jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I watch a lot of airplane videos on YouTube, and one thing that keeps coming up is noise abatement. Because of complaints by neighbors, planes have to fly less safely - using less power, taking a different route, or making sharp turns. There have been crashes because people near the airport don't like the noise. Several airports have "quiet times" when no planes can land or take off.

I'd like to know how the real estate agents managed to hide the fact that the houses were near an airport. I know that some airports started out small and got very large, but still. You buy a house near an airport, you expect to hear planes. Reduced noise isn't worth killing people.

I used to live on Long Island, not far from JFK and LaGuardia. Planes flew over all the time. There were also cars, trucks, and motorcycles. No big deal. Now that I'm in the Catskills, I hear and see military planes and helicopters flying low. Again, no big deal.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Some people.......

planepics Loc: St. Louis burbs, but originally Chicago burbs

I used to have an internship at Waukesha County Airport following graduation from SIUC with a BS in Aviation Management (I'm a part time school bus monitor, now - go figure). I was regularly fielding calls from neighbors complaining about one plane or another flying too low or making too much noise. Sometimes trying to explain the safety factors in picking one runway or another or what type of engine the plane had worked, but mostly it didn't appease their displeasure. In my better-funded working days, I used to fly small single-engine planes, but still keep my membership in EAA and Air and Space magazine. I think the most complaints came from a BAC-111 that a local car dealership owner had bought used from Hilton (nice, roomy, cushy interior). Loud and smoke-y and it couldn't take off with full fuel or it would be too heavy for the runway (or not have enough to get to flying speed).

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

When I was 6 we moved to an apartment in Inglewood CA right in the landing path for all planes landing at LAX. We got used to it but I'll never forget how noisy it was. We constantly had to stop in the middle of a conversation and wait for the noise to abate so that we could finish what we were saying.

Shellback Loc: North of Cheyenne Bottoms Wetlands - Kansas

When I was stationed at Moffett Field in Mountain View CA (1980 - 1986), new housing developments in San Jose were being built around the city airport (San Jose International) - the new residents wanted to shut down the airport because of the noise - it went to court - the developments had all their lawyers lined up and the manager of the airport walked in with no lawyers - the judge asked him where his legal team was - his asked the judge to explain the grandfather law to the developers - case was thrown out. Most common sense thing I had seen in a long time.

The airport was already involved noise reduction, in fact, the airport was one of the first in the country to participate in the noise regulation program enacted by the U.S. Congress for developing a pilot study of residential sound insulation. This program showed that homes near the airport could be retrofitted cost-effectively to reduce indoor aircraft noise substantially.

gsmith051 Loc: Fairfield Glade, TN

No problem Jerry. In a few years we’ll have electric power small planes.

ELNikkor

[quote=Shellback]When I was stationed at Moffett Field in Mountain View CA (1980 - 1986), new housing developments in San Jose were being built


I lived near Moffett Field in '66 (Palo Alto, near the Bayshore Expwy). We loved to see the planes take off and always heard them, night and day, but it never bothered us.

Amielee Loc: Eastern Washington State

I used to fly out of Reid Hillview in San Jose a few years before you were there. The FAA spent several million dollars upgrading RH then the developers came. Houses were built to the north and east of the airport and the County Supervisors wanted to close the Airport. The FAA said OK but you have to refund us the money we spent upgrading Reid Hillview. End of petition.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Cessna converted the popular 172 to electric years ago, but it never went into production.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Some airports (or maybe all of them) charge planes according to how much noise they make.

planepics Loc: St. Louis burbs, but originally Chicago burbs

I disagree with that assessment. I know some airports vary their landing fees depending on the weight or type of aircraft (perhaps for funding to maintain/repair a runway), but I'm unaware of any that assess penalties for loud planes. There ARE airports that have restrictions on when jets can use the runway (say after 10PM, for example) and some airports don't allow T/L between late night and early morning. Some older jets are banned from certain airports because their engines don't comply with noise requirements. At an airport I used to work at, one of the planes used for charter flights was one of the first Gulfstream business jets - 19-passenger and could be rented (pilot, flight attendant and food, included), for a mere $5k/hr. If it hasn't been re-engined or scrapped by now it would probably have been unable to use some airports for long because it was so loud and polluting. Pilots use reference manuals called (Airport Facility Directories) that would describe any noise abatement procedures, such as using a non-standard traffic pattern so they remain over an industrial area.

ELNikkor

Ok

nimbushopper Loc: Tampa, FL

It makes no sense to buy or build a house near an airport if you don't like airplanes! I'm from Long Island too(The cradle of aviation) and I was also stationed at Moffett NAS 50 years ago. We had an apartment in Mountain View and haven't been back there since, but I imagine how much it has been built up!

HamB

Western Long Island is in the flight path of LaGuardia and Kennedy airports.
In the past there was also Mitchell Field AFB and the Grumman airport.
Add in a few smaller fields (ie, Farmingdale)......

If you weren't hearing airplanes, you thought you had become deaf!!

whfowle Loc: Tampa first, now Albuquerque

It never made sense to me why anyone would buy a house near an airport if they didn't like the inevitable noise. Maybe because of my background in the Air Force, I never paid much attention to the noise. I was often within a mile or so of the test cells where engine runups were conducted during the night. The occasional takeoffs and landings were nothing compared to high powered fighter jet engines in full AB all night long.