> >An 'interesting' (in a macabre sense) statistic to understand would > > be whether there is any significant incidence of collision between > > skydivers and powered aircraft.
>From a US Web site - under a heading relating to parachutists colloding with aircraft: More than one such accident happened. A parachutist in freefall struck the tail of a Piper warrior, knocking it out of control, which caused it to crash. The parachutist survived with a broken ankle. All four persons on board the Piper perished. The collision occurred at 7,000 feet. Make sure you check the notams for parachute jumpings along your route and exercise caution in parachute jumping and alert areas. FARs prohibit parachute jumps into or through a cloud, and require skydiving aircraft to coordinate operations with ATC. Parachute operations along federal airways are allowed when weather conditions permit. It takes about six minutes for an experienced jumper to fall from 12,500 feet to 2,000 feet AGL, the lowest parachute opening altitude. Some skydivers, including new students, tend to open their chutes as high as 6,000 feet AGL to orient themselves better and prepare for a good landing. -- Brian Wade Personal Computer Concepts Uniform Time http://www.uniformtime.com.au PO Box 114 INDOOROOPILLY QLD 4068 Ph: 07 3371 2944 Fax: 07 3870 4103 -- * You are subscribed to the aus-soaring mailing list. * To Unsubscribe: send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] * with "unsubscribe aus-soaring" in the body of the message * or with "help" in the body of the message for more information.