[TheNoonans]

That actually made me laugh this morning as I read the post (and I got the joke....lol).

Like some of you, Mary and I shake our heads sometimes that this process has gone on as long as it has. It's a testament to an unintended consquence of big government, bureaucracies.

To be fair to the LAA, when we first got there in Aug 2008, they didn't want us on the airport despite skydiving being a suitable business for the facility with equal access rights actually mandated in the funding agreement they agreed to with the FAA. So, the local push back began with the LAA, not unlike push back from a handful of other airports across the country each year with skydiving proponents trying to bring a legal and viable skydiving businesses onto other municipal airports across the nation.

The LAA, to the best of their knowlegde, decided that skydiving was "unsafe". As I have said for almost 4 years now, the problem with that statement then, as it still remains now, is that no one on the LAA has the background in aviation safety to be able to make that statement. As is written BY the FAA, ONLY the FAA can make that assessment.

So, then entered the "local" FAA and the start of the bureaucracy.....

In a perfect world, the "safety experts", the FAA would enter and make a safety assessment, and provide their findings to the local municipality to then make an informed decision.

In this case unforntunately, due to the size and lack of oversight within the FAA, the specific individuals within the local FAA that were originally tasked to do this safety audit, were unprepared to do it, cited all sorts of erroneous and inapplicable FAA doctrine and concocted what has gone on to become one of the most erroneous docuements ever created within this process, that STILL to this day, is used as an example of how not to do a safety audit.

What that whole process did however, was highlight to the FAA in Washington how truly broken the FAA oversight and safety audit process had become.

So like a half dozen other extremely patient business owners, we were forced to sit and wait, and wait some more, and wait again, and again there after, for the FAA on a federal level to issue a Parachute Landing Area assessment guide and process that will finally be the unified, non biased assessment of an airport's suitability for skydiving. It's final release was pushed back a few times for additional comments and reviews, etc, but it is forthcoming on the near horizon.

Both sides, Mary and I as well as the LAA I presume, have already seen what will become the final draft of this PLA document, and as is no surprise to anyone that has read anything that I have written in the last 3 years on here, Skydive Laconia will be able to find suitable property ON the airport to land parachutes on, with the full backing and blessing of the FAA.

It's been a long time to get here, and yes, life has moved on for all of us I would imagine. Sometimes in these cases, the proponent in our shoes simply gets frustrated and gives up from all the stone walling, all the waiting. We never did, never would. We were never going to just go away, our cause was just and the FAA in Washington knew we had a case.

So here we are today, anxiously waiting for this to resolve itself so that we can move forward, working with the LAA, to build a positive, mutually beneficial relationship with the LAA and the other tenants of the airport, those that don't mind us being there, as well as those that would prefer our little "dirt road business" sought residence elsewhere.......lol

Tomorrow is a new day.

Blue skies to all and to all a good flight,
Tom