A VFR pilot reported flying into an uncontrolled airport and had a near miss with a parachute jumper...

Attributes
ACN	1386304
Time
Date	201609
Local Time Of Day	0601-1200
Place
Locale Reference	RPJ.Airport
State Reference	IL
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Daylight
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Small Aircraft High Wing 1 Eng Fixed Gear
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 91
Flight Phase	Initial Approach
Flight Plan	VFR
Person 1
Function	Pilot Flying Single Pilot
Qualification	Flight Crew Private
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 2 Flight Crew Total 242 Flight Crew Type 242
Events
Anomaly	Airspace Violation All Types Conflict Airborne Conflict Deviation - Procedural Other / Unknown Inflight Event / Encounter Other / Unknown

Narrative:

Flying to rpj on a day VFR pleasure flight. Unicom announced jumpers away. I was about 5 miles from the airport and announced I would circle until jumpers were clear. Jumpmaster advised on unicom that as long as I stayed on the east side of the airport I would be clear. I proceeded inbound; but lost sight of the field and overflew it. Jumpmaster came on and warned me off saying I had missed a jumper by 200 feet.I never saw the jumper; so I cannot verify. My initial instinct when I heard there was jumping in progress was to return to my home airport; but after the jumpmaster's initial advisory I decided to proceed. As a fairly low time pilot my first instinct was to not enter a potentially challenging situation. I should have heeded that instinct.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A VFR pilot reported flying into an uncontrolled airport and had a near miss with a parachute jumper.

Narrative: Flying to RPJ on a day VFR pleasure flight. Unicom announced jumpers away. I was about 5 miles from the airport and announced I would circle until jumpers were clear. Jumpmaster advised on UNICOM that as long as I stayed on the east side of the airport I would be clear. I proceeded inbound; but lost sight of the field and overflew it. Jumpmaster came on and warned me off saying I had missed a jumper by 200 feet.I never saw the jumper; so I cannot verify. My initial instinct when I heard there was jumping in progress was to return to my home airport; but after the jumpmaster's initial advisory I decided to proceed. As a fairly low time pilot my first instinct was to not enter a potentially challenging situation. I should have heeded that instinct.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.