Kiting regulation by Florida proposed

[ricki]

"Rick, have you heard any news of this?

Kite Jam

There is movement in the Florida Senate to regulate kiteboarding. The parasailing bill was amended to include kite surfing. I'm not sure if this would just means mandatory insurance or what other regulations will apply. This bill is pretty popular and is moving through..."

Yes, I saw a strange article about it earlier today. ( http://exm.nr/1ib8e1A )

At this time, reference to kiting in the TWO proposed bill amendments has been withdrawn. So, as far as kiters are concerned this is a non-issue, for now in the current wording of the bill.

Providing some background, I looked into it and called the office of Maria Sachs who introduced the bill into the senate about the situation. They said the application to kiting had been withdrawn with few other details offered.

I did some more digging and found the text of the two amendments files within the last few days with each being withdrawn. http://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2014/0320 specifically http://bit.ly/1oKVK0I and http://bit.ly/1eqvzaX The amendments were poorly written and considered on net. This may account for why they were so rapidly withdrawn. They were far over reaching in several areas, requiring non-inflatable PFD's, specifying hours of operation, rear view mirrors, a second observer on the board??? Obviously the authors had no idea of what kiting is, how it is conducted and physical constraints as to the number of people who can be on a kiteboard! Also, where are we supposed to mount the rear view mirror on our kiting setup, absurd!

Still, the citation of the 50 year old FAA FARs dealing with kites in proximity to airports is quite concerning in state legislation. I concluded they found this obscure FAR to provide some teeth in their effort to regulate parasaliing and to bring a Federal Agency into the fray, the FAA for Pete's sake. Parasailing needs serious reform and use of simple common sense and good seamenship, but the FAA?

I don't know why efforts were made to bring kiting into this mess and think we need to learn why it happened in the first place and through two amendments.

I hope we have heard the end of this but the situation bears close monitoring by kiting interests. A summary of things dealing with paragliding at the Capitol is at http://www.myfloridahouse.gov/Sectio...7&Session=2014

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[ricki]

I have learned more about SB 320 amendments and who and why proposed them. You can see it yourself in the Tourism and Commerce Committee meeting video from Monday at:

http://www.flsenate.gov/media/VideoP...804_2014031125

The overall discussion of the parasailing bill occurs between 30.43 and 43.20 minutes.

The amendment is discussed by Senator Detert of Sarasota County and parts of Charlotte County between 33.29 and 36.00 minutes. More about the Senator at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_C._Detert

The Senator wanted to extend enforcement power of the 51 year old and out of date, FAA FARs relating to kites and airports from the USCG alone which she stated was 40 miles away from the Sarasota Bradenton International Airport SRQ to local municipal police and county sheriffs offices and their marine units. She implied an unspecified "problem" with kiters launching in the "bay" within five miles of the airport and wanted to use this out of date FAR to prohibit kiting within five miles of this and all other airports within Florida. She indicated the amendment was "beneficial to all of Florida" given the abundance of coastal airports in the state. She further stated this move was supported by the Florida Airports Council (FAC).

She said the House bill sponsor did not agree to do the amendment and therefore she withdrew it. I am still unclear about the actual motivations for this amendment with the lack of apparent documented actual problems to my knowledge and am concerned it might pop up again. I view it as a serious threat to kiting access in Florida sad to say.

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[rpexj]

Rick this is very concerning. The very best riding and teaching in Sarasota Bay, New Pass Flats, is 4 miles from Sarasota International Airport. Some of the best gulf wave riding in the area is at the south Venice Jetty about 3 miles from the Venice Municipal Airport on Venice Island.

Westerly winds means gulf riding here and the airport is on the east side of the bay, so no one kites in Sarasota Bay any closer than 4 miles from SRQ. In addition, the launches on the east side near SRQ are all private property and full of oyster beds. A kite 25 meters high 4 miles from an airport holds the same relevance as a gnat on the runway.

BTW, all bay riding in Sarasota is done from boats. We have no beach launches anywhere, so all launching, riding, and teaching is done away from shore crowds and hazards.

The only thing I can think of that would generate an issue here is related to parasailing. We have several parasailing operators that will move from the gulf beaches to Sarasota Bay when the gulf gets too rough. They do seem to parasail on the eastern side of the bay near the airport. Considering the length of the line they reel out they can get considerable altitude.

Thanks for bringing this to my attention!

Rich Peck
KiteboardingSarasota.com

[atwkite]

This is a BIG issue, and has caused serious problems on Maui, shutting down some of the best riding area on the north shore adjacent to the airport.

While they were able to get an FAA exemption to prevent a total shut down of the north shore, they are constantly confronted with the threat of the exemption getting pulled.

Enforcement of the 5 mile restriction would shut down a ton of spots. My local launches of Stuart and Fort Pierce would be gone.

We may really want to get in front of this.

[ricki]

Someone is going to speak with the Senator to try to understand the motivations for this move. Speaking with local kiters, I have yet to identify a problem, actual, perceived or otherwise relative to the airport from what information I have found to date. You are right in that we need to get our hands around this situation. It could have made its way into law last Monday with the parasailing vote before we first heard about the overall situation the next day, Tuesday. Not a good state of affairs.

[atwkite]

It is amazing to me that you can land a parachute on airport grounds, but can't fly a kite that stays below 100 ft within 5 miles of an airport.

It makes me think we should address the regulation with the FAA on a national front. There must be some kiting attys that would be willing to take this on.

[ricki]

We have been working with on this with the folks writing the legislation redrafting things to lessen unreasonable impact on kitesurfing. The latest draft looks good and should have minimal impact on kiters in Florida while still maintaining safety. The process is underway and is being monitored by kiting interests here. More information will be posted once things have moved further along in Tallahassee.

A special request, this problem was originally much worse and far reaching for kiting interests throughout Florida. As originally worded this legislation could have closed many long term riding areas throughout the state. We discussed the issues in earnest with authorities and came up with a far less impacting version on kiting. I hope the current far less impacting draft is passed but the vote is still to come.

This problem was all brought about by what may have been a handful of guys launching and riding in the area of New College in Sarasota, close to a primary runway and low flight path area from the International airport. Local kiting leaders have spoken to everyone they can think of to voluntarily halt kiteboarding in this area. I ask that we all work to stop any kiting anywhere near this area. The cost of continuing to ride here would be far too high for both local kiters and the rest of the state to bear.

A diagram of the exclusion area follows.

Thank you



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For the legislative initiative to get any hold with the FAA, there is a long process of rule making. However the State imposed ban on kiting based upon FAA is something we can fight for a long time in the different court systems to come to a reasonable conclusion.

An aircraft should be able to climb at a certain point from the takeoff to a certain height and get to a predetermined altitude after an engine failure on take off. This minimum climb gradient is published in the FAA directories and if there are any antennas or buildings nearly the airport that climb gradient becomes more restrictive for the pilot on take off. So Sarasota also has this minimum requirement, and if the kite does not interfere with that climb gradient then all is good.

Politicians love to please their constituents, and maybe around Sarasota there maybe voices being heard by the local chosen garb that is elected in the county seats near those beaches.
History in South Florida has shown that on a local level beaches can be closed by cities etc. With not much reprieve from the kiters, other then to accept certain areas where they may kite.
However if they play the FAA card, and use it in their legislative wording, then we actually stand a better chance in developing a solution with the FAA's limitations in mind.

On a separate matter, kiting is allowed around Nice (France) airport as long as the kiters do not cross the extended centerline of the runway. They get to close 300 feet of landing traffic. I have flown in there for many years and looked VERY closely at them as I was on short final. One kiter did end up on a taxi way once. Not good for him as there are many different "police" forces to deal with to get of the airport property, and then ask for your kite back .....

Let's see what happens.

[atwkite]

Rick,

Is the legislation specific to Sarasota only, or might it have an impact on other areas in FL?

I remain absolutely baffled that the FAA would allow skydiving on and around airport grounds, but restrict kites within 5 miles. Just within the past 6 months there have been 2 examples of planes hitting a skydiver and another plane during a skydiving operation. Have there been any plane - kite incidents ever reported?

[ricki]

We are looking at a new state law governing all of Florida. We started with what amounted to a bloodbath for kiting access, with loss of considerable sections of coast to kiting in parts of the state. This in the apparent absence of complaints or problems around the vast majority of airports in the state to my knowledge. Then a fallback position was negotiated which amounted to about half as many long term launches falling under the knife. This was unacceptable to me and a number of other kiters. Fortunately, we were able to work something out more functional for all parties concerned thanks in large measure to the aid of a smart, clear-headed administrator at Sarasota Bradenton International Airport.

"A person may not engage in kite boarding or kitesurfing within an area which extends 1 mile in a direct line long the centerline of an airport runway, and which has a width measuring one half mile unless otherwise permitted under Federal Law,"

You can see the full current text of "CS/HB 347: Commercial and Recreational Water Activities" at: http://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill...illText/c1/PDF

Checking googleearth, this doesn't seem to impact many existing kiting areas I am aware of in Florida. We came a tremendous distance from blanket prohibition to something I believe we can live with, with minimal impact on access. It sure beats a five mile or even two mile prohibition from the entire airport perimeter which was where things were going with three hours to spare.

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