Don’t say that to my aero-medical examiner (hello Dr. D), but I’m schyzophrenic, with a double personality. On one side, I’m a private pilot, and on the other side I’m an airport neighboor – hey, who said the dark side ?

When we were leaving in Geneva, our address was something like “ILS Runway 23, 2 miles final, slightly north of the localizer, ground level”. Now, depending on how Frankfurt airport is operating, we are under downind, or base. I’m probably one of the seldom airport neighboors enjoying being one…

Saying that tensions do exist between airport user and airport neighboors is slightly below the truth. Some neigboors associations achieved to turn themselves in powerful lobbies and play serious roles when it comes to defining airport operating procedures and rules.

These groups try to restrict traffic for various reasons, mostly noise, which I can understand. Most airports have neighboors really close-by, and this is the true source of the problem (click here to read more about it), but this won’t be solved easily nor rapidly.

Needless to say, general and light aviation is the easier target for these group, as they see our activity as “leisure” and don’t perceive the economical benefits, non-talking about the educational aspect. I already posted about how to explain what flying brings to the community here, and there. However there is more than talking – as pilots we can take some actions to make the live of our friends (you know, the airport neighboors) better.

1. Fly high – The higher we fly, the lower the noise. As far as airport restrictions and safe descent management permits, we should not fly low over crowded areas.
2. Fly continuous descents – Flying approaches as continuous descents allows for lower power setting, thus reducing noise. Combined with tip number one, it also lowers our fuel consumption.
3. Respect published flying procedures – This can seem obvious, but when it comes to noise management, procedure design is one of the best tools. The location of circuit patterns and VRPs are not dicted (solely) by luck. If there are no safety concerns, fly as published.
4. Respect published airport procedures – What is good in the air is also good on ground. For very close neighboors, the worst phases of our activity are take-off (very noisy) and run-up checks (noisy). We should always make sure that we do the run-up at the proper place on the airport, and position the plane to minimise noise in direction of neighboors. Here again, as long as there are no safety concerns, keep run-ups as short as possible.

Last but not least, use common sense. In Switzerland, there are many restrictions regarding flying on Saturdays afternoons and Sundays. This can range from no circuits, to no flying at all, depending the places. If you’re in a country where you can fly more freely, the swiss-case can teach you something.

Do you REALLY need to fly circuits, on a Sunday morning, at 7 am ? Can’t you fly something different, possibly not over a populated or touristic area ? And please, don’t tell me you fly that… just because you can.

My point is not to ban Sunday morning flying (nor any other kind of flying), but to remind you, fellow pilots, that it’s up to us to make our cohabitation with airport neighboors as good as possible. If we fail at doing that, the we’ll see more and more restrictive regulations… including swiss-like Sunday morning bans.

PS: Did I mention that TDI engines are less noisy ?