Question about Perris, grass area, etc.

[wmw999 2,588]

Haven't been there yet; Rich was out a week or so again when he was flying.

One thing that Perris does is alter the pattern direction based on wind, because they don't want people flying over the runway below 1000'.

So sometimes it's a LH pattern, sometimes RH. Makes sense given the layout of their DZ. But it's much easier if you're familiar with it, and the people -- if you're not familiar, it's much harder to pick out who's the likely FMD. I don't think I've ever landed on the grass. Of course, I've generally been there for bigways, and my assigned area has almost never been the grass, either.

Wendy P.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[robinheid 0]

Quote

First, Robin pm'd me some info that I think might have help clarify things a LOT in some of the original threads about FMD/Perris. They have such a huge area that the various landing areas there have enough space around them that there is ample room for each landing area to have it's own airspace for holding areas plus patten space. So, there is no conflict between them as I was envisioning ... that question's now answered, at least for me ... thanks Robin. So, if you don't like the FMD direction selected in the grass area, you switch to one of the other landing areas and get into the pattern for it instead.

Just to clarify further for people who have never been to Perris and have trouble comprehending the size of its landing area, check out the attached photos, with to-scale football fields superimposed over the ground.

Look at the "perris landing area..." photo first.

The "grass landing area" is immediately to the right of the word "skydive" on the runway. As you can see, it is about 500 feet x 100 feet. Next to it is a football field at the same scale, which is (counting endzones) 360 feet x 120 feet.

The square white hangar building north of the grass landing area is 100 x 100 feet, and the area north of it is the North LZ. As you can see, the portion visible in this photo is more than 23 football fields n size.

To the southeast of the grass landing area is the student LZ and other "non-grass" landing areas... more than 30 football fields in size.

To the southwest, an out area, the visible portion of which is ten football fields in size.

To the northwest is another out area, the visible portion of which is 6-7 football fields in size, for a total of almost 70 football fields worth of alternative landing zones in addition to the FMD-governed football-field-sized primary grass landing area.

Now check out the "big picture..." photo and you will see that there are another 50-60 football fields worth of wide open landing areas (at least) in the area bounded by Case Road on the north, the irrigation ditech on the east-southeast, Mapes Road on the south, and Goetz Road on the north.

This is why FMD for the grass area only is not an issue at Perris despite all the hysterical and mostly uniformed pontificating to the contrary.

SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.)

"The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

[NWFlyer 2]

Thanks for the visuals, Robin. I've never felt like the grass area at Perris is "too small." If it were the only place to land ... yeah, then it might feel "too small" given the overall size of the operation at Perris. But for most of the jumps I've done there (not a local but between team training last year and various other visits I probably have 150ish jumps there), it's felt plenty big. Certainly during bigway events not everyone can land there, but during normal operations it doesn't feel overly tiny, especially knowing that there's plenty of other space to end up landing safely (and that the grounds crew will be out to get you before you've even gathered your canopy up).

One other contributing factor to FMD working at Perris is the shape of the landing area. When you take landing east or west off the table because of the narrowness of the landing area (and the fact that, at least when I've been there, the prevailing winds seem to be north or south), there's really only two options for FMD - to the north or to the south. So someone watching for FMD just has to figure out which of two options has been chosen, not four. At least in my case, if the winds are strong east or strong west, I've made my decision early that I'm landing out - I can but prefer not to land in a strong crosswind and will take the out landing to get into the wind.

"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

[billvon 3,116]

>Is it the availability or the cost.

Right now it's availability. The sprinkler system runs from sunset to first load (sometimes to slightly _past_ first load) and there's barely enough pressure to keep the grass growing during the summer. Some solutions have been proposed:

-Put in "winter grass" during the wet months then tear it up and put in "summer" (i.e. drought tolerant) grass in the summer. That would allow more grass to be watered. This seems tough to do for a 360-day-a-year DZ.

-Get a pump. I think that was tried; it was causing pressures in the bathrooms to go to almost zero while it was running.

[popsjumper 2]

-Drill a dedicated well?

What I'm really looking at is that even if was only a patch as big as the existing, it would give the FMD and swoopers more area to spread out the landings. For example, using round numbers for demonstration, instead of 10 in one desirable area, you could have 5 in two desirable areas.

Or, if preferred, downwinders in one area, upwinders in the other.

My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239

[billvon 3,116]

>Or, if preferred, downwinders in one area, upwinders in the other.

Right now it's upwinders in the main area, downwinders only by the swoop pond.

[virgin-burner 1]

FMD is awesome!

“Some may never live, but the crazy never die.”
-Hunter S. Thompson
"No. Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try."
-Yoda