Advocates sharply disagree on solutions to airplane noise

This is an important topic for those of us experiencing the increase in jet/airplane noise. The above article is also posted at Palo Alto Weekly Online. There are 34 comments following the article. Several are quite informative.

Meant to include the link to their town square: Web Link

"deafening noise"? Seriously? Hyperbolic much?

Congress members are deflecting responsibility. Congress passed legislation in 2012, FAA Modernization and Reform Act, that permitted the FAA to implement NextGen procedures without any regard to their impact on humans and the environment. The Wake Recategorization or Wake Recat procedure is the key to our misery. Aircraft are brought low into denser air so they can be flown slower and closer together resulting in the skies above communities near and far from airports having been taken over as arrival and departure queues. And if there are new concentrated flight paths, don't confuse that with fewer concentrated flights paths. These concentrated flight paths are proliferating as the goals to date that Congress, the FAA, and aviation industry are primarily concerned about are more and more flights, increasing capacity endlessly, and quicker frequency of arrivals and departures, increasing efficiency. Human health and the environment are being sacrificed for the goals and for an abstract term, the economy. What economy really means with NextGen procedures is industry profits and elected officials who ensure those profits keeping their political office. What it means for citizens is committees, roundtables, task forces, noise studies, noise complaints, initiatives, reports, surveys, and so on until citizens are worn down into silence and acquiesce to the air, noise, and visual pollution of 24/7 low altitude aircraft all over our skies. Furthermore, the ultimate strategy of elected officials, FAA representatives, and this industry is to pit groups against each other, make them fight each other for non-solutions, crumbs, and discredit themselves in the process and then say, Well, sorry but we don't seem to be able to come up with a regional solution. And yet they rig it from the start by telling different groups to come up with solutions.

Groups must stand together and not get played liked this. The industry has the money and too many officials are bought. But we have numbers and when we use the power of those numbers we can't be stopped. This is not the last opportunity to be heard. It's just the last of the Select Committee on South Bay Arrivals meetings which have been limited in scope and duration. It is not a solution for, in FAA speak, the NorCal Metroplex. Keep fighting, together!

Maryland Congressman Chris Van Hollen and County Executive Isiah Leggett July 13, 2016 letter to FAA Administrator Michael Huerta is the strongest one yet. Here's the link to the letter

Web Link

We need more elected officials to step up like this... Then hopefully we'll see more action to stop the suffering and less talk and studies and data collection ad nauseam. In short, no more stalling tactics. Do the right thing and put people before profits!

Asking the FAA to go back to the way things were is a very bad idea. There is more traffic now and using the old patterns will create even more ground level noise.

PLEASE let's get everyone to advocate a "FAITH and ANETE at 7000 ft as the ONLY acceptable approach to SFO.

Web Link


1 - All SFO inbound traffic from the North and the East must use the RNAV (GPS) X RWY 28R approach and must enter that approach at the ANETE Initial Approach Fix (IAF) for which the minimum crossing altitude is 7000 ft

Alternatively these aircraft could us the ILS or LOC RWY 28R approach and must enter at ARCHI IAF for which the minimum crossing altitude is 7000 ft,

2 - All SFO inbound traffic from the South and the West must use the RNAV (GPS) X RWY 28L approach and must enter that approach at the Faith IAF which has a minimum crossing altitude of 7000 ft.

Entry to this approach via MENLO intersection would not be permitted.

Alternatively these aircraft could us the ILS or LOC RWY 28L approach and must enter at the FAITH IAF for which the minimum crossing altitude is 7000 ft

Entry to this approach via MENLO intersection would not be permitted.

3 - SFO and SJC must be landing in the same direction unless the wind differential between them is greater than 1o knots.

This proposal uses existing and established waypoints and procedures and does not impinge on the SJC airspace.

See Palo Alto Online's article by this title which has over 200 comments

Web Link