Yes. What David said. It’s legal to fly from the local mountains through our local airspace. Part 103.

The LZ is however private property allowing public use based on specific regulations being followed. And it is in an almost identical situation as the Lake Silverwood State Recreation Area. Both are part of FERC Project P-2426  with the LZ created following the FERC amendment dated 7-23-1990 to that project. By luck and careful negotiating we don’t have state hired uniformed employees guarding the LZ with a gate that opens only on particular hours and days like at that recreation area. The state is trusting the CSS to do that for them. It is a win win for the pilots and the State of California. The state requires that the CSS provides insurance and the insurance company in turn requires certain regulations to be followed such as USHPA membership and pilots skills being evaluated, both of which the CSS is responsible to monitor.

It should be obvious that we all benefit by unifying and not scattering our landings in the adjacent flood control. But scattered landings are a minor risk when compared to Andy Jackson landings not meeting our insurance requirements.

The old expression applies regarding our LZ. It is ours, to lose.

I used to believe that the HG and PG pilot community was unstoppable and able to meet any challenges that the city, county, state or federal governments threw at us. We did indeed jump all those hurdles. You have no idea how proud I was of how we all pulled together to get the LZ.

I never imagined that the pilots would encore those successes by tripping over their own feet just trying to walk a straight line.