Some time our North Western NSW military flying school received a call from an irate doctor at the local hospital complaining about those noisy CT4s flying over the hospital.
For those who don’t know the CT4 is about as noisy as a C172, and at about 1,500FT AO is scarcely audible above the ambient noise of the activity ion the town below.
At the time we were conducting a series of famil flights for the local Army Reserve unit personnel which consisted of a lap around the town and maybe a few aeros well North of the town. The lap around the town took us almost directly over the hospital, however as previously stated we were operating no lower than about 1,500FT AO. The doctor in question assumed we had changed the route to our training area. Well, about six aircraft on a Friday for about four weeks would obviously give that impression.
For those that don’t know our training area is to the South West of the airfield while the town is to the East.
The fact that we have DHC8s in and out about six times/day, LR35’s about twice a day, bank runners early in the morning and late in the afternoon, various and numerous another aircraft of all types doing everything from charter to training, all which would have flown much closer to the town (and therefore the hospital) during approach and departure didn’t register with this Einstein.
Our conversation ended shortly after I questioned him on how he dealt with the Westpac rescue helicopter (BK117, B212, B412) landing on the helipad situated
on the hospital grounds nearly every day. Obviously far less noisy than a CT4 flying 1,500FT above him!
I think some people just resent the fact that we have a military.
Then there was the dropkick who lived in D442 (helicopter training area near Canberra), knowing full well that his property was within a military helicopter training area who threatened to shoot us.