Fed up with a change in flight patterns that made them sleep in bed at night with earplugs, one Philly couple decided to paint “FUCK YOU FAA. NO FLY ZONE” and a symbol for “no planes” on the top of their roof. Note: in real life, it says “fuck” but the newspaper photoshopped it to just say “FU.” Homeowner Michael Hall said they had tried to lodge complaints with the FAA noise-complaint hotline over 20 times, but whenever they called, an answering machines would apologize for not being able to take their message as the mailbox was full.
“I wanted to have little things that were shooting the plane down, but my girlfriend thought I would get arrested, so I settled for the picture that’s up there,” Hall said. We applaud Mr. Hall’s creative solution to getting his voice heard.
Fed up with jet noise, couple raise the roof [Philly.com] (Thanks to Rachel!)
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The town that the homeowner is in is 8 miles from the airport. And the airport is adjacent to a medium-sized city. How can you expect people to vacate a 10 mile radius of that airport?
Furthermore, when the homeowner bought the house, the flight paths didn’t transverse his house. It’s not like his house is at the end of the runway. So the HUD-1 probably didn’t identify him as being near an airport. I don’t think the “you knew you were moving next to an airport” argument is valid.
@bearymore:
That wouldn’t be Republic Arpt on Long Island, would it? The list of airports that opened in 1926 and are within distance of yuppies is probably pretty short.
He should have gone high-brow and painted a detour sign instead.
I have only one thing to say about this, unless the airport was built after you bought the house you are living in, then they need to shut up and deal with it. Its called thinking, you buy a house near an airport you are going to deal with noise.
Now if he was there before the airport was build then I give him kudos and wish him well on his fight. The again, just as the oil companies have our Govt in their pocket, he is not going to go anywere because the airline companies have a leash on our govt.
So why’d they use photoshop to alter that image? Can’t they just use PaintBrush to cover up the word?
Reminds me of Harry Potter where they can’t say “his” name. Stupid Philly papers.
@kelptocratic:
[www.youtube.com]
@jimv2000: You’re right. I grew up near an Air Force base and became so accustomed to it that I rarely notice airplane noise.
As for the guy with the roof: Dem planes gots to fly sumwhere. Stop crying. I suppose the “good for him” commenters never fly (or at least don’t realize that planes travel over other people’s homes).
@citking:
Thanks for chiming in, Mister Blame-the-victim:
Move? The whole city should be at the whim of airport?
The airport in my town was here before me, but if they change the approach routes to over my house, you bet I’m going to complain and complain big.
@ywgflyer: Imagine having to get permission of every private homeowner between the airport you take off from and the one you land at. That’s what it sounds like those “Stop the Noise” people are hoping for.
I grew up in a house that was next door to a sawmill and across the street from railroad tracks. I can pretty much sleep through anything.
My friend lives right under, and I mean DIRECTLY right under the flight path. It’s surprising how you get use to it. I live right near LGA myself, and the noise never really bothered me. Although, I live in such a way that we can’t EVER be under the flight path, due to LGA’s unique and scary runway system!
If I was the station director over there at Fox29, I would fire whoever photoshopped that image. Yes, it is noted as altered, but that is just not acceptable behavior in a “news” organization.
@Landru: Thanks for chiming in, Mister NIMBY.
I used to live near an air force base (MacDill, in Tampa), and now I live right near Dulles Airport. You definitely get used to the jet noise. Occasionally in Tampa we’d hear sonic booms from the fighters; that was much less easy to ignore.
@Landru:
And you would definitely have the right to do so, although the FAA is an interesting agency unlike no other in the US. The FAA is unique in that it is supposed to protect the American public from air related problems, but at the same time it receives moneys from the air industry to promote the air industry. So, there’s sort of a problem there, because who do you think has more power over the FAA? My guess is that they’re more (read: always) likely to listen to the group that is giving them the most money, public interest be damned.
By the way, for all you “blame the victim” idiots out there who suggest that they should move because the aiport was there before them: sorry to burst your bubble, but that doesn’t matter at all. Whenever a change as major as approach routes is made at an airport, a noise study is required by law. Unfortunately, as outlined above, the FAA could give two shits about the results and will likely find a loophole or manipulate data to avoid having to mitigate the noise, buy the owner out, or scrap the plan.
As an acoustical engineer, I work on similar projects to this frequently, but more often involving highway redesigns where I design noise barriers. Just as frequently, it is in the state DOT’s best interest not to have to provide a noise barrier. However, being the good guy that I am, I often try to find loopholes in the state DOT’s policy to protect people. I don’t think it’s very fair to widen a 2 lane highway to 4 lanes and expect people to deal with it or move because the noise increases to levels that they’re not used to, do you? That’s why there is language in these policies that will say something like “impact level is 66, but residents affected by an increase of 10 decibels or more shall be considered impacted as well. Special consideration given to residents affected by an increase of 20 decibels are considered severely impacted and must be dealt with on a case by case basis.”
The takeoff path from the San Diego airport is over a densely populated area. I’ve read the airport spent years soundproofing houses, including something like 2″ thick windows. A LOT of houses, like ten thousand or something. Surely if an airport for airplanes that loud is going to change their flight path (too bad so many people didn’t read closely enough to see it was a change) they can do something to cure the impact on a couple of people. And yeah a newspaper’s going to make their picture suitable for publishing, but making it look unedited is confusing, to put it nicely.
Oh and hats off to the girlfriend, of COURSE he’d be charged with making a terrorist threat or something.
@p41:
Yeah, there are lots of ways to mitigate the noise in this situation, including upgrading the houses with insulation, acoustical windows, etc. However, there’s really not a whole lot you can do for those really low frequencies that rumble you and shake stuff from your walls. Additionally, doing any of those things requires money, and quite a bit of it. Normally, retrofitting a house is the LAST option that they want to pursue because it’s incredibly expensive. Unfortunately, it’s one of the only options for air related noise, so the FAA will ask the firms that prepare the environmental impact report to change this or that to make it so the homes do not qualify for mitigation.
In this type of situation the thing to do is for the neighborhood to get together, get an attorney, find an expert in INM (the model they use for aircraft noise), and debunk the EIR. But no matter what, they’re looking at at least a couple of years to even get considered for mitigation… and only if they succeed.
Seems to me (and the article suggests it as well) like the EIR was crap and/or manipulated to appease the FAA, as seems to be the norm. Hopefully it wasn’t our boys (and girls) that did the study…
@tk427: [www.urbandictionary.com]
“For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge”: an acronym coined when a seaman was dischaeged for going a shore and having sex “fornicating”. Ships logs show discharge for unlawful carnal knowlege which gave way to the acronym f.u.c.k.
“Fornification Under Consent of King”: Used in England during the 15th century to denote having permission to have sex. It was implemented in an attempt to slow down the population growth, as the number of people living in England at the time was quickly approaching the limit that the country could support.
I lived near JFK for years before I moved, and eventually you adapt to ignore the noise; so much so that I’ve had a “something is off” feeling in the absence of that noise and difficulty sleeping until I “reset” the other way.
That said, I think it’s great that he’s expressing his displeasure.
@mercurypdx:
When I first moved to an apt near Clark and Division on Chicago, I was so pissed off at the incredible amount of noise at ALL hours of the day and night and I don’t think I slept for the first 2 months there. After that, I totally adjusted and slept through anything and everything.
Then, I moved back to Tucson for a week, and I couldn’t sleep there because of the eery quiet! It was so annoying NOT hearing people breaking bottles and yelling at 4am suddenly.
Then I moved to San Diego when I got a job here, and I think I’m at a nice middle ground, where sometimes the neighbors are noisy bastards and overhead flights from the AFB are rumbling along, and sometimes it’s so quiet I can hear practically hear the blood circulating in my veins (joking of course, that only happens in real anechoic chambers at like 15 dB or something).
@joemono: I’m pretty sure punching Anne in the face is also against township ordinances. Perhaps you could simply send her a strongly worded letter, of course making sure that she doesn’t feel offended in any way.
Good, the FAA is finally doing something about old ass airways. Now if they could just implement free flight and get the new ATC system going… and if the busiest airports could get more parallel runways we’d be set.
Airport noise is such a fun topic… so much emotion!
I cannot believe all of the people on here with the blame the victim mentality, I say good for them for standing up to the FAA.
There is an airport north of where I live, and the damn helicopters seem to love to change flight patterns every so often. So in the middle of the night you think a helicopter is landing on your roof. Complaining to the mayor and the town is a lot more fruitful than the FAA.
@alphawolf
I’m guessing that helicopters fly by visual flight rules, not air-traffic control.
MERCURYPDX: check snopes
Im not going to show this guy any sympathy.
I live in Tempe, AZ right under the eastern flight path for PHX.
I bet these people don’t mind airplane noise when they are flying away on vacation. All I can say is deal with it. Aviation is an important part of society in our modern world, and it is going to require less restrictions as our airspace system gets increasingly crowded. And believe it or not, most modern jet aircraft are pretty damn quiet as compared to older aircraft. If you don’t like it and don’t want to hear it, then move into the country far away from any airports.
If someone shifted the flightpaths for night flights over my house, to the extent I was unable to sleep… I would get in *so* much trouble for this, I bet, but I own an old copy of Jane’s Weapon Systems (1977 edition) that includes data on Soviet missile targeting radar systems, including enough data to build something close enough to make cockpit warning systems go off, using parts from Radio Shack. Put one in the backyard, aimed straight up. Fun to think about…