bumper wrote:
A Skydiving company has approached airport management, wanting to open a
skydiving operation at Minden-Tahoe Airport, Nevada, USA. Minden, as you're
probably aware, is considered by many to be one of the true soaring Mecca,
with superb soaring conditions, beautiful scenery and much more. It also has
a mix of powered aircraft traffic including business jets, with over half
the airport operations being glider related.

There are a number of other airports in the US, and probably elsewhere, that
support both gliders and skydivers, though I'm not sure they have the same
number of operations was KMEV (60 to 70K per year). Safety, is a primary
concern, as is the potential for driving away soaring pilots.

If you have any experience, good or bad, in sharing an airport with
skydivers, please post.

Sharing the airport is not the problem. We share the Hollister airport
with a skydiving operation.

What matters is the location of the drop zone. Theirs is a good 7 miles
south of the airport and nowhere near terrain that we typically head for
when the lift is working.

Given the terrain around KMEV, I wonder where they'd like to drop. East
of the field toward the Pine Nuts? South of the field?

North and West both seem a bit more crowded.

Hopefully not near the Startbucks factory. That thermal saves my butt
when I fly there. :-)

Jeremy