Mary C Is Not Alone
It was apparent that Jessica C’s recent response to Mary F’s concern about continuous flight school air traffic over her country residence was terribly biased towards allowing a single small local business group to affect the quality of life for many in our chosen county setting.
It would be extremely naive to believe that Mary F is the only person to have complaints about this growing problem. You can add me to the list of folks on the west side of town along the Burroughs and S. Swenson road area that have been repeatedly disturbed. And yes, I can also attest to numerous incidents of intentional harassment over the course of the last 2 years. You can even find a complaint to the Stevens County Sheriff’s Office on public record filed by myself.
Citing nationwide industry statistics for general aviation totally ignored the local complaint that some inconsiderate flight schools are increasingly affecting the quality of our chosen country life. Describing training techniques is irrelevant to the issue at hand. Being a hobby aviator does not preclude respect for local residents.
Possible solutions could be simple or require more extreme measures including:
Change student flight plans to eliminate repeated flights over a given area. The Deer Park region is large. There is no reason to focus on one small area just because it’s convenient for a flight school.
Eliminate flight schools from operating out of the Deer Park Airport.
Close the DP airport. Larger airports than this one have been closed due to public pressure over noise pollution.
Enough is enough. Unless this growing issue can be resolved, I would be anxious to help create a group of concerned property owners to eliminate this growing problem one way or another.
Mike Wood
To read Jessica C’s letter to the editor go to DPGazette.com/ltejessicac
To read Mary F’s letter to the editor go to DPGazette.com/ltemaryf
