Okaloosa County BOCC — September 3, 2013 — Exhibit 2 - Michael Percy Statement — reading text

lexyhWi bi) O | am Michael Percy. | am a:local pilot who flies seaplanes on the bay. 1 am also the owner of a small company that: manufactures amphibious aircraft here in Okaloosa County. My customers are mainly from out of town. They come here year round to get flight training, test fly, and hopefully buy the aircraft my company produces. | understand the County has long running issues with the helicopter tours in Destin, and that this proposed regulation stems from that fight. | certainly don’t want to be in the middle of that fight. But 1 do want to speak up for my freedoms and rights as an individual, pilot, and business owner in this county. | hate to be regulated against when my activities are not causing any problems. To be clear, | do not run a business at Crab Island or Destin Pass. lam notin the business of scenic tours. To make my living, | sell the aircraft my company manufactures, And | have to provide flight training. People will not buy my aircraft if they cannot get properly trained and licensed to fly them. For that flight training, | need smooth water. Much of the time, out-in the middle of the bay it is pretty choppy. The sandbar around. Crab Islarid damps out the’ waves and calms the water. So for many of the sanie reasons it is an attractive place for people to stand around and socialize on summer afternoons, it is'a great area to fly. | don’t fly there when it is crowded and busy. Fortunately for my purposes, * most of the year, Crab Island is empty. Early in the morning, it is empty. Even in the summer, on the busiest of weekends, the boaters, sunbathers and partiers of Crab Island do not come out until mid- ~morning or afternoon. A little bit of rain elears it out also. : The stated purpose of this regulation is to improve boater safety by ~ protecting boaters from colliding with each other. But this proposal would restrict my legal use of the water 365 days a year, 24 hours a day even when there are not two boats present to run into each other! About this time of year or earlier, the season winds down for the helicopters, parasails, and jet ski propelled-Flyboard.guys. Crab Island becomes deserted, and my demonstration flights. and training continue on. | may be the last one affected by this regulation. As | train my customers to select good landing areas, they will say “What about over there? The wind and water conditions look good, and there is a large area free of boats and obstructions. And it is close to a shoreline and shallow water in case. of a problem”. | will have to say “I see what you mean, but Okaloosa County has decided that area is too congested and therefore dangerous. Let’s go land in the middle of the bay or out in the Gulf where it is ‘safer’.” That won’t make sense from a pilot or a public safety point of view. To summarize my first point: a. Most of the year, most of the week, and most of the day, the people who this regulation.is intended to protect are absent from the designated area. If | need to negotiate for my freedoms, |-would gladly trade my ‘summertime holiday weekend’ water flying rights for the right to fly weekday mornings all the rest of the year, when the waters are relatively uncrowded. In fact, on summertime holiday weekends around here, | prefer to.put myself under voluntary house arrest. b. That’s a great area you are trying to take away from me Point 2: For a customer to buy an aircraft, boat, or any other fun thing, they need to see that the fun and cool things they can do with it outweigh the costs and hassles of ownership. When we can land and taxi up to the beach for lunch at Dewey Destin’s Seafood Restaurant, or McGuires Irish Pub, or any of the other restaurants on the harbor, that is cool! Most of us from this area have experienced that: going to lunch by boat is at least five times more fun than going by car. And flying to lunch in a seaplane is at least 10 times more fun than driving. When | do that with my customers, we have fun, and my customer envisions owning one of my aircraft so they can fly their own adventures back in their part of the world, with their wife or kids or friends. But if instead of landing for lunch, | have to explain about Okaloosa County’s restricted area that prevents us from landing near any of the restaurants, attractions, and ‘cool stuff’, that ruins the fun and spoils the mood, My customer then ponders what restrictions their local government might enact that would spoil the fun back home, if they bought one of my aircraft. When instructing my students | say “Over and above the FAA regulations, fly politely, be a good citizen and you won’t have problems”. With this reg in place, they'll wonder “What did you seaplane pilots do to get restricted in your own home turf?”. | and the local seaplane community will have no good answer. Usually a restriction is earned, through some inconsiderate conduct or improper operation. But | haven’t make problems or created controversy. You wouldn’t know | was there except for times like these when I'need to speak up so | don’t get stepped on. I’m quietly growing my company, generating POSITIVE publicity for the area, attracting customers to the area, and putting a world class product out around the world, in July, a TV show came from London England to film a feature segment on our aircraft. They go around the world evaluating high tech equipment and rating it. They love ‘James Bond’ type stuff. They gave our aircraft the highest rating they have ever given a product. I’m very proud of that. Our segment will air this fall in the UK, Australia, and eventually in the US through a partnership with the Discovery Channel. The film crew stayed at the Hampton Inn. We took them to dinner at Old Bay Steamer. They spent at several other restaurants and bars also. Our area got great professional international exposure. Point 2 Summary: a. To effectively sell our aircraft, my business needs. freedom to operate from the water and come.and go as boats do... b. What did we do to deserve this? (By ‘we’ | mean my business and the seaplane community). We.do good by Okaloosa County and do no harm that | know of. Part Three Would this actually do anything to help boater safety? Statistics and studies show that collisions between boats and seaplanes are exceedingly rare, even in places where there are many boats and many seaplanes. (seaplanes,org). The unlimited visibility and maneuverability of seaplanes, (especially the small light ones.| operate) make it.easy to see and avoid any potentially hazardous traffic situation on the surface. Pilots are bound by many federal regulations, including a ‘zero alcohol’ regulation which says prohibits consumption of alcohol within 8 hours before a flight. Contrasting that with Florida’s allowance of some blood alcohol content while boating and driving, points to pilots being some of the safest water users. The number one cause of boater accidents in the 2012 study was ‘failure to maintain proper lookout’, If the idea behind this reg is to remove all possible distractions to compel boaters to watch where they are going, we should consider some other measures to include: Padding the poles, bridges, docks and objects boaters hit A campaign against texting and cell phone use while boating A campaign to discourage skimpy bathing attire Rigorous enforcement of laws relating to ‘boating under the influence’