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from the and-on-the-left-side-of-the-plane-you-will-see-a-launch-of-the... dept.
The Billionaire Space Race Is Making Life Difficult for Airlines
On Feb. 6, Elon Musk's SpaceX launched its largest rocket into the blue Florida sky. Onboard was "Starman," a dummy strapped into the billionaire's cherry red Tesla roadster. Minutes later, fans cheered as Musk topped himself by nailing a simultaneous landing of the Falcon Heavy's boosters. It was arguably a turning point for the commercial space age.
Airlines were somewhat less thrilled. On that day, 563 flights were delayed and 62 extra miles added to flights in the southeast region of the U.S., according to Federal Aviation Administration data released Tuesday by the Air Line Pilots Association, or ALPA.
America's airspace is a finite resource, and the growth of commercial launches has U.S. airlines worried. Whenever Musk or one of his rivals sends up a spacecraft, the carriers which operate closer to the ground must avoid large swaths of territory and incur sizable expenses.
Most of the commercial activity to date has been focused on Cape Canaveral, the Air Force post on Florida's Atlantic coast, where Musk's Space Exploration Technologies Corp. and Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin LLC base their stellar operations. It is one of 22 active U.S. launch sites, and a number of other locales—including Brownsville, Texas; Watkins, Colorado; and Camden County, Georgia—are pursuing new spaceport ventures to capitalize on commercial space activity.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Sunday July 01 2018, @08:13AM (2 children)
Aircraft noise...don't get me started. There's some group that likes to fly old-fashioned acrobatic planes. It comes and it goes, but when they are having a practice day, it is so noisy that you have close all the windows, and you still can't concentrate worth a damn.
Switzerland even has a rule that you cannot do noisy things on Sundays. Today is Sunday, and it is blessedly peaceful out there. Today, anyway, but these nitwits often also practice on Sundays. I wrote to the responsible air traffic office, and they wrote back that aircraft are exempt from noise regulations. And I should please be supportive of this lovely and unusual hobby.
WTF? I can't run my chainsaw on a Sunday, which might be audible to 20 or even 50 people in the immediate neighborhood. That's actually fine, I have no problem with that. You have no idea how nice it is to have a quiet day. Right now I can't hear anything but birds and the occasional car driving by. But next Sunday, likely as not someone will fly acrobatics, easily audible to - back of the envelope - 50,000 to 100,000 people? I want a flak cannon.
/rant
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Sunday July 01 2018, @08:24AM
I think the problem is the people who own those hobby planes are rich enough to buy off the politicians.
This is one of the foibles I see in a representative form of government.
If their enjoyment also annoys another, the one who is being annoyed should be dealt with, not the politician, who does not have to personally accept the annoyment, but reaps the benefit of payment to commit someone else to tolerate it.
I believe it should be a citywide vote on it if a few people want to do something that annoys everyone else. It would sure make everyone whose enjoyment of something be respectful for those he is treading on.
I hate the fact that my concerns can be sold off by the whore representing me.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 3, Informative) by morpheus on Sunday July 01 2018, @12:46PM
If they are flying something like T-6 Texans: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-6_Texan [wikipedia.org] it can indeed get quite noisy. The best way to handle this is to actually talk to the people in the group. The guys flying these planes are usually pretty nice and do not want to give a bad impression about aviation to the community. They are likely flying over the airport in what is known as an 'aerobatic box' since the regulations prohibit them from doing aerobatics over densely populated areas (and the FAA stated that any subdivision counts as such) but the noise carries. The office responsible for handling this (and issuing the box warning or NOTAM) is not the air traffic control (the local ARTCC I presume) but the district FAA office, or FSDO. They may put some restrictions on the box issuance taking the noise considerations into account if the locals make good arguments (and quiet Sundays sure sounds like one).
On the other hand, this is a lovely and unusual hobby and private aviation in the US is already under a lot of restrictions these days. Not all of these guys are rich assholes (not even a majority) so the best way to handle this is to go to the local airport and explain your concerns to them. I am sure they will be understanding. If not you can go the FSDO route.