears out.
As for the sausage factory out of Moorabbin etc, everyone has to learn somehow, and yes it might be onerous (to a point) transitting the area, but all the peripheral procedures can ( more or less ) be forgotten if you look outside enough.
Personally, I have only recently got back into a single pilot operation after 20 years multi crew and find the whole Port Philip Bay flying a pleasure.. I know I don't get all the procedures correct but I come back to my point on the VFR lookout concept.
Ready to take incoming criticism if I appear too cavalier ?