Interesting Alert over Richmond this arvo.
 

cruising back from western NSW today, monitoring 124.55 over mittagong, all was relatively normal till i hear the controller ask a jump ship operating over richmond whats the status of parachutes? not long after giving the jump ship clearance to drop. the word "parachutes" was had to distinguish. the drop pilot ask the controller to repeat the question, not once, but twice! after which, he reported that canopies were away, followed shortly by alert alert alert virgin ### turn left heading 220 maintain 10,000.. Parachutes in the area, virgin crew reported back, i have aircraft i sight, but no canopies. followed by the words "oh **** me" from the controller before the controller got the mike button off. a few seconds later the calls were normal again, virgin crew told to climb FL28 and continue on original heading.. shortly after the controller was replaced on the radio.

interesting to say the least, but my question after this is, is there a correct term for skydivers? such as "canopies" it seam the use of the word "parachutes" caused some confusion, whereas the term canopies seams less confusable, and easier to distinguish over radio

apart from that, it was an unusually busy day over the sydney region.

What is the airspace category there? In C or E, the controller has to separate the jump ship and the chutes from IFR aircraft, but in G only traffic information is provided.
It sounds like it was E or C, and the controller stuffed it up, possibly explaining the replacement shortly after.

"X canopies away" or similar would be the usual call from the jump ship but normally the controller would rarely use the word canopies but rather "cleared to drop and descend." Good call on the terminology, in the heat of the moment all sorts of things get said and terms interchanged.

We only separate with C and D. Not E or G

Class C over richmond is LL4500, so the drop ship, and the 737 at 10,000, both were in class C

Phraseology can be both Parachutes and Canopies. "Skydivers" is not an approved term as far as I am aware. I have heard some controllers also use shortened version "chutes". Controllers will usually approve a "drop" though, not mentioning the word parachutes or canopies. Generally the controller is not interested in a "canopy" in respect to controlled airspace, as the clearance to drop is a clearance for the parachutists to free fall through CTA (read:quickly)... With general parachute operations the clearance to drop in controlled airspace prohibits a parachutist actually being deployed and having an open canopy within controlled airspace.

At least thats Adelaide Approach or Melbourne Centre where I have operated.


What height was the jump ship conducting the drop from?

Even if he was at FL140 any jumpers that have exited would be through 10,000 within 20 seconds, and most of them have a canopy open around 4,000 or under, so small likelihood of any of them being in conflict with passing jet traffic at 10,000.

Interesting, Class C where I operate the controllers will keep a very wide berth between Parachute aircraft and any IFR traffic going in or out, probably at least 15 to 20NM (and thats just while in the climb). So for this guy to have an RPT flight anywhere in the immediate vicinity of a jump ship is quite surprising to me. The fact that he apparently approved a drop to go ahead with IFR traffic nearby even more so.

Nevertheless, sounds like separation standards have been infringed and someone is probably in the ****!

Got a shiver down the spine when I saw a "chute" landing just south of St.Kilda beach today, can't help but imagine someone banging along the beach out of Moorabbin on the wrong frequency not realising they have dropped.

I couldn't agree more.. I wonder if the jumpers know they are being dropped into a particularly busy piece of airspace. There is a lot of trainee pilots flying through there on their training flight aiming for any one of about 4 approach points I can think of within a coupla NM. My eyes and ears are always working overtime anywhere near there..

About what time did this happen? They have been dropping them all day everyday this week. They keep rejecting ILS requests...:ugh:

I am relatively new to Melbourne and have been told 123.00 is the correct freq for coastal transits past YMMB with a call at Brighton or Currum to inform the twr of my presence ,haven't heard any meatbomber calls along here, am I missing something ?

As someone who has operated Skydiving in Class C and in Class G and Mixtures of both, personally theres a few distinctions. "Parachutes" is the number of Actual Parachutes, you might have 5 POB but there might be 2 Tandems therefore its 2 Chutes. The number shouldn't really matter for a normal Tandem Load as they'll all pile out together in a quick fashion.

Becomes a different story for doing student jumps as they can take a bit longer as sometimes students freeze up or hesitate and you'll have to do a second run to dump them out, but i'm not sure if controllers would even be aware of that, when that did happen to me i'd always call Centre and let them know that we'd be an extra minute or two to keep them in the loop as we operated inbetween 1 large very active (Read student flights) aerodrome and another similar sized aerodrome that had plenty of IFR and in the vicinity of an International/Domestic airport, but that was less of an issue as we didn't do jumps above 10,000 at that dropzone.

The controllers we "dealt with"/"put up with us" at my first Dropzone which was Class C above 8,000 and sometimes Military Controlled above 3,000 were a pretty good bunch, they always knew what we were doing and we kept them informed so they didn't hold us up and we didn't bother them! Every now and then we'd have an IFR aircraft coming within 10nm of the dropzone, but they'd just clear us and give that aircraft a heading to keep them outside the 3nm area we were cleared to drop in, never had a problem with them steering anyone 10-20nm away as some others have described, but they were generally small - medium Twins on Charter or Training, not RPT.

Its always interesting though when you're already Chutes Away and the controller reports a transponder squawking 1200 has just suddenly appeared and heading towards the area... just gotta hope and pray the guy is on the right frequency and hears you when you tell him hes tracking directly for an active dropzone with chutes on their way!!

St Kilda is outside the YMMB zone so potentially 135.7 might be the go. Certainly with asking someone knowledgable as you don't want to get that wrong. Personally depending on my radio set up I would be on both.

RE: The Point Ormond Drop Zone in Melbourne,

There is a NOTAM about it! Check your NOTAMs. Metalman is right that transiting between Carrum and Brighton 123.00 should be listened out on at least if not an advisory call made. But up near Point Ormond/St Kilda 135.7, ie; Melbourne Centre (Radar) is the correct frequency and where the meatbomber will be!

I'll have to look at the NoTAMS ,wasn't even aware there was a dropzone in the area, YLIL and YTDN were the only ones in the area,,,oops, I am tuned to 135.7 on the way past the city (heading south west)and then to 123.00 past YMMB and have never heard any dirt dart ops ,good to know though, I'll check it out next time!

it was about 2;30 to 3 pm local, i was thinking the controller, being used to clearing jumps regularly from wollongong and Wilton, maybe just forgot the jump at that time was overhead Richmond, and hence, directed the 737 on climb out over the same area. complacency i guess, you hear the same type of transmissions regularly, you just, well, not really tune out, but it almost becomes automatic.

The actual conversation was a bit longer than my shortened version, im sure there will be a copy of it somewhere on one of those websites that records atc.
the Controller sounded very distressed and concerned in the calls to correct things once the error was picked up, i felt quite sorry for the controller considering the possibility of what could have occurred if a jumper took down a 737 over tiger country and the atmosphere working with airservices over the past yrs, they do a great job and saturday arvo over Syd basin was quite busy.

Ultralights
I heard that too.
What I recall was not quite as you report. As far I recall and I might well be wrong, the lady controller seemed quite relaxed after giving the clearance to drop. She then asked if they had dropped and the drop pilot replied they had not. She then cancelled the clearance due to jet traffic or something. The Jump pilot then came back saying errr sorry it looks like a couple have gone off the ramp.... Then the 'panic' started. A Virgin 737 was given a traffic alert, and told to look out for the jump aircraft and the canopies. The poor girl did sound rather stressed at that point, repeating ALERT ALERT to the 737, giving a new heading of what I thought was 020. The Virgin pilot seemed very relaxed, took up the new heading reported seeing the two canopies and that was that, panic over and no drama. The lady was replaced shortly afterwards, she might have just come to the end of her shift or gone for another type of drop... who knows. Later another jump plane was asking for clearance to drop... but was refused by the gentleman controller, apologising saying there would be about a 15 minute delay and they had some issues to deal with at that time.

Must be a bit of a nightmare controlling very busy airspace like that with meatbombs dropping through it and something ASA could probably do without. It only takes a small lapse in communication with the drop plane, and there can be 'an issue'.

Great place for a drop zone: PTOM VFR tracking point on a VFR route, aircraft potentially being on any number of frequencies ....

I'd like to see the safety case on that one.

St Kilda is probably the worst place tof a parachute drop as aircraft can be on any of 3 different frequencies. if you're heading from MB to Westgate Bridge/Station Pier you are monitoring EN twr on 125.1, in the other direction you would already be on MB Twr 123.0, in both cases you are leass than 30 seconds from your respective inbound call. Aircraft that are transiting would be on 135.7 ML centre.

yeh ,the potential for a problem could be a matter of changing to YMMB a bit early and missing a drop call ,I usually start thinking about a change around albert park lake to get a picture of whats around YMMB ,which I won't be doing again, I think I'll wait till I'm a bit closer to Brighton infuture, seems to be a tricky spot to drop humans from aeroplanes!!

In ATC land you are guilty until proven innocent and even then you are still guilty (even though you may have been proven to be innocent)