Hi NoBozo
While I don't ever expect that we will be on their holiday card mailing lists, these are all good people on the other side of this debate.
I have spoken once or twice with both owners of the FBOs, and they are genuinely nice guys. While my wife and I continue to find humor in the fact they have that "Skydive Laconia" photoshop on their FBO terminal office windows, we don't take it personally.
When this is over and we end up operating, and the jets don't disappear and their fuel sales increase because we are flying 5 days a week for the entire season, well, they still may not send us holiday cards, but atleast their concerns will have been abated. I may still even enroll in one of their flight schools. The past will be the past and I expect we will all move forward together.
Same goes for the LAA and airport manager. They're all nice people. They are just doing what they believe they need to do, however misguided and counterproductive to their federal funding grant assurances their actions are.
So.............when this is over, our hangar door will be wide open to the other side. We'll offer periodic educational seminars (or venting sessions if that is what's needed) to both educate and listen to the other lines of business and local pilots and work together to create a mutually agreeable existence on the airport.
With all that said, we have absolutely no concern whatsoever that anyone would even consider tampering with any of our equipment or aircraft.
Regarding use of facilities, if you look at the airport's website here:
http://www.laconiaairport.com/laa/pilots_hangars.htm
You will see that there quite a supply of vacant hangars for lease and/or for sale. We have spoken to a few hangar owners over the last few years and each one was interested in taking us on as either a leasee or a sale. Your airport has a number of beautiful hangar facilities that sit vacant because for commercial use, legally they can only be filled with an aeronautics based business. Put simply, there just isn't a lot of businesses out there that could fill these hangars, especially in this terrible economy.
We will fill one. We will fill it with airplane(s) and parachutes and jobs, lots of jobs. My guess is that within two years of operation, we will employ as many, if not more people at Skydive Laconia than all of the other lines of business combined. And most of those jobs will be filled by locals, by you. Eventually, once we provide the proper skydiving training, we would hope that all of the jobs would be filled by local members of the community.
Blue skies to all and to all a good flight,
Tom
Today's video:
http://vimeo.com/21458932
Note that we are landing on the grass strip runway. Note that at the edge end of the runway there is a 3000ft drop off. Suffice to say, parachute landing accuracy is rather critical. We are in the Himalaya. The most turbulent weather conditions on earth. Yet the Belknap mountain range causes turbulence? Really?