Downwind Swooping Landing Pattern Issues

Landing or swooping downwind seems to be a continuing rage at many drop zones. Many of these jumpers are hoping to get a longer surf to finish a great skydive while some are the “high performance canopy pilots” practicing for upcoming competitions. Either way, this is not setting a good example for students or less-experienced jumpers. And even worse, this is leading to some hectic traffic patterns and close collisions during landing. While jumpers are trained to check the windsock or tetrahedron for the landing direction they are also trained to land in the same direction as the skydivers landing before them to prevent conflicting traffic patterns or collisions. A student jumper in his/her playground area will check the wind indicator as well as the direction the lower parachutes are landing. If parachutes are landing in several different directions, this can be very confusing for the student and other jumpers. It’s not a matter of if, but when, a collision will happen. If drop zone owners are not enforcing landing patterns or directions, “high performance canopy pilots” need to take it upon themselves to set a good example. Those swoopers can land downwind all they want in an alternate landing area, but lets keep the main landing area a set pattern into the wind to keep our students and young jumpers alive longer.