Dan BC shares how to choose the safest, smartest landing pattern for any drop zone.
I’ve never been a fan of first-one-down patterns, it leaves too much room for late pattern confusion and canopies landing in multiple directions. I asked Dan BC how Skydive Perris, with its unique landing area and shifting winds, handle setting the landing direction. Here’s how he breaks down their landing pattern strategy.
Factors That Influence the Right Plan
The right plan is going to be different at different DZs. It will depend on several things:
- The regular wind conditions (If normal wind conditions are very steady and there are a few wind indicators, it’s easy to know which way to land.)
- Landing area size
- Landing area obstacles
- The number of jumpers
- Is it a smaller DZ with mostly the same jumpers all the time? (A group of local jumpers are all familiar with the plan and how each other fly.)
- Is it a lot of visiting jumpers? (Visiting jumpers are less predictable, are looking down to get their bearings, and need more direction.)
- How busy is the DZ? (It’s all easier and risks are reduced with fewer canopies in the sky.)
Keep in mind that with steady wind conditions and decent wind indicators, everyone can see which way the winds are coming from and know which way to land and fly the pattern. They see the likely landing direction before taking off, confirm it under canopy, and we’re good to go. We shouldn’t need anything other than that.
Communicating the Landing Plan Early
Possibly the most important part of any plan is for the jumpers to know what the landing direction and pattern will be as soon as possible. Some DZs with very consistent wind conditions tell the jumpers which way to land before they take off. This is great! No time is wasted looking down to figure out the plan.
The winds at Perris can be so variable that we can’t do that. The winds can and do often change direction from the time a load takes off until they land.
The First Person Down Method
We used to always have the first person down set the pattern. It generally works okay but also requires the person setting the pattern to make good decisions and fly their pattern in a way that’s easy for those above them to read.
If the person setting the pattern flies a good downwind, base, and final, the jumpers above can tell the landing direction when that person is on their downwind. If they spiral down to land, the jumpers above don’t know which way the landing direction is being set until after that person lands. Finding out the landing direction so late can cause additional problems if people were expecting and setting up for something different.
With the first person down plan, there also needs to be a default direction — a direction we go if the winds are so variable or crosswind that it’s difficult to determine the best direction. In Perris, when in doubt, we land south to north.
Using the Arrow
On slower days in Perris, generally when we’re only flying one plane, we usually have the first person down set the pattern. If the winds are particularly variable that day, we have a lot of visiting jumpers, or a lot of new jumpers, we will often put someone on the arrow even on a slow day.
With the arrow, as soon as a jumper checks their canopy and airspace, they can look down, see the arrow, and know immediately which way to fly their pattern and approach. They never have to look down again and can spend more time under canopy checking for other canopies. Without this information, they won’t be able to confidently start setting up in the pattern until much later under canopy, and they will have to spend too much time looking down trying to figure out which way the landing direction will be set — time that is much better spent checking their own airspace.
