Definition of "dropzone" in USA and Canada vs. elsewhere

[Eule 0]

[MODS: I'm not sure whether this is better in "General" or "Events and Places to Jump" - please move as appropriate. Thanks!]

In compiling the Google Earth placemarks for dropzones at this site, I have come up with a general question for people outside of the US.

In the US and Canada, it seems to be pretty common that the hangar where the plane and rigs are and the place where you jump and land are right next to each other, and that jumpers refer to the whole assembly as a 'dropzone'. If Acme Skydiving is at the Springfield airport, the plane takes off from Springfield, you jump out over that airport, and you land near the Springfield runway someplace. A slight variation is that you land in a field a mile or two (two or three km) away from the airport and ride back to the airport.

From some of the non-US/Canada entries (particularly Australia and to some extent Europe) it seems like there are many more hangars where the plane and rigs are than there are places where you jump and land. Only the place where you jump and land is referred to as the 'dropzone' - the hangar with the plane and rigs is the 'parachute club' or similar. Acme Skydiving might be at the Springfield airport and Yoyodyne Skydiving might be at the Bugtussle airport. The Iconium dropzone is at some third location, several miles (several km) away - Acme's plane takes off from Springfield and flies to Iconium to drop jumpers, and Yoyodyne's plane takes off from Bugtussle and flies to Iconium to drop jumpers. The jumpers then get a ride back to Springfield or Bugtussle.

Is this at all accurate or am I totally confused? It seems like in general the landing areas wouldn't be really far away from the dropzones, because then you couldn't get very many jumps in a day. On the other hand, I've visited less than 1% of the dropzones in the world, so I don't know everything.

Another variation, that I think I understand better, seems to be some "roaming" jump planes (eg Pink Skyvan in Europe) visit some airports that have a regular jumping operation, and some other airports that only have jumpers when the "roaming" jump plane is there.

Thanks!

Eule

PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

[piisfish 135]

Here in Switz several clubs/schools jump in several places
Check for example www.epco.aero and www.pcv.ch, 2 schools/clubs, jumping in about 15-20 places

scissors beat paper, paper beat rock, rock beat wingsuit - KarlM

[monkycndo 0]

At Hollister, the landing area is 9 miles away from the airport where we manifest/pack.

50 donations so far. Give it a try.

You know you want to spank it
Jump an Infinity

[phoenixlpr 0]

I know several clubs operating several airports in Finland.

[riggerrob 558]

It seems like in general the landing areas wouldn't be really far away from the dropzones, because then you couldn't get very many jumps in a day.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Correct.

"Split DZs" (i.e. land in a field a few miles/kilometers from the airport) are rare. I have only jumped at one split DZ that was profitable: Hemet, California. Hemet was profitable because Don Balch ran a tight ship and kept after van drivers to hustle people back to the airport. Eventually Hemet seccumbed (sp?) to market pressures (i.e. Perris and Elsinore allowed jumpers to land beside runway) and the downturn in the economy after Sept 11, 2001.

[riggerrob 558]

You are getting confused by the differences between full-time an part-time DZs.
The term "drop zone" was originally coined by military jumpers - who rarely asked for the owner's permission (Hee! Hee!) - ergo most wartime DZs were temporary/only used once.
Similarly, the Canadian Army has dozens of permanent DZs - on government land (i.e. military bases) - that they only use once or twice a year.

Only the civilian side, there are plenty of permanent DZs and a few temporary DZs.
Most permanent DZs have a hangar (including classrooms, manifest, packing, loft, airplane storage, etc.) on an established airport and they land beside the runway.
The parachute landing field beside the runway is the "DZ" and is usually mentioned in the Canada Flight Supplement and printed on navigation charts.

The hangar - and other buildings - are only fringe facilities and are not considered to part of the "DZ" from the perspective of pilots, air traffic controllers, chart makers, etc.

Temporary DZs (i.e. Rantoul, Illinois) only operate for a week or three per year, during boogies and usually bring in specialty airplanes to attract sport jumpers (versus students). Notice to Air Men (NOTAM) warn passing pilots about temporary DZs.

To further complicate your model, there are "satellite schools." For example, Canadian Skydive Center used to operate their regular DZ at Didsbury Airport (near Calgary) on weekends, but once a month would take most of their staff, parachutes, airplanes, etc. to a temporary DZ in Creston, Fort St. John, etc. None of these smaller towns could support a full-time DZ, but could provide 30 to 50 students per year, enough for 3 to 5 days worth of jumping. The old model for satellite schools used static-line or IAD, but these days most satellite schools depend upon tandems. NOTAMS warn other (non-skydiving) pilots about satellite schools.

[monkycndo 0]

I frequently jump at a DZ where the landing area is 9 miles from the airport and it is doing just fine. You just get used to the 15 minute van ride back to the airport.

50 donations so far. Give it a try.

You know you want to spank it
Jump an Infinity

[bob.dino 0]

It's relatively common for the aircraft to take off from an airport and have the jumpers land somewhere else. The jumpers are then bussed back to the airport.

This is prevalent in tandem-focussed operations that want to land passengers by or on the beach.

Other operations have separate DZs for experienced (Toogoolawah) and tandem-only (Coolum Beach) jumpers. Toogoolawah has the runway and landing area next to each other, while I believe Coolum has a separate take-off and landing area.

[Eule 0]

I think I understand the situation better now.

One reason why I was curious about this is because on the site, I am trying to put the school/club/operation name together with the city/airport/dropzone name. It seems like a lot of jumpers like to refer to just the city name ("I jump at Springfield") or just the club/operation name ("I jump at Acme Skydiving"), and it is simply assumed that people know that Acme Skydiving is in Springfield. There are probably a few relatively large DZs where this is true - most US jumpers probably know that Skydive Arizona is in Eloy, for example - but there are lots and lots of smaller DZs and one person can't keep track of them all. By listing both names together ("Acme Skydiving, Springfield, Hawaii"), I hope to make it easier for people to find the dropzone that someone else is actually talking about. Listing things this way gets more interesting when the mapping of schools/clubs to DZs is not one-to-one.

Thanks for the replies!

Eule

PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

[piisfish 135]

well ehere again in Switz we have airfields-dropzones whatever which are not "regular operations" but which are still regularly used by 2-3-4-5 different Paraclubs/schools..

scissors beat paper, paper beat rock, rock beat wingsuit - KarlM