This came completely as a surprise, not something that had been building for years. In fact, the guy has only lived there, with his daughter, for just over a year, and as I stated earlier, there have been absolutely no complaints for 20 years. We have not seen the police report, but I did call the sheriff's office earlier today and was told to call back after 6:30 this evening and I could talk to the officer who responded to the complaint. There were two officers there, one clearly in charge and the other obviously in training. I have the name of the one who was in charge. I want to find out what the guy's actual complaint is, but both times officers came out, they mentioned that they had a complaint about excessive noise. We have decided that this coming Sunday, one of us is going to go sit in the trailer park while one of the other guys flies a large gasser in a normal fashion and we will see if we are actually flying over his house. His house is northeast of the field and there is a grove of huge trees at that end of the field. The south end of the field is wide open pasture, and we almost always fly at that end of the field for the most part and land from that end of the field. It is much easier to approach over the pasture and settle in than to come over the trees at the north end of the field and be forced to suddenly drop from 75 feet or so up and hit the field. I assume the FAA is involved simply because he wrote them a letter and they, like any other law enforcement agency, must respond to a complaint. They have just recently assumed authority over model airplanes. I don't think it was meant to be that way.
The gentleman who owns the land also lives on the land and runs a thriving business on the land. He is absolutely furious with this guy but since he is a neighbor, he is trying to get along with him. We have even posted a large map at the field since the first incident indicating no fly zones and they include this guy's house. The guy who owns the land is very chummy with us, the flyers, and has no intention of shutting the field down to us. Ever. We, the flyers, are not a club. We used to be and were even AMA sanctioned, but several years ago, the AMA attempted to tell Jim, the owner of the land, what all he needed to do on the land to stay in good standing with the AMA and Jim decided we didn't need them. Jim and several of his friends fly powered parachutes and ultra light airplanes from this field and part of our agreement with Jim is that we keep the field looking nice. Even now, at the beginning of September, the field looks like a golf course. We keep a field 700 feet long and 150 feet wide mowed and manicured for Jim. There are no ruts, rocks or any rough places in it. You can land anywhere on it and not worry about the plane nosing over from ruts or rocks or an otherwise rough field. As well as being very chummy with us, Jim likes for the field to look like this. He has absolutely no intention of shutting it down.
Talking to the guy is simply impossible. He simply gets irate and starts screaming and threatening. Other than noise, we don't even know what his complaint is. And like the police said last night, they came in with their windows down while Perry was flying a big gasser, one of the loudest planes we ever fly, and they said they could barely hear it. When we are over his house, if we ever are, the plane has to be a minimum of 200 feet in the air or we would lose sight of it behind the grove of trees that is only 400 feet out from us. The plane can't possibly be that loud at that height. He simply made an ass of himself and is too stubborn to back down. My only concern is what he does when he realizes that he won't get anything done either by the local law enforcement or the FAA. He is a hot head and if he ever was really some branch of law enforcement, probably has guns. Everybody in Arkansas, I think, has guns. Where will this go?