Is this nuts, or what?

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message news:76bdc.215540$_w.2079914@attbi_s53...
From AvWeb:

"If you're planning on flying into Lakeland, Fla., for Sun 'n Fun, be on the
alert for large formation skydiving over Zephyrhills Airport between April
14 and April 18, sunrise to sunset. Zephyrhills (ZPH) is located 16 nautical
miles northwest of Lakeland, on Lakeland's 332-degree radial. The airport
will be the site of a world record attempt involving 140 skydivers and seven
jump aircraft. Getting caught in the middle could prove ... messy."

We are planning to fly into Sun N Fun next week. Last year we were forced
to land short, because the field was closed -- and Zephyr Hills was the most
logical airport when coming from the north. It was an absolute zoo getting
in there, because EVERYONE was stuck doing the same thing.

Now they're going to try to stick 140 skydivers into this mix? I'm having
a hard time visualizing 20 aircraft coming into land -- at an uncontrolled
field -- with 140 meat-bombs under canopy... Seems like they might have
tried to find a better location and/or time for this record attempt?

Aw, come on. Let's play nice together and share our airspace with
everyone.

I guarantee that you won't be able to miss 140 skydivers falling
through the sky. They are easy to spot. Anytime you are in the
vicinity of a dropzone(the parachute symbol on your sectional) make
sure that you have your radio tuned to the proper CTAF for the
airport. They will announce their jump run and when jumpers are away.
After that wait 60-90 seconds for the airspace above 4000' to clear
and another 5 minutes for the jumpers to land their canopies. The
record attempt won't jump more than once every couple of hours(at the
most), so your airspace will be tied up for 7 minutes out of 120+.

Remember that they will always be upwind from the dropzone. Their
distance depends on the winds and their intended opening altitude, but
generally it will be a mile or less.

There are literally dozens of dropzones in the Central Florida area.
Central Florida is one of the most popular areas of the country to
skydive. On one trip to Orlando, I jumped 5 different dropzones
within an hours drive of Orlando. And I didn't make it to all the
dropzones that I wanted to.

I've been a skydiver a lot longer than I've been a pilot, but
skydivers still make me nervous when I'm a pilot and pilots make me
nervous when I'm a skydiver. I did have an incident a number of years
ago that was the result of a controller who thought the skydivers
didn't belong in his airspace and refused to talk to our pilot. He
failed to warn us of an approaching American Eagle flight that was
5000 feet below us and approaching at 200+ knots. When our 3-way
skydiving formation got to the American Eagle's altitude there was
about 100 feet of separation. We waved at the pilot with saucer sized
eyeballs as we went by. Obviously this incident could have been fatal
for the skydivers and everyone onboard the American Eagle flight. All
it would have taken to avoid the incident was a little communication.

That's all it will take in this situation. Communicate.

BTW, since you are now informed about the situation at Zephyrhills, if
you still don't like the situation, simply don't use this airport.
There are plenty of other airports around.

Kenny G.

"You can't swim in a boat or fly in an airplane, get out of the
vehicle and enjoy the element."