STOP THENOISE

Courts rule Nuisance is a State Matter
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Mass Nuisance Lawsuit Settled
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Misinformation
 on the Web
 

NOISE

"The Congress declares that it is the policy of the United States
to promote an environment for all Americans free from
noise that jeopardizes their health or welfare."
NOISE CONTROL ACT of 1972

It's the noise that's the most obvious problem associated with aerobatic stunt planes.  People within their targeted practice areas are subjected to six to eight  hours of noise a day.  While a particular plane may only stay twenty minutes at a time, there is a constant steam of noisy little planes using the area.  Their stays seem quite organized with several planes alternately using the space.  This is why we've contacted the area's flight schools to see if we could get them to voluntarily not fly here. The problem seems to be that no one else wants them around either.

The noise is quite loud.  Local police have told us if it were a car outside our house making this racket, they'd ticket them for excessive noise.  People can't talk on the phone, listen to TV or radio, or have a normal conversation in their yards with these planes diving, stalling and looping overhead. It's like the Battle of Britain without the fiery death for the villains.  Imagine your neighbor using a chain saw six hours a day every day in twenty minute on / five minute off spurts.

Some of the pilots will tell you that you should be thrilled, awed, and honored to have these fine, skilled airmen performing for free over your home. Others will just spout off about the aircraft noise being the "sound of freedom". Other pilots think that if they could only give us a ride in their noisy little airplanes we too would become hooked and fall in love with the music of their unmuffled engines  and supersonic prop tips straining to pulls some g's. We not buying any of it. It is noise pollution and we don't have to tolerate it.

The local FAA people are quite content to let us fill out "Noise Complaint Forms", but have rarely sent out an investigator to the field to confirm complaints about noise, low altitude flight (buzzing houses), or illegal maneuvers.  The FAA has placed the burden on the citizens it should be protecting to identify the offending aircraft and offer proof of an infraction.  FAA says it can't use our videotape because we might be faking it. They can't use eyewitness testimony because as members of the "non-flying public" we don't know what we saw. They can't use FAA's own radar data because FAA Air Traffic Control Division won't give the FAA Flight Standards Division all the data required to track the offending aircraft back to its home base. They claim they have no idea who is in what part of the sky when it comes to small planes and that they don't know how to find out.

FAA knows who these cowboys are. In fact, FAA has written letters to the stunt pilots warning them that members of the non-flying public were trying to learn their identities. Oh, my! That information is already public record. All you need is to read the N-Number off of the aircraft.

We concluded in 2002 that FAA was part of the problem; a big part of the problem. They certainly are not part of the solution as they are currently constituted. The solution to the noise problem requires a dismantling and 'reinventing' of FAA.