Is this the best low flying complaint re-buff ever?
Here's another one:
Andover Advertiser 9 July 2004-07-08
Letters to the Editor (pg. 17)
We should be grateful rather than grumpy over these helicopters.
YOUR tired and anonymous reader from Cole Close wrote complaining about military helicopters, asking who gave them permission to fly over his house, waking him in the night.
Well, I live near Cole Close, I can tell the gentleman that the helicopters (which woke me too, briefly) fly in the air corridor over open land to the east of Andover, away from housing.
But the ones he complains of so bitterly were Chinooks and their noise travels on calm, windless nights.
The Chinooks were flying to part of a recent army exercise on Salisbury Plain, an exercise for soldiers who recently returned from six months in Iraq and who will no doubt return there (or to Bosnia or to Afghanistan, or Africa, or wherever the UK Government next decides to keep the peace).
UK exercises provide a brief, safe opportunity for the Army and RAF to practice operations or test new equipment and to train new personnel without the threat of enemy fire.
They take place infrequently and are well planned, avoiding as much disruption as possible and keeping noise to a minimum. But inevitably someone’s back yard is encroached, even briefly. Even in Cole Close.
No doubt the next day Mr Grumpy of Cole Close drove safely via Kiel Drive and avoided the non-existent shell holes not obstructing Saxon Way, with no danger of ethnic snipers from ‘that lot’ in Charlton or Enham Alamein trying to pick him off.
His spouse may have followed him, delivering children to school without having to run the gauntlet of bigoted hate-filled neighbours intent on stoning them as they passed. And when he returned home (possibly upset by a hash email from someone in accounts or angry because the stationary cupboard had run out of paper clips) no burning bodies lay in the road.
His house had not been burnt down because guerrillas from Winton objected to his religion or place of birth or skin colour or language or narrow-mindedness.
He could barbecue in the garden, leaving the children to play safely in the adjacent nature reserve, because the Andover Revolutionary Party had not booby-trapped their footsteps or land-mined the roads.
Wake up and smell the peace Mr Nimby! You and I and the other residents of Andover owe a huge thank you to our soldiers and aircrew who do our Government’s bidding under terrible conditions month after month.
And when they do need a few nights per year to exercise in safety then I for one am happy to hear the helicopters pass by. After all, they won’t be firing missiles into my back yard. Will they?
A serving soldier
Name and address supplied
Andover Advertiser 9 July 2004-07-08
Letters to the Editor (pg. 17)
We should be grateful rather than grumpy over these helicopters.
YOUR tired and anonymous reader from Cole Close wrote complaining about military helicopters, asking who gave them permission to fly over his house, waking him in the night.
Well, I live near Cole Close, I can tell the gentleman that the helicopters (which woke me too, briefly) fly in the air corridor over open land to the east of Andover, away from housing.
But the ones he complains of so bitterly were Chinooks and their noise travels on calm, windless nights.
The Chinooks were flying to part of a recent army exercise on Salisbury Plain, an exercise for soldiers who recently returned from six months in Iraq and who will no doubt return there (or to Bosnia or to Afghanistan, or Africa, or wherever the UK Government next decides to keep the peace).
UK exercises provide a brief, safe opportunity for the Army and RAF to practice operations or test new equipment and to train new personnel without the threat of enemy fire.
They take place infrequently and are well planned, avoiding as much disruption as possible and keeping noise to a minimum. But inevitably someone’s back yard is encroached, even briefly. Even in Cole Close.
No doubt the next day Mr Grumpy of Cole Close drove safely via Kiel Drive and avoided the non-existent shell holes not obstructing Saxon Way, with no danger of ethnic snipers from ‘that lot’ in Charlton or Enham Alamein trying to pick him off.
His spouse may have followed him, delivering children to school without having to run the gauntlet of bigoted hate-filled neighbours intent on stoning them as they passed. And when he returned home (possibly upset by a hash email from someone in accounts or angry because the stationary cupboard had run out of paper clips) no burning bodies lay in the road.
His house had not been burnt down because guerrillas from Winton objected to his religion or place of birth or skin colour or language or narrow-mindedness.
He could barbecue in the garden, leaving the children to play safely in the adjacent nature reserve, because the Andover Revolutionary Party had not booby-trapped their footsteps or land-mined the roads.
Wake up and smell the peace Mr Nimby! You and I and the other residents of Andover owe a huge thank you to our soldiers and aircrew who do our Government’s bidding under terrible conditions month after month.
And when they do need a few nights per year to exercise in safety then I for one am happy to hear the helicopters pass by. After all, they won’t be firing missiles into my back yard. Will they?
A serving soldier
Name and address supplied
I recall an interview on HTV West in the mid 80's that had a woman complaining about an exercise at Hullavington. On camera, she claimed that the Hercules pilots were so low, you could see them wearing their scarves, smoking a pipe in the cockpit.
Pass me some of those mushrooms love...
Pass me some of those mushrooms love...
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Oz,
Use to get that at El Toro on a regular basis, and that was just from take off and landings. The area up through the 70s was essentially orange groves.
The really galling part is that the civilian thought they were entitled to the Sunday brunch due to having to put up with the noise. The responses while mild by USMC standards were not as PC as the Capt.’s.
S/F, FOG
Use to get that at El Toro on a regular basis, and that was just from take off and landings. The area up through the 70s was essentially orange groves.
The really galling part is that the civilian thought they were entitled to the Sunday brunch due to having to put up with the noise. The responses while mild by USMC standards were not as PC as the Capt.’s.
S/F, FOG
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Another spectacular - though sadder - case of foot in mouth, with a justified response.
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nice one Gazbert.
On a serious note, reading that made me realise that for everyday 'citizens', war becomes normalised. The media stop showing the sandpit on the news, they stop telling us about the deaths of yet more servicemen, and for these cocooned people whose daily routine is work and walmarts, they just forget what is actually being done on there behalf. Excellent responses from the two Colonels. I imagine the guy still cringes to this day.
On a serious note, reading that made me realise that for everyday 'citizens', war becomes normalised. The media stop showing the sandpit on the news, they stop telling us about the deaths of yet more servicemen, and for these cocooned people whose daily routine is work and walmarts, they just forget what is actually being done on there behalf. Excellent responses from the two Colonels. I imagine the guy still cringes to this day.
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It's another urban myth
http://www.snopes.com/horrors/techno/radar.asp
http://www.snopes.com/horrors/techno/radar.asp
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A Letter to the Editor
Some years ago, after months of letters complaining about aircraft noise, a letter which read something like this was published in a York newspaper:
Sir
Previous correspondents have correctly observed that the RAF has a history of purchasing aero-engines which are very noisy. The Merlin was a very good example. What price silence?
The complaining letters stopped!
Sir
Previous correspondents have correctly observed that the RAF has a history of purchasing aero-engines which are very noisy. The Merlin was a very good example. What price silence?
The complaining letters stopped!
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Whining Nimbies
The standard response we always used to use before it was pulled up short by a, "Your hat, my office," chat with the station commander went something along the lines of: C Flight shag: "Tell me, madam, was the aeroplane you saw silver with red stars and Russian writing on the side?" Mrs Trellis (for it was she): "No, I don't think so." C Flight shag: "Oh, that's alright then, it was probably one of ours" ....click
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Still remember one phonecall into the COC complaining about jet noise 'waking up the baby'. Ops officer was v sympathetic and following the form until he got the address - someone on the Maried Patch! 
A distinct un-PC 30seconds followed
Happy memories!
A distinct un-PC 30seconds followed
Happy memories!
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Aircrew Reply
I always thought that the best reply to complaints would have been a compliments slip with the a bumper sticker:
JET NOISE - THE SOUND OF FREEDOM
Undoubtedly too non-PC. Shame really!!
JET NOISE - THE SOUND OF FREEDOM
Undoubtedly too non-PC. Shame really!!
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Wonderful piece- but sadly in 'complainers are always right' UK, an officer wouldn't be allowed to write in those terms.
It reminded me of young married life in a village near Coningsby many years ago. I knew it would be occasionally noisy, but strangely the low-flying aircraft never woke the babies. It was always fun watching the Lightnings making their twitchy approaches to land. One day, when the Phantoms were particularly repetitive in appearing to try removing our chimney, I phoned RAF Coningsby and asked to be put through to the control tower. I told them that it's all very well flying Phantoms round and round in the circuit, but I could hear the Lancaster and a Hurricane (from BBMF) in the distance. To give us a break, I asked could they move things around a bit so the Phantoms were in the distance, and we could be treated to some low-flying Merlin sounds for a change. Polite farewells. Phone replaced on cradle. I expected nothing. After a period of a few minutes of no flying whatsoever, the Lanc and the Hurricane flew over a few times, flooding our senses with that wonderful racket. Coincidence? Maybe. But I'd like to think the controllers had a heart. This tale is absolutely true. I bet you can't get through to the tower like that these days! B50.
It reminded me of young married life in a village near Coningsby many years ago. I knew it would be occasionally noisy, but strangely the low-flying aircraft never woke the babies. It was always fun watching the Lightnings making their twitchy approaches to land. One day, when the Phantoms were particularly repetitive in appearing to try removing our chimney, I phoned RAF Coningsby and asked to be put through to the control tower. I told them that it's all very well flying Phantoms round and round in the circuit, but I could hear the Lancaster and a Hurricane (from BBMF) in the distance. To give us a break, I asked could they move things around a bit so the Phantoms were in the distance, and we could be treated to some low-flying Merlin sounds for a change. Polite farewells. Phone replaced on cradle. I expected nothing. After a period of a few minutes of no flying whatsoever, the Lanc and the Hurricane flew over a few times, flooding our senses with that wonderful racket. Coincidence? Maybe. But I'd like to think the controllers had a heart. This tale is absolutely true. I bet you can't get through to the tower like that these days! B50.
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I seem to remember a well know Australian exchange Chinook pilot serving as duty ops when we had recieved our first Chinook, upon receiving an irate call put through to him from a farmer complaining the new fangled helicopter we had just recieved was scaring his animals replied
"Well they better get use to them as it's going to be here for the next 20 years or so and there are more on the way"
and with that he promptly hung up on him.
"Well they better get use to them as it's going to be here for the next 20 years or so and there are more on the way"
and with that he promptly hung up on him.
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About 20 years ago an Army Officer went to buy a house in a small, fairly secluded development in Leeming Village.
He could only view the property at weekends and didn't particularly like the very high Cypress hedge around the back garden. "The first thing to go" he declared in the Willow Tree pub one Saturday "Open up the view".
He subsequently bought the house and moved in, again, over a weekend.
Come the Monday morning, RRRROOOOAAAARRRR ,the first F3 of the day decided to commit aviation, shortly followed by his pal's and rivals.
"What the f***!!!" says the Pongo and decided to look through his hedge to discover RAF LEEMING on t'other side. And I mean on the other side. His newly aquired property was butt up against the airfield boundary and he had no idea when he bought the house!!
The complaints we got from him were many, furious but shortlived.
Someone pointed out that it wasn't the RAF who had hidden the airfield from him, and that his Regiment at Catterick(a Recce outfit in light AFV's) may think twice about giving soldiers to officers who couldn't read a map!!
He moved.
He could only view the property at weekends and didn't particularly like the very high Cypress hedge around the back garden. "The first thing to go" he declared in the Willow Tree pub one Saturday "Open up the view".
He subsequently bought the house and moved in, again, over a weekend.
Come the Monday morning, RRRROOOOAAAARRRR ,the first F3 of the day decided to commit aviation, shortly followed by his pal's and rivals.
"What the f***!!!" says the Pongo and decided to look through his hedge to discover RAF LEEMING on t'other side. And I mean on the other side. His newly aquired property was butt up against the airfield boundary and he had no idea when he bought the house!!
The complaints we got from him were many, furious but shortlived.
Someone pointed out that it wasn't the RAF who had hidden the airfield from him, and that his Regiment at Catterick(a Recce outfit in light AFV's) may think twice about giving soldiers to officers who couldn't read a map!!
He moved.
