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NWFlyer

FAA Proposal on Landing Area Requirements (USPA Call to Action)

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General Reply (not to Chuck directly):

I have had a considerable amount of experience communicating with the FAA over the last four years regarding an airport access issue I have been dealing with for four years in Laconia, NH. It's a typical "NIMBY" scenario, not in my back yard. The airport (KLCI) is ideally suited for skydiving and is federally funded.

In the last four years I have communicated with every level of the FAA directly, from Boston area Airports, to director levels in Washington, DC, including communicating directly with Chief Administrator Randy Babbitt up until his untimely resignation last Fall.

(As a side note, Mr. Babbitt actually grew up with a pretty well known skydiver from these parts, I'll let you guess who.......lol).

At the peak of all this communication, two things happened. One GOOD, and one NOT SO GOOD.

The Good: Of of the FAA's resident experts in skydiving (and yes, they do have them and they are legit) came to a meeting with us at the airport. On one side of the table:
Mary and I and our USPA hero, Mr. Randy O.
on the other
The city attorney, a seven member airport commission, the local FSDO, the local Airports engineer, a state aeronautics manager and the airport manager.

All said, I think it was 3 to 12 on each side of the table with the FAA expert in the middle. What transpired next was simply amazing. The FAA expert went through a list of risk v risk mitigation scenarios and advocated for not just skydiving, but for all airport sponsors out there to embrace access to airports and to work together. We then all walked the field and in the end, he reported back to the FAA that there was no risk that could not be mitigated.

The problem was at the time though, there was no standard to measure his evaluation against and the report vanished into the FAA heirarchy.

The Bad: Shortly there after, the airport commission requested two flawed airspace evaluations, and led by an overzealous local FAA rep without any knowledge of skydiving, put together two completely erroneous reports, labeled them FAA and they were subsequently published as fact by the local airport sponsor and used as grounds to deny our access.

For example, the local FAA rep stated that "see and avoid" could not be expected of pilots based on the size and complexity of the aircraft. Basically stating any airport with private jets could not sustain skydiving......

(I actually managed to fly into Crossskeys in a private jet last year just to see if there was any validity to that statement.......lol......there wasn't).

My favorite "factual concern" however was katabatic winds....lol The cold air rolling down Gunstock Mountain (2900ftMSL) 4.5 miles from the airport, would "affect our ability to land accurately", thus jeapardize our safety and the surrounding aircraft.

I informed the FAA engineer, that in my very limited, less than expert opinion.......I had been landing parachutes 4.5 miles from the peak of Mount Everest (29,035ft MSL), a peak that was 26,000ft higher than "Mount Gunstock", and that I was landing at 12,350ft, yet, for 4 trips out there I had never missed our cosiderably tighter landing area............(The director level of the FAA got a kick out of that one by the way.......lol)

Long story short, as I took these reports up and up within the FAA, I got no where, until I finally got in touch with Randy Babbitt and things started to change.

I for one am all for a standardize national process. In the end,it helps us. Obviously in it's current draft, it's not what we need, but that is where USPA comes in.

Like a few others of you out there, I have worked extensively with Randy O. for the last four years, and if could elect him to Congress, I would. He knows what needs to be done and both he and Ed Scott are fully prepared to go the distance on this one for us.

Okay, that's my marathon post for the month.....lol

Last thing though, while I am here, and it's only my personal opinion. A couple of you have mentioned that the FAA has put us "on notice". I never really got that vibe from talking with the people i worked with in Washington. They are all good people at that level and they understand that skydiving, like any aviation based activity is dangerous.

I honestly don't believe they want to regulate skydiving any more than we want them to do it.....lol.

Yes, we can clean up our act and yes, they do watch youtube and see some of the dumb stuff we are doing, but at the end of the day, the FAA isn't the evil empire, very far from it from personal experience.

So, like many of you, I am anxiously awaiting the end of this process. As it stands now in current draft form, I will be able open in NH when this is finally resolved. I hope USPA is able to trim it as needed for greater good of all DZs and I fully believe they will.
Namaste,
Tom Noonan

www.everest-skydive.com

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If the feds get to carve this one into stone, it will be yet another way for them to restrict us on federally funded airports. Not good.



Bingo. It will turn approval or denial into something done by a gov'ment bureaocrat with a tape measure. There will no longer be any flexibility or common sense in the process. You either meet the measurements, or you don't. Period.

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