We just lost over half of our kite boarding area thanks to

[KiteboardingTampaBay]

Lots of Florida kite spots are close to airports, Fred.
Here's another thing- Kitester's word is as good as gold in my book and has been leading the charge in that area for safety/ access for as long as I can remember. (12+ years at least) There's ZERO reason not to believe what he says, and if Ricki was up in the middle of this, he owes several thousand Florida kiters an explanation as to why we're losing kite spots.

[kitester]

we.....it's Rick iossi .....spell check got me!

Skydive1...... The park is the only place where kiters of any skill level can find a suitable place to practice on almost any wind direction and any tide level.

Knot_moving......the pond is bigger than it looks. Kiting at the park was never an issue with the navy since the only real rule we have is not to kite the river. The park is the only place to access the water during west winds without a boat. The river is about 1/2 a mile wide there and 400 foot high ships go by all the time. There is no safe take out point. The river is an effective barrier between us and the airport.

eree.....I know lots of kiters that are IKO, PASA and independently trained. I know trainers who have been trained to use any of those "systems".There does not seem to be any consistent revelance to quality training and the sponsoring organization. The only true correlation seems to be the strong impression that a real living, career and lots of money are the reasons for becoming a trainer. That is not to say that all trainers only have interest in the $$$. There plenty of responsible trainers and riders out there. But I have said it for years.... When it's all about money the quality suffers.

Laughingman.......one mile past the end of he airport , in line with the runway and out from that line one mile from center on either side.

Edt.....read the bill. It concers kiting in many areas that have never had problems in the past like Huguenot. To avoid this kind of problem single out irresponsible kiters that make other members of the public uncomfortable or put them in danger. Respond to public concerns on any level possible. Work with any local enforcement or management to build bridges. Focus on education of the kiting community and the community at large. Make your guys understand that their access is their responsibility.

And last but not least.... Fredbbg. ........it's true. Like bad apples, There are irresponsible kiters everywhere. I can say that conservatively we have close to two million collective kiting hours in the park. Not one bystander has been injured by kiters. Most of our guys are careful to ride away from people on the beach or in the water. Many of our guys take the time to remind others to keep a safe distance. The public (for the most part) like us. Nothing is 100% but I think we have done pretty well.

[william_rx7]

That's the dumbest kiting video ever, maybe closing this spot isn't such a bad idea.

Remember people, videos of lawn mowing and bad jumps close beaches too. If you can't stick a back roll step away from the video camera, or for our sake, just post it on face book so only your granny can see it.

Seriously, that spot is not even 1 km from the end of a runway.

Get over it, I'm sure there are about 500 other places to ride around there.

[Drew22]

All a cover up to protect s. fl. Kiters who apparently cant keep out of surfers and away from swimmers (as i was told directly)...

Hmmm... I googled Huguenout Memorial Park and this came up

[youtube]http://youtu.be/nP58J1QtDMo[/youtube]

Buzzing kids in the water, lame beach jumping, buzzing the beach for no good reason and your trying to pin the blame on kiters in Southern Florida? Looks like locals could use some reigning in...

The park is really close to an airport.

Yea the part where he went around the kid was bad, but the rest of that video looked pretty tame. If riding like that gets beaches closed, then every beach in Florida should be closed. Looks like they were outside the swim zone and I don't see how jumping off the beach like that is bad.

I am sorry to hear about your spot man. shit sucks for sure. It does seem from his actions and posts that Rick is interested in maintaining the FL kite community and raising awareness to safety and ways not get your beach closed. Rick posted on the FKSA forum about this and it seems he helped get the bill reduced down from 5 miles to 1.

Here is a link to that thread.

http://fksa.org/showthread.php?t=12094

Reading that it looks like Rick did what he could do to help, and its our POS elected officials who just toss shit in a bill as they please.

[jespin4845]

I lost the number to john kerry, someone get on the batphone and call him to fix this!

[Toby]

Time to fight, no?

What does it need to get back the access?

Getting John Kerry to help out is a good idea, why not?

There are some things going on in the sport...so maybe those will help to get access back.
Once more info is available I will post it.

[greginkw]

Sorry to hear all the problems you guys are having, I can say with absolute confidence that if you had Rick Iossi trying to help you guys out then you are very lucky, I have met him on a number of occasions and he has always tried to do what he can to help kiting and preserve access where it has been threatened. He even took the time while he was sick with the flu to drive from West Palm Beach to Key West (about 4-5 hours) just to give a talk on the positive impact on kiting to the city commissioners and then driving back. (the city was contemplating turning the kite beach into a nudist beach- we won)

Some times it is better do try and do things quietly without drawing too much attention and sometimes it pays to create attention to get things done, I guess the best thing to do now would be to get all the local riders together and see what your options are. A lot of kiters do like to be known as" the man" or" the kite guru" but if you know Rick, you can see that he has a lot more exciting things going on in his life than wanting to be known as anything like that, I do know some people do not get on with him from previous posts, but a lot of these seem to just be personal attacks and not professional discussions.

What ever happens I hope you guys get to fix the riding problems at Huegenot state park. If we can help let us know, I have not ridden there yet but have been looking forward to doing so.

Greg
Ocean Extreme Sports
St Augustine
Fl

[Bille]

This is terrible to hear but my understanding of this bill http://flsenate.gov/Committees/BillSumm ... 4/html/720 is that it basically only prohibits kiteboarding within 1mile of an airport.
...

There bumming about 1 mile from an airport ?

I'm Not allowed to fly my HG, within 5-miles of a towered airport ; and that
changes for the big international ones !! Basically a XC pilot can't fly without
a GPS, or he could get a $10,000 fine for the first offense ; for breaking restricted
air-space.

Seriously , 1 mile was some GOOD negotiation for you guys !!!

There is a Very Good possibility that you can get a "Special use permit" ; to
kite one of these restricted places.
First thing Ya do, is go talk to the airport manager to get His OK ; then submit
a proposal, to the local officials in charge of enforcement of such. No shit ; we
have done this in the past, to make use of flying places for PG/HG, inside
restricted airspace.

Bille

[DocDeuce]

Sorry to hear about this guys... Hug. Park is a very cool area to kite. I didnt get to kite the pond, but i did get out into the surf. Great place. There have been some good suggestions so far, maybe see if any of them will work. There has to be a way to fight this. Maybe Richard Branson can buy the place.

DD

[KYLakeKiter]

This is a very unfortunate consequence, most likely brought on by the new state legislation. I have flown out of NAS Mayport several times and years ago, asked the Air Operations Officer there how the kites got away with flying in their airspace. He said they were aware, but the kites never really caused them any problems so they didn't make a big deal about it.

Everyone needs to understand that the state bill keeping kites outside of 1 mile is much less than the Federal Aviation Regulation which says 5 miles from ANY airport (not just ones with control towers. When you read the regulation, it gives a 5 lb kite weight limit and talks about a rope or cable, but if you think the FAA wouldn't classify our kite lines as a rope or cable you are kidding yourself.

My advice to anyone kiting near an airport is to stay out of the way of the approach path to the runways, and don't push the issue. The FAA is not going to change their regs, but if kites are not a problem, my guess is that they will not enforce it until someone brings it to their attention as an issue.
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2011-t ... art101.pdf
This regulation has been in place for a very long time.