Lodi Airport

As small and tiny as this airport is I enjoy this airport They have a wonderful restaurant for breakfast and lunch you can take flight lessons or. Jump out of a perfectly good airplane (I love watching the parachutes floating down to earth but I’m not jumping lol) there’s something about heading out on a cool Thursday morning grabbing a cup of coffee and flying off for a banana split over the delta… Once you have learned to fly your plane, it is far less fatiguing to fly than it is to drive a car. You don’t have to watch every second for cats, dogs, children, lights, road signs, ladies with baby carriages and citizens who drive out in the middle of the block against the lights… Nobody who has not been up in the sky on a glorious morning can possibly imagine the way a pilot feels in free

FUBAR, SNAFU, Piss Poor Place, Out Of Control, Cluster F**K, Who’s on First and WTF or WTH. There are just so many acronyms to describe this airport that, one just won’t do.
Flying into this airport this past Saturday was an absolute nightmare. If I had known what I was getting myself into, I would have planned my flight to anywhere else but here.
Briefing available information like the forecast weather, the flight route, airport notes (NOTAM’s) and the radios /​communications procedures before a flight is every pilots responsibility. It’s really important stuff when your flying into an unfamiliar airport and being unfamiliar with Lodi’s Airport, I did my pre-​flight home work the night before.
With the exception of not having a weather reporting station, the only other thing mentioned in the A/​FD is a vague warning about parachute activity in the vicinity of the airport. With the limited information, I planned my flight accordingly. I planned to approach the airport from the South. I would cross the center field of the airport at the traffic pattern altitude (plus 500 feet) and lastly, make a right downwind entry for runway 26. This type of approach is the industry standard for flying into an uncontrolled airport. It’s also the one recommended by both the FAA and AOPA.
About 10 miles from the airport, I announced my position, intentions and asked for traffic advisories in and around the airport. What I was told was there were parachute jumpers to the South of the field and a flyover was not recommended. Instead, it was suggested I make a wide turn to the East, followed by an approach from North for a 45 degree right downwind entry.
I normally wouldn’t have an issue with skydiving around an airport but, during my «wide turn,» I heard the jump planes take off and drop skydivers four times within a seven minute window. I also can’t understand why better notes or advertising isn’t published about the skydivers not just landing in the vicinity but, landing within 1000 feet of an active runway.
Being a witness to this airports madness today, I now know why John J. said «The dive operations definitely ruin an otherwise nice airfield.» It seems the jump center and the skydivers needs outweigh all common sense and safety. It’s no wonder why out of the last three aircraft mishaps at Lodi, two of them involved the skydivers transport planes.
One last note. Lodi shares it’s CTAF with the Frankin Airport which is less than 10 miles away. Announcing your position and or intentions at Lodi can be an impossible task so, be careful.

I went up here last Saturday to look at a plane that was for sale (see the photo above), and one of the things that caught my eye about this uncontrolled field is how you can drive right from the road onto the general aviation parking area, hop in a plane and off ya go. In fact, the auto parking area is the same as the aircraft parking area, and it’s accessed right from the street, no gate or anything. In these days of transportation security it always makes me scratch my head and go «hmm…»
Other than that, it’s a sleepy little general aviation field serviced by two runways, ⁸⁄₂₆ and ¹²⁄₃₀. Having two runways make me give it a higher rating, since the chance of encountering crosswinds is reduced. However, the runways were really bumpy, which makes me lower the rating!
But probably the most annoying thing about this airport was the dominance of the local jump operations there. The skydiving center tends to dominate the local traffic advisory frequency, and they were not welcoming of other traffic. Funny thing about the jump center, it’s located in such a way that it looks like the skydivers are going to land right on top of the nearby freeway, 99S, before they veer off at the last moment and land in their target area. I didn’t get a photo of the jumpers, but it was kind of distracting. Anyway, the unfriendly attitude of the jump center causes me to lower the rating again.
For the pilots out there, pattern altitude is 860 ft MSL, approach frequency is 125.1, northbound departure is 125.25, southbound is 125.1, and common traffic freq is 122.9. Oh, and the field is marked on the San Francisco sectional.