BEagle,
You state, "Yes, there was a futile attempt by the 'newcomers' to annoy the local populace by blithely ignoring the extant requirements and flying lower than other aircraft, including at night, but this clearly was doomed to failure."
Yet another anti-C130 post from you - emotional and inaccurate! The TAPs were changed for the arrival of the C130 and allowed 1000 ft QFE circuits - unfortunately I cannot prove it is I don't keep an extensive library of out of date documents! Inevitably the noise complaints increased and the rules were changed back.
We did not attempt (although we clearly succeeded, so the attempts were not "futile"!) to annoy the locals and did not blithely ignore the extant requirements - most of us have lived on or near airfields and know the impact noise can have. The current regulations require the villages to be avoided when below 1800 ft QNH - our in-house rules require us to avoid the villages when flying AT 1800 ft QNH.
course profile,
What happened to your late night post?