help us stop the city council from moving the dz at start skydiving

[sfzombie13 307]

the middletown city council (pdf of the details and proposal with maps) is trying to move the dz at start skydiving.  the link to the post is here, and it basically says they evicted them from the hangar and want to move the dz due to safety.  i have links to all the ntsb reports and asrs incidents (search mwo) and found there has been 1 fatality on the ground, not on the runway or taxiway, and two incidents of an aircraft not able to land because of jumpers in the air, one incident of jumpers 200' from an airplane at 4000', a conflict of ifr arrival of an aircraft and jump operations, and one near miss with an aircraft taxiing. the numerous crossings of the runway have not resulted in any injuries or deviations of aircraft except for those mentioned.  since it has no tower, crossing the runway is legal as long as you have the attention of the pilots and watch for traffic.  so, to answer their safety concerns, nothing they are proposing would have changed any of the incidents, so are irrelevant.

then you have the point that was not mentioned at all, the proposed new locations for the dz are the outs. every single location is located next to a landing hazard. since the dz has lots of students and tandems, this is dangerous to every one of the jumpers, while the current location is not one bit dangerous to the airplanes. it makes no sense to jeopardize the lives of people in order to alleviate an inconvenience to machines.

they are accepting comments until 3 may if i am not mistaken.  john at start approved this thread.  i just jump there sometimes and want to help.  if you could review the data for yourself and make a comment, we would all appreciate it.  blue skies.

[sfzombie13 307]

Public comments must be submitted by email to Amy Schenk at [email protected] by 4:30 PM on Tuesday, May 5th.

[pchapman 261]

I don't think I can help but can only comment a little for anyone else wondering about this:

That document is a lot to digest, especially when it isn't like there's a 60 day comment period but they want nearly instant replies. And it isn't clear when all that was published. Maybe there's a date there some place in the 200 page document. (Even if big parts of that are sections quoted from regulations.)

It is hard to comment on any one part of all that without understanding the rest.

It was confusing that in the initial graphics they showed the RSA and OFA, and then had a table showing that even the Class III experienced jumper landing area was 44.8% within it  --- yet the graphics showed that the Class III area was completely outside it. And on the map of where LZ's and RSA/OFA intersect, marked it 100% in a bright red that doesn't correspond with the rest of the graphics.

However, far later in the document there a map which also adds a taxiway TOFA safety area -- and that is what they are referring to. So the initial annotated maps were rather deceiving.

Late in the doc there's a response from Start Skydiving's DZO. I see the focus is on the idea that the FAA never intended the RSA/OFA/TOFA to apply to skydivers landing or crossing runways, and that the DZ is compliant with FAA regulations.