RAF Benson, sshhhh! [Archive]

4mastacker

6th Sep 2014, 18:36

Wander 00 wrote:

Only one question - was Benson an operational airfield when he moved to Chalgrove? If so, his choice. - P1ss off!

Wittering was an operational airfield when a farmer moved into his house and then later complained about the noise from the Harriers. The farmer won. £1m payout over country house idyll ruined by the scream of Harrier jets (http://www.richardbuxton.co.uk/v3.0/node/242)

tmmorris

6th Sep 2014, 18:52

Time to revive the rumour that Benson is closing. That usually shuts the locals up when they realise the effect on shops, banks, schools &c

smujsmith

6th Sep 2014, 18:56

I'm sure that it would not be too difficult to include location and noise information for local airfields in any "search documentation", when house purchase happens. Such a clear statement in the documentation would surely lead to the failure of any claims such as the farmer mentioned by 4maststacker ? I well remember when many MQs at Lyneham were put up for auction, whilst the Station was still an active flying unit. I also remember the "shock horror" of some of the new "investors in the properties" when Albert became audible. Luckily, as I recall, most purchasers were serving personnel, who accepted the "background" noise.

Smudge:ok:

Herod

6th Sep 2014, 19:21

I recall a news article a few years back where a chap was complaining of the noise at Leeds Bradford airport. As he was talking, a landing aircraft flew over. "Now you can hear what a terrible noise it makes...etc" The camera turned to the aircraft, and followed it. Just after the overflight, you could see the approach lights virtually in the chap's garden. I suppose a question along the lines of "what are those lights in the next field?" would have been beyond him.

chinook240

6th Sep 2014, 19:27

Hopefully Mr Etchells won't find out about the plan to base the UKs stealth helo at Benson http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/4801504.New_helicopters_order_secures_RAF_Benson_s_future/

Bill Macgillivray

6th Sep 2014, 19:46

RAF Benson, Brize Norton etc. etc. Surely the 'problem'with aircraft noise has been around since the airfields were built. (Granted the dbs. have varied over the years). Point is, if you buy near an airfield and then find it to be noisy, surely you should sue the estate agent and/or solicitor for not making you aware of the 'problem'. Maybe I am living in the wrong era!!

Per Ardua Ad Astra!

TheWizard

6th Sep 2014, 19:47

Mr Etchells might have a bit more to moan about in 12-18 months time!!:rolleyes:

nutnurse

6th Sep 2014, 19:55

Someone seems to be letting loose a lot of hot air. Surely the Council has a responsibility to prosecute him for environmental pollution. And how about serving a Noise Abatement Order on his mouth?

Basil

6th Sep 2014, 20:50

I was enjoying a glass or two of Prosecco (can't afford Champers) in the garden with Mrs Bas this evening when a dreadful noise split the air as some chap (or chapess) riding in something like a CAP10 on steroids proceeded to fling themself around the luft in a most skilful manner such that I was forced to telephone the local airfield to complain that they had not continued their cavortations for long enough :ok:
Thanks, WW (Suspect you were the guilty origin). Made an old ex RAF Benson guy's day.

NutLoose

6th Sep 2014, 21:43

Tell them it's being looked at as a re site for Boris's London airport.

Unfortunately I rarely get to hear the noise of fighters screaming overhead, might be to do with living on the side of an airport approach.

lmgaylard

6th Sep 2014, 22:01

This reminds me of a couple of stories from Yeovilton Village;

About 10 years ago a chap moved into Yeovilton Village and only a fews day later he started to complain to the PRO at RNAS Yeovilton about the noise.
These complaints carried on and he began to threaten leagal action. So Yeovilton PRO went to visit this chap to discuss the problems and any suitable ways to ease the noise.
On entering the chaps house the PRO creeted him and asked his name to which he replied ''I'm Captain Jack, ex Royal Navy'' !! Obviously not his real name...

Earlier in the year I got talking to a new resident of the village who had recently moved down from Manchester. He told me that he and his wife were gobsmacked to find an active military airbase right on his door step.
When he had previously viewed the property he would meet the estate agent in Yeovil and always on a Saturday. The estate agent, instead of driving the main route to the village through Ilchester, would drive to the village along the back roads. This route takes you into the rear of the village and nowhere where you can actually see the airfield.
So, they bought the property and moved down on a Saturday. Early on the Monday morning the wife was woken by the loud sound of a low flying helicopter, this was followed by another and another. Thinking this was a bit strange the couple decided to take a walk and follow the noise. As they went past the memorial church and turned the corner they could not believe their eyes; an active military airfield!
Apparently the couple sued the estate agent and won and got a hefty financial compensation package.
They still live in the village and the wife has recently bought a camera to photograph the aircraft.....

Senior Paper Monitor

6th Sep 2014, 22:03

Draw a straight line from Cholsey to Benson and there I sit (work from home - so pretty much 24/7) about a third of the distance from the airfield that he is.

WTF is he on about ?????????

We occasionally get our widows rattled by a low, slow flying Chinook or Puma - impact on our lives minimal (even when on night training). Have never heard anyone around hear complain about any aspect of their operations.

NutLoose

6th Sep 2014, 22:19

About 10 years ago a chap moved into Yeovilton Village and only a fews day later he started to complain to the PRO at RNAS Yeovilton about the noise.
These complaints carried on and he becan to threaten leagal action. So Yeovilton PRO went to visit this chap to discuss the problems and any suitable ways to ease the noise.
On entering the chaps house the PRO creeted him and asked his name to which he replied ''I'm Captain Jack, ex Royal Navy'' !! Obviously not his real name...

The main protagonist that used to complain about the noise at EGNX was the retired SATCO from ermmmmmm EGNX who had bought a house whilst being the SATCO in the adjoining village!

http://www.pprune.org/jet-blast/284534-retired-air-traffic-controller-complains-about-airports-noise.html

Fonsini

6th Sep 2014, 23:20

England is chronically overcrowded, official statistics not just my opinion - highest population density of any country in Europe.

England is officially Europe's most densely packed major country | Mail Online (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2530125/This-worryingly-crowded-isle-England-officially-Europes-densely-packed-country.html)

Overcrowded countries and low flying do not good bedfellows make.

There just isn't the space any more - not that anyone seems to be doing much about it. Apologies for the rant but this is a bit of a Hobby Horse for me as it was the main reason I felt it necessary to emigrate. Tiny houses and too many bloody people.

AOJM

7th Sep 2014, 00:11

Consider a move to an alternative country if you can't handle your owns military training..

Such a pathetic use of a FOI request. Assisting DC in wasting valuable tax :D

Heathrow Harry

7th Sep 2014, 07:53

TBH Benson HAS been very quite for the last few years after the Queens Flight moved out - the odd helicopter, some training, the Air Ambulance etc

But if you go any distance out of the village you are under LHR traffic or Brize activity or ................

ridiculous complaint from the sort of people who would also complain if the place closed as it "would rip the heart out of the village/shops/jobs/schools etc etc etc"

Al R

7th Sep 2014, 08:19

Pumas aren’t odd.. are they? :eek:

I noticed that the author has just retired and has probably got more time of his hands these days.. I notice too, he uses ‘we’ when complaining to the ‘right to have peace and quiet’, I’m assuming he has the backing of the village then, which has presumably only just woken up to the clatter. He’s a bit of an accomplished photog as well. I wonder if he bothered as much about the impact of his footprint on the Masai Mara as he does, the SH Force on his back garden.

I don’t think we can simply use the Defence of the Realm card as the joker to any objection (driving our sqn armour back in convoy from Salisbury Plain through the narrow streets of Devizes at 0230 was a bit of a chuckle). But whenever someone tries to pre-empt an objection to asinine behaviour by suggesting ‘I’m a firm supporter of our Armed Forces I'll have you know, but..’ and then seeks to undermine their right to train properly and have a better chance of coming back in one piece, it’s a bit like a closet racist seeking to evade recognition of the fact by saying ‘Ha! I’ll have you know that a lot of my friends are black’.

teeteringhead

7th Sep 2014, 12:20

The main protagonist that used to complain about the noise at EGNX was the retired SATCO from ermmmmmm EGNX who had bought a house whilst being the SATCO in the adjoining village! Had similar at EGOS few years ago .....

...... wasn't an ex-SATCO, but was an Air Trafficker - who should have been kind of familiar with what went on! :ugh:

Basil

7th Sep 2014, 13:36

When I was an ATCO at Wyton, the noise from the PR Victors used to emanate from the fireplace in our double-glazed house.

chevvron

7th Sep 2014, 15:40

Wonder if the OP has also complained about the noisy Meteor which operates at Chalgrove, often accompanied by load bangs or the whoosh of a rocket.
Several years ago, the Fulham Football Club forum recounted a tale by a supporter who lived close to the ground. He answered his door one evening to a well spoken lady who asked him to sign a petition to get the football ground closed. She and her husband had bought a one and a quarter million pound house near the ground in june/july and had moved in claiming not to know the was a football stadium there. It's only been there since 1879; you would have thought they'd asked the estate agent what the floodlight towers were for!

Old-Duffer

7th Sep 2014, 15:44

One day in 1967, when SDO at RAF Kai Tak, I took a phone call from a lady living at Clearwater Bay. She was complaining about the noise of the visiting 20 Sqn Hunters as they did some gentle rocketing on the nearby range. I explained the situation, need for training, noise only occasionally and a few other bits but the lady was unconvinced and talked about not moving had she known about the range.

Her final comment was: '....now I and my family are living here, you should move the range elsewhere'.

O-D

The Helpful Stacker

7th Sep 2014, 16:22

Whilst on exercise at the former RAF Finningley, before it became 'Robin Hood International', we were contacted by the civvy security about a complaint from a local about the noise the Chinooks and Hercs were making.

Being the 'non-sneaky beaky' folks on the exercise I and my boss were dispatched to follow up the complaint. Arriving at the complainants ex-OMQ what sign was in the window? "Support Doncaster International Airport".

:ugh:

Gerontocrat

7th Sep 2014, 17:51

When the Turkish invasion of Cyprus kicked off in July 74, I was a SLOJO at Brize. At the time, the runway was closed for repairs, so the evacuation flights came into Fairford.
Once the repairs were finished, normal business resumed, resulting in a greatly increased number of flights passing over Witney at a lower level.
As a result the Witney residents' association sent in a complaint and I was tasked to entertain a couple of representatives to dinner in the Officers' Mess to discuss the problem.
I asked the mess manager to kindly reserve a table next to a window at one end of the dining room - roughly (it always seemed to me) opposite that point on the runway at which the fully-laden VC-10s were at max chat as they rose gracefully into the sky. Conversely, again as it seemed to me, on landing, reverse gear was,apparently, fully engaged. Suffice to say windows rattled!
The meal proceeded well - punctuated at regular intervals by moments of silence enforced by the passage - in or outbound - of an aircraft. My guests were impressed!
I then suggested we took coffee and carried on our conversation in my room, which was also on the runway side of the Mess.
At the end of the evening, having thanked, etc., they commented that what they had to put up with in Witney was as nothing compared to what those who actually lived and worked at Brize had to live with.
Staish was, apparently, happy to receive a letter from the burghers of Witney, indicating no further action would be taken, well done chaps and chappesses, keep up the good work!

ShotOne

7th Sep 2014, 17:52

Sadly the noise complaint bandwagon has become a profitable industry. If it's any consolation, civilian airports get ripped off even more. Many of the complaints are simple extortion; if there's enough of them, they get paid off. A few years back complaints at Manchester doubled. It turned out that half of them, nearly 1,800 complaints were made by just three individuals, one of whom was an ex pilot.

smujsmith

7th Sep 2014, 18:20

I did a tour at Machrihanish in the early 80s as SNCO I/c VASS, and often got to meet Mr Mac:

http://i1292.photobucket.com/albums/b572/smujsmith/ab6802adff5a90c2ee93e93d4f7901aa_zpsb49ae7c9.jpg

As we had a commitment to support NATO P3 and Nimrods on anti sub ops, our exercises often covered long hours. My boss, a Warrant Officer, was Duty officer one evening when Macca's house (over the back of Ranachan Hill). Was given a dose of Searchlight from a VP5 P3, he was not amused. My boss asked him when he phoned if he had had the same problem with the Swordfish aircraft based there in the 1940s. The phone went dead, say no more. Even in those days, light pollution was a problem , it seems!

Smudge:ok:

Valiantone

7th Sep 2014, 21:47

On the subject of noise, given that they are about to rip the runway up in sections at my local in deepest Lincolnshire and rebuild it. I am going to suffer from a lack of noise.

Can we get some based stuff to overfly it regularly just so they remind the locals they are still around:E

On the plus side the ACPV moving down the road might be more fun

V1

dkh51250

7th Sep 2014, 21:47

Or, the lady from Heighington, who wrote to the Lincolnshire Echo to ask if there was any truth in the rumour that Waddington Vulcans having their engines tested, were mounted on a turntable, to ensure equal distribution of noise amongst all the local villages.

ValMORNA

8th Sep 2014, 20:25

FWIW, my wife, living in AMQ at Finningley while I was stationed at Worksop, said she enjoyed seeing and hearing the Vulcans taking off and landing. Once heard, never forgotten!

NutLoose

8th Sep 2014, 22:20

Didn't some developer knock up a whole bunch of houses on some land he owned on the approach to one of the Scottish bases whilst the runway was being resurfaced, they were all sold off before the runway was finished and those enquiring about jet noise were told can you hear any? :E

Senior Paper Monitor

10th Sep 2014, 16:08

Since 'picking up on this thread' (#16) on Saturday I have been assiduously studying the heavens to collect data for the assistance of the doughty Mr Etchells in his campaign.

It is now 4 o'clock ish on Wednesday and the log for the period reads

Sunday - one Cessna thingy (152/172 ish) at c 1500 ft climbing in a southerly direction, spotted out of living room front window (audible when next door shut off lawn mower).

Tuesday - one Puma thingy heading southerly at c 1000ft, spotted out of living room back window and making noise equivalent to passing lorry (and I live on a 1/2 acre plot surrounded by trees/hedges which hide most traffic noise).

Tuesday - two west to East contrails in late evening

The close Benson campaign is gathering speed !!

thing

10th Sep 2014, 16:23

On the subject of noise, given that they are about to rip the runway up in sections at my local in deepest Lincolnshire and rebuild it. I am going to suffer from a lack of noise.

Not quite, we spamcanners will still be buzzing around.

geniculate

10th Sep 2014, 16:33

If someone had an issue with airfield noise having moved in to a new house, surely they should be claiming from their solicitor for not noticing a huge airfield in the local searches. After all, that is what they pay the for!

Hobo

10th Sep 2014, 17:20

Only one question - was Benson an operational airfield when he moved to Chalgrove? If so, his choice. - P1ss off!

The fact that complainers 'came to the nuisance' is no defence to those committing it.

See Miller V Jackson (http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/1977/6.html&query=title+(+miller+)+and+title+(+v+)+and+title+(+jackson+)&method=boolean).

The Supreme Court in Feb 2014 (Coventry v Lawrence (http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/uk/cases/UKSC/2014/13.html&query=title+(+coventry+)+and+title+(+v+)+and+title+(+lawrenc e+)&method=boolean)) declined to overturn this rule, accepted for over 180 years, that it is no defence to say that the claimant came to the nuisance.

Al R

10th Sep 2014, 17:39

ValMORNA: FWIW, my wife, living in AMQ at Finningley while I was stationed at Worksop, said she enjoyed seeing and hearing the Vulcans taking off and landing. Once heard, never forgotten!

What about the Vulcans? :E

Al R

10th Sep 2014, 17:50

The judges then used to have a far finer grasp of language, far more common sense in evidence. I hope this bloke isn't aware of the change and is setting the sce.. hang on, I hope he wasn't but has now read this thread. :ooh:

So on the facts of this case a court of equity must seek to strike a fair balance between the right of the Plaintiffs to have quiet enjoyment of their house and garden without exposure to cricket balls occasionally falling like thunderbolts from the heavens.

BEagle

10th Sep 2014, 18:12

Some years ago, in addition to my 'day job' flying, I also ran a very busy RAFFCA flying club.

Now and again we'd receive the odd complaint about our little puddlejumpers pottering about in the circuit. Which was a bit odd, given that the noise of a PA28 is rather less than that of a VC10 (that's given the game away!).

One local lady was a horse-ist, whose enquiries were always friendly and polite, so we did our best to avoid annoyance to her several hundred kilograms of walking Kennomeat, for which she was gracious enough to thank me. But one moaner in the local town was not so pleasant - he whinged to the mayor and we received her official correspondence....

..which was epic! She wrote that she loved the friendly sound of our little aeroplanes over her house and would hate to see us changing our circuit pattern. She also wrote that she would be contacting the person who'd been complaining, to explain why the locals supported the RAF, including its recreational activities. In half a syllable....

Then followed the first time I've ever rung the Stn Cdr to explain about a 'negative noise complaint'!"

taxydual

10th Sep 2014, 18:17

Not really about noise, but.............

RAF Benson (late '70's), The airfield perimeter chain-link fence is being replaced.

Shepherds Hut, Ewelme (local pub), 2 x airpersons enjoying Morlands Bitter and listening to certain village incomers griping about aircraft noise (3 Andovers and 2 Wessex!!!). Wow, noisy.

"Not to worry" comments airperson 1 "The noisy aircraft are going".

"Hurrah" declare incomers.

"Yes" comments airperson 2 "Thats why the fencing is being replaced. Oxford Prison is closing and all the prisoners are being moved to the new HMP Benson".

Collective gulps from village incomers and letters to Oxford Mail.

Airperson 1 and 2 given slap on wrist from boss for winding up the locals.

I was Airperson 1. Tee Hee.