RCU Forums - Is noise really the problem....?

Sounds a bit simplistic to me. I've seen too many cases of complaints filed against flyers and clubs for noise, EVEN WHEN FLYING RUBBER POWERED OR HAND LAUNCH GLIDERS!! We lost a flying site used for almost 3 years shielded from the nearest neighbors by over 700' of high trees and another 500' of open space. The complaining neighbor would see somebody enter the access drive, wait about 20 minutes, then call the sheriff! Even though the deputy who investigated the complaint on several occassions didn't find anybody flying or even running an engine, the club lost the site in less than 6 months, just because of the number of complaints filed! And the original complaint had nothing to do with noise! A friend of this neighbor wanted to ride her horse on the flying field itself, because it was so much smoother and clearer than the surounding border.

At our last field, during a short lived dispute over noise, I would show up at our field during lunch with a hand launched RC glider. Within 15 minutes, a police car would be stopped on the road to investigate. And believe me, a hand launced glider is a LOT quieter than any electric.

Intelligence prevailed in our case. Cost the club a couple thousand for field renovations, and we lost a couple hard cases by dropping the muffler requirement from anything over .35 to anything over .09, and upset a couple people who used to come out to fly before 9:00 AM, but, like I said, intelligence prevailed, we got to keep the field for about 6 more years until a developer bought it out, and the lost members were soon replaced by smarter ones. A couple of the hardcases unbelievably mended their ways.

P4F, I notice you edited out the previous comment about how you got a petition to get engine powered flying banned, and you were trying to teach the method. But I hope you understand that the probable result of something like this will eventually be to get ALL flying banned. Some negative people have a tendency when given an inch to stretch it to a mile. Many of our local Metroparks won't allow a kid to fly one of those cheap North Pacific or Guillows gliders because of similar happenings.

Some years ago, an Australian wrote an editorial in MAN about complaints his club was getting about noise. Flying site was almost a mile from the nearest neighbor. This was in the days when mufflers were just becoming accepted. One of the people he talked to had to shut off his lawn mower to talk. He was complaining about the sound of the planes that could be seen at the site, which apprently was across a small valley. However, the person got mad when it was pointed out that the sound was being drowned out by other mowers being run in the neighborhood. When those mowers were off, the noise was drowned out by local traffic, and even the wind.

Much of the objection to the noise has nothing to do with the noise itself. Just the perception of noise, even when it isn't there, is enough to set some people off.

Someone once wrote that the source of the complaints wasn't the noise, but rather that we were engaged in a fun, delightful, harmless and positive activity instead of vegetating around a TV wasteland or some other "Acceptable" spectator activity.