For the week of March 5 - 11, 2003

Hailey airport officials review noise restrictions

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By GREG MOORE
Express Staff Writer

Bellevue officials are hoping that a current review of Friedman Memorial Airport’s noise abatement program will help reduce the number of low flights over their town.

Under the airport’s voluntary noise regulations, approaching pilots are asked to use a descent along the east side of the Wood River Valley, close to the ridge, at an angle that should keep them more than 700 feet over Bellevue. However, Bellevue resident Eric Allen said that over the past year and a half, a low approach directly over town has become the rule.

"It’s completely out of hand," he said. "It’s disturbing the basic lives of everybody who lives in Bellevue."

Allen and three city council members attended an airport authority meeting in September to voice their concerns. The five-person authority is composed of representatives from Hailey and Blaine County, as well as one independent person chosen by the other four. Allen reported little success at the meeting.

"It was such a travesty to call it a public meeting because we were completely shut out," he said. "It was blatantly obvious that they did not want to hear from us."

In response, Hailey Mayor Susan McBryant, who’s an airport authority member, said she and others have had "countless hours of dialogue" with Bellevue residents.

"We concur with these residents of Bellevue, but once we’ve gotten on the authority, we’ve realized that our options are highly restricted," she said.

McBryant said most of the noise problems come from private and chartered jets, especially when their pilots violate the airport’s regulations.

"There is a group of users who are pretty much dialed in to their own needs and desires. By and large, they are not permanent residents of this community."

Bellevue officials are now taking a second shot at finding a solution. Every year or so, the airport authority convenes an ad hoc committee to review its noise policies. The committee’s first meeting was held last Wednesday to provide participants with information. Bellevue Mayor John Barton named Allen and City Councilman Jon Wilkes to represent the town at those proceedings. Also among the 14 attendees were residents of Hailey, airport employees and pilots.

Airport Manager Rick Baird told the group that the voluntary noise abatement program is working. He said 90 percent of pilots comply with its provisions.

Other than following the approach route from the south, pilots are asked to:

·  Land and take off only between 6 a.m. and 11 p.m., and preferably after 7 a.m.

·  After taking off to the south, bear to the west to avoid Bellevue.

·  Only land from and take off to the north if piloting a plane under 12,500 pounds. Most planes heavier than that are jets.

·  On jets, limit auxiliary power unit warm-up to 30 minutes. The APUs start the plane’s regular engines and navigation systems.

Baird said pilots who violate the restrictions are sent a letter or contacted personally. He said that once they are made aware of the rules, few pilots repeat their mistakes.

Under Federal Aeronautics Administration rules, the airport is restricted from attaching penalties to its noise provisions. With the 1990 Noise Compatibility Act, Congress grandfathered in penalties associated with existing noise abatement programs. After that, however, any airport that wishes to add such penalties is required to do a study that Baird said would cost $600,000.

In any case, he said, completing a study would be of little help since the FAA’s noise standards are based on day and night averages, not single events. He said the average noise levels at Friedman are way below those standards.

"Those are probably okay at LAX, but they’re not okay in the Wood River Valley," Baird said. "We would like to see these procedures have some teeth in them, but until the FAA changes the way it does things, that’s very difficult to do. I think it stinks."

Baird said the situation will be improved by equipment recently or about to be acquired by the airport. One is the Transponder Landing System, which will allow pilots to take a steeper approach angle, rather than flying in under the clouds, during bad weather. After several delays, the TLS is scheduled to be installed early this summer.

The second is a video of the airport’s noise abatement procedures, on VHS and DVD, that will be shown to pilots at the Sun Valley Aviation office, and be available for them to take home. Third, new technology will allow the airport administration to identify the tail numbers of planes about which complaints are received when no one is at the office.

"Every year we try to find ways to make the program more effective," Baird said.

Baird asked meeting participants to come up with suggestions as to possible improvements to the program, and present them at the committee’s next meeting. That meeting has not been scheduled but Baird said it will take place in the next few weeks.

One possible change, Baird said, is to move the requested approach path from the eastern, residential, part of Bellevue, to directly over Main Street. In an interview, Allen said he would probably oppose that.

"That’s pretty much the route they take now, and it’s a problem," he said.

Allen on Thursday asked Bellevue City Council members and Mayor Barton whether the city wanted to establish a position that could be brought forth at future committee meetings. Barton asked Allen to give his information on the issue to all council members so the city can develop a "formal position" on the airport and its designated flight patterns.
 

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