landing problem. Your views please.

[jim cooper]

Today was bright sun, windy 10-12, gusts to 14-15. Field is 2300' paved in nice cond. Wind is cross wind. T-craft comes final at proper altitude. Turning base he describes more of a 45 degree to final. He's now pretty much directly into the wind. He's coming down from about 400' now and turns short final, right wing low into the wind and plops it on the numbers (22). I say to myself, "Great 3 point cross wind landing!" Neighbor, one half mile from end of 22 (off to the side a bit) calls airport and says "If it happens again I'll call the FAA!!!" Airport in existence since 1954, house since 1965-70. Neighbor drives over and gets tail number of T-Craft. Your views on this please. Background: Neighbor does not like airport. says its "dangerous". Has lived in house for 1 year. Comments?

[perryv1]

Re: landing problem. Your views please.

I don't see what the guy was angry about!Tell him to stick it in his ear!

I know,thats not the right thing to do,but it should be

[Len Petterson]

Re: landing problem. Your views please.

1 take the complainer for ride, explaine why you have to come in wing low, stall speed etc,
2 make shure your logs and the rest of the paper work is A one, let him FAA!
3 is other pilots resiving complaines? Confer with them for a common front!
AOPA?
Good luck.
Len

[Marcus Bates Jr]

Re: landing problem. Your views please.

Unfortunately there seems to be more horse's butts in the world than there are horses. One will probably not be able to reason with this person......even if you ask him what he found "dangerous" about that landing, he wouldn't be able to answer, unless the airplane flew directly over the house he lives in......one he is probably renting, anyway.......Let him have his moment of ire. I hope he was arguing with his wife, lost the argument, and just took it out on the poor pilot.....Maybe it won't happen again.

[Pearson]

Re: landing problem. Your views please.

I like Len Petterson's suggestion of offering to take the guy for a ride. Explain everything to the guy. Also, I would let the airport manager, or proprietor call him. Thank the guy for his concern, but try to get him to come out to the airport so he can be educated. Have an open house, or something to get him and his neighbors out to the airport.

He thinks it is dangerous having airplanes fly over his house. We all know he is wrong. He just needs to be shown the procedures in use and why they are used. Explain to him that if he sees someone not following the correct procedure he should call the airport manager, not the FAA. If someone is actually hot dogging or doing something stupid, they deserve a warning.

[VictorBravo]

Re: landing problem. Your views please.

I'll be glad to write a letter to that homeowner on behalf of the airport community... nice and polite so he can't sit down for about a year!

If playing nice doesn't work (should be first of course), someone needs to let the guy know that the federal government has control over the air above his property, not him, and the federal government has licensed that airplane to fly there.

Explain politely that if he can drive on the street in front of your house without your permission, you can fly a plane over his house without his permission.

Another technique is to knock on his door and agree with him totally, that something needs to be done about these damn airplanes, and you've gone to the federal government to do something about it. All they need to prosecute that damn airplane owner is for the homeowner to sign a liability document that says he will take responsibility for any loss of flight safety and property damage resulting from his new position of Minister of Airplane Authority in this matter. The government wants to support him, but whoever wants to decide where airplanes can fly takes the financial responsibility for all the lawsuits that could occur... just sign here, Sir, and let us know exactly where you want the airplane to fly based on your liability acceptance

I'd certainly try to make friends with him first, and invite him out to the airport for a ride, etc. That is clearly the preferred thing of course. However, the fact remains that unless they are shown a downside to causing a problem, many personality types will continue to cause the problem simply because they can do so with no repercussions.

[N74DV]

Re: landing problem. Your views please.

I have a typical 3 word reply to these sorts of things.

"go pound sand"


Here in AZ at the Falcon Field airport we have the neighboring community of 30-40 something yuppies bitching about "noise". Falcon Field was a WWII british bomber training field from way back in the late 1930's. These homes of the bitching neighbors were built around 2000 and newer. They are petitioning the city gov't to highly regulate the businesses and air traffic at the airport.

pisses me off big time. it's like moving to death valley and then bitching because it's too hot and there's just no water to be found.

go pound sand. I say. pound it till your fists bleed then pound it some more.

I'm half tempted to drop a bag of steaming hot dog crap on those houses..... there's just that pesky FAR that says I can't. arrghhhh...

[bashibazouk]

Re: landing problem. Your views please.

Here in AZ at the Falcon Field airport we have the neighboring community of 30-40 something yuppies bitching about "noise".

I used to live just south of FFZ on Hobart St. Had to move 'cause of the roar of Taylorcrafts flying over all of the time and the constant rain of turds. Damn those things!

Actually, we were there from '96-00 and some of my best times there were spent floating around in the pool, beer in hand, listening to the Mustang do pattern work. Then, every once in awhile the B-17 and HE-111 would buzz around, too. I was in heaven!! What the hell is wrong with people, anyway?

I'll chime in and say that I think the best thing is to try to get the complainer to go for a ride. It might be a challenge, since he's afraid of being on the ground underneath one of those death traps. Give it a shot. Spoonful of sugar and all that crap...

Josh

PS. There are some houses for sale near NC47 where I fly. I saw a Realtor and a couple looking at one last week. I taxiied over and gave both of the prospective buyers rides around the patch. They said it made their day. (Wife had NEVER been in an airplane of any kind!) All part of the Public Education Plan.

[VictorBravo]

Re: landing problem. Your views please.

Falcon Field was a WWII british bomber training field from way back in the late 1930's. These homes of the bitching neighbors were built around 2000 and newer.

That is valid from an historical viewpoint, but makes absolutely no difference whatsoever to the current politicians in office in your city. The only thing they would care about is whether harming aviation makes them look good or bad, or whether their is money in it for them.

There is always money in it for them to harm aviation. A real estate developer looks at an airport the way most of us look at a nice steak dinner, and they WILL tip the waiter.

Helping the noisy neighbors get rid of noisy airplanes is easy for them to do, and they THINK they can make themselves look good at no cost to them by standing up and having the airport restricted. So all you have to work with is making aviation a hard target to attack, and make it look like the community benefits more by it being open than it does by being closed. But I guarantee you that your best weapon is to make the airport a hard target that will be costly for the city council to attack. If they are facing a long battle and a lot of bad press... and you can guarantee the city council that you can make them look bad in the process... that is your biggest bullet.

Another thing you can try before the big fight is to have an "olive branch" open house day and EAA Young Eagles event where you give airplane rides to all the local kids of the yuppie parents. You can possibly mitigate al ot of problems this way if your local EAA and airport people do it right. This is the least costly and possibly the most effective of all. Make the city council part of it too, and give them good photo opp's with the kids and flying the airplanes.

[Hank Jarrett]

Re: landing problem. Your views please.

A couple of nice bullets in the bandoleer are to get the airport listed as a national historic site, take federal money for improvements that have to be paid back if the airport is placed into a different use category, set up a helipad for the closest hospital to use for emergency transport from the area (even better if the on field maintenance facilities can get the contract to maintain the helicopter (even if they undercut the bid to low/no profit).
Kids can have a HUGE impact on their parents. Young Eagles are great, but an Eagle Scout group is even better. Hook up with the local EAA chapter to see if they will work with the scouts. How about getting the CAP to put a chapter there. Not just a bunch of tired old men using 15 kids as "safety observers" and "Fire Extinguisher Holders". Teach the kids what aviation is REALLY about, with rescue sims and practice searches. They can be FUN and you might even be able to take the costs off your taxes.
Lastly, if you have airplane nut friends looking for new homes, look at the houses in the area. The more airplane friendly people in the neighborhood the better! Besides, we all want to live close to the airport anyway. We LIKE airplane noise. Then when the jerk complains, all his neighbors will label him as a nut case and kill joy. Politicians will listen to the majority. Make him a voice of one and make HIM move. There are plenty of places away from the airport to live, but not many that are close.
Hank

[Rick Hadley]

Re: landing problem. Your views please.

Hank's got the right idea. I've been secretary of the local airport commission for almost 20 years now. Over that time, we've had occasional complaints from a couple of the neighbors...they don't like the aerobatics, they don't like the sky-diving activity, etc. The loudest, and most ridiculous came from the idiot who built his new house right smack off the end of runway 27. When he complained to the mayor about the NG helos doing night landings, the mayor, who had a nephew in Iraq, told him to pound sand. I've always wished that they'd fly an Apache over to his house and fly it right up to his bedroom window, ala Airwolf! He's going to love it when we get the new Jet-A pumps installed and the medivac birds start using us as a refueling site! I've developed a standard answer..."I appreciate your taking the time to call. We're a federally funded airport and as such we have no right or ability to regulate the type of aircraft that use our facility, any more than the county can regulate the type of vehicles that use the road in front of your house. You're welcome to contact the FAA office if you'd like confirmation of that."

[N74DV]

Re: landing problem. Your views please.

A real estate developer looks at an airport the way most of us look at a nice steak dinner

The new mayor of Mesa is, guess what.... a real estate developer. However he is a private pilot (in fact I shot video air-to-air of his solo flight for him a few years ago). I think he's on our side, but who really knows....

[flymac]

Re: landing problem. Your views please.

TO bad you cant make him wear his ass for a hat .

[Ron Greene]

Re: landing problem. Your views please.

A friend of mine sent the following story after we talked about this thread;

Oceano Airport (L52) had a serious campaign by homeowners trying to shut down operations about 10 years ago. All the normal efforts to compromise were unsuccessful. Finally an attorney pilot pointed out that if the airport was indeed causing a problem for the local homeowners, it might be necessary to notify the local board of realtors of the problem, because realtors are required by law to "disclose" any known pre-exiting faults in a property as a term of purchase. I'm sure you signed onto some of these same disclosures, such as prisons or earthquakes or airports in your area. All of this disclosure stuff came about so the realtors wouldn't get sued for hiding a defect during a sale. Naturally, such disclosures have a way of suppressing the value of a property and making it more difficult to sell. As you might imagine, local homeowners became far less vocal in their noise complaints when they realized that they might cause a damaging disclosure to be required on their property. And owners of rental properties moved to squelch complaints from their tenants for the same reason. Bottom line: no more complaints from the neighbors around the airport.

[ricky]

Re: landing problem. Your views please.

Hey gang,in Canada,there simular problem,beside my ame strip,
munipaslity was taken the airport too court,it turn out,at munipaity
only has right to 5 inches above ground,rest is dot,something to think about
Rick