Barnstorming is no fun when it’s your barn.

Over the weekend, the pilot of a small plane accidentally entered the airspace above President Biden’s beach house on the coast of Delaware. The Secret Service moved the president to another location until it determined that the plane was harmless.

If I were president, the Secret Service would have to go through that routine 10 or 15 times a day. Every day little planes fly over my house in Columbia County, N.Y., from an airport in Great Barrington, Mass. They’d been driving the people over there crazy, so the airport directed the pilots our way. They come overhead flying low, circling the house and buzzing us if they see us in the yard.

Barnstorming was a big thing a century ago, in Charles Lindbergh’s early days as a pilot. We have a barn, and these old guys—I suppose with a reverence for the tradition—fly at it. We also have a flat field across the road that is a likely site for an emergency landing, so flight instructors from the Great Barrington airport use our place as a classroom. They teach their students to cut the engine above our house and then restart it. If anything goes wrong, they can land in the field. They haven’t had to do so yet, but who wants the suspense? When the Nazis’ buzz bombs flew at London, people below could hear their blatting engines—until they became silent, which was the signal that they had started to fall toward someone’s house.

But why not? There are flight romantics—including some who are old and fat now—who, when they climb into the plane and ascend, half-think of the scene in “Out of Africa” in which Denys Finch Hatton takes the Baroness Blixen up in his new yellow biplane and soars over the primeval landscape of the Rift Valley. The baroness (Meryl Streep) reaches back her hand for Denys (Robert Redford) to grasp—a subtle visual reference to Michelangelo’s “The Creation of Adam” in the Sistine Chapel and also a reference to the last line of the sonnet “High Flight” by the 19-year-old Royal Canadian Air Force Spitfire pilot John Gillespie Magee. “Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth / And danced the skies with laughter-silvered wings,” the poem begins. Charles Lindbergh felt similarly mystical about the Spirit of St. Louis—although years later he concluded that planes, on the whole, had become a blight.



Denys Finch Hatton died when his Gypsy Moth went down in East Africa after takeoff in 1931. Ten years after that, poor John Gillespie Magee was killed during a training mission over Lincolnshire, in a collision with a Royal Air Force trainer. Both of those heroic boys were getting in shape to fight the Nazis. Our friends from Great Barrington are aimless—and sometimes accident-prone. A couple of years ago, an 87-year-old crashed his Cessna on takeoff from a local field but managed to walk away from it. Sometimes an imp of the kamikaze goes to work: Miles to the north, a small training aircraft fell out of the sky and killed a woman while she mowed her lawn. Last year on Oregon’s Willamette River, a foundering small plane whacked a woman in a kayak.

“Who, whom,” as Lenin said. There are the flight romantics, and there are their victims down below—collateral damage of the pilots’ daydreams. It might be all right if they were flying through a blizzard to deliver the serum that would save a little girl’s life. Whom do the small planes benefit? Whom do they exhilarate? Whom do they divert? Whom do they enrage? I understand the feeling of freedom that amateur pilots enjoy.

On the other hand, I was up on Martha’s Vineyard in the summer of 1999—visiting an elderly friend of ours who, by an amazing coincidence, had been Charles Lindbergh’s sister-in-law (once married to Dwight Morrow Jr. , brother of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, though of no relation to me)—when John F. Kennedy Jr.’s small plane, flying in an inky dusk, went down in the Vineyard Sound. At just that moment, we were eating dinner by a window, looking out at the water as night came on. “I’m glad I’m not flying in that,” I said. “You can’t tell where the sky ends and the water begins.”

Which category—the flight romantics or their victims—is more numerous? Apart from that, who is entitled to the freedom of the air above your house? The question of who owns that air and who may put it to use for their own purposes is about to become urgent. The drones are coming. Your sky will be filled with them.

Mr. Morrow is a senior fellow at the Ethics and
LINK: https://www.wsj.com/articles/b...lots-11654540666?mod

M2 HB with M63 Anti-Aircraft Mount. Should resolve your light aircraft situation. But increase your legal problems.

Bright searchlights are not illegal as far as I know. Shine them on the planes to "help them see".

There are regulations about how low one can fly. It is higher in more populated areas or gatherings, but generally one should not allow there aircraft to come within 500’ of any person or structure. If someone is getting closer than that, get their N-number and complain. If you are dealing with a lot of aircraft from a towered field you can probably even shortcut that by calling the tower letting them know that you do not appreciate low flying aircraft over your property, that you will be collecting video and complying to the FAA with video evidence and that pilots would be well advised to buzz elsewhere if they enjoy their certificates.

As far as the drones, you’re probably screwed. No real way to get the message out to them, they likely are allowed to fly considerably lower, and since the FAA started regulating them they are considered aircraft and any hostile action you take against one is likely to be viewed as dimly by the FAA as it would be if you took the same action against an occupied airplane. However tempting it might be to employ your trusty 12 gauge to “solve the problem”, it would definitely not be prudent to do so.

Aircraft shouldn't be lower than 500 feet above a house or barn if in a rural area, no lower than 1,000 feet if it is a congested area. Laterally no closer than 2,000 feet (about half a mile) from any structure if below those altitudes.

Nobody should be buzzing across barns or houses at treetop level.

I also highly doubt any flight school is having instructors "cut the engine" and then restart it. That used to be a thing 50+ years ago, but not for a long time now.

quote:

Originally posted by Fly-Sig:
I also highly doubt any flight school is having instructors "cut the engine" and then restart it. That used to be a thing 50+ years ago, but not for a long time now.

Pulling the throttle to idle (which is still commonly done to simulate an engine failure) may sound like “cutting the engine” to someone on the ground. Sensible instructors will add throttle periodically on the way down to make sure no carb ice is developing and that when the throttle is advanced at the “Okay, you made the field. Go around.” point the engine actually responds. However, that may be less obvious to someone on the ground.

I like living in the pattern of a small to mid-size airport, I bought a house where I could hear airport noise on purpose.

Depending on the wind and which way the pattern is running on a given day, the corporate jets definitely come over the house lower than the piston powered stuff.

I love airplanes and flying. If I could redo my life, I would have my license and a whole squadron of airplanes.

HOWEVER, there is NO JUSTIFIABLE REASON for pinheads in private planes to fly over my home in formation.

Leave that nonsense to the military - it's dangerous wnough when they do it.

Used to have to put up with that crap in Colorado. Since I moved, I haven't experienced it (just C-5s and the occasional F-16 and T-38s flying overhead at altitude, which I love to see and hear).

quote:

Originally posted by slosig:

As far as the drones, you’re probably screwed. No real way to get the message out to them, they likely are allowed to fly considerably lower, and since the FAA started regulating them they are considered aircraft and any hostile action you take against one is likely to be viewed as dimly by the FAA as it would be if you took the same action against an occupied airplane.

400’ AGL is max altitude if you are flying under Part 107 Commercial certificate. I’ve been shot at (pellet gun), and had the mayor called on me.
Never a dull day.

I believe we are approaching a shortage of pilots these days. Small aircraft and training in them are a necessary evil to cure this. Their are many maneuvers and such to be mastered at the private pilot level. You need to do these in an aircraft. A simulator won't cut it. .....

quote:

Originally posted by slosig:

quote:

Originally posted by Fly-Sig:
I also highly doubt any flight school is having instructors "cut the engine" and then restart it. That used to be a thing 50+ years ago, but not for a long time now.

Pulling the throttle to idle (which is still commonly done to simulate an engine failure) may sound like “cutting the engine” to someone on the ground. Sensible instructors will add throttle periodically on the way down to make sure no carb ice is developing and that when the throttle is advanced at the “Okay, you made the field. Go around.” point the engine actually responds. However, that may be less obvious to someone on the ground.

I just finished my ATP and cutting the engine then restarting is a required portion of the check ride, which surprised me. We were using a light twin Piper Seneca. For single engines, I agree and haven’t heard of folks in the modern world intentionally cutting those for training.

I love airplanes. Growing up, my dream was to be a commercial pilot, and I was a super nerdy kid who memorized flight schedules, hung out at the airport, and had (still have somewhere, actually), an extensive commercial airliner post ard collection. The flight path into the local international airport was right over my school, and I could ID planes on approach out the window as I sat in class.

Bad eyesight closed the doors to the military route, then 9/11 happened my senior year of high school and the whole industry went into the toilet.
I'd considered going to Embry Riddle for college, but even as a 17 year-old kid I knew that it didn't make sense to incurr that kind of debt to get into a depressed industry that wouldn't pay. I had a couple of family friends who were stuck in dead-end jobs as commuter pilots, and seeing how things were going for them was enough of a warning for me.

That said, I still love airplanes. Our house gets buzzed every now and then by local cropdusters, and the occasional Indiana Air National Guard A-10 out of Ft Wayne. We always go running outside to see them if we hear them come over. Sadly, my part of the country is far from any significant airports or bases, so we don't get much traffic. It's one of my favorite things about visiting the in-laws, though, who live near Elgin AFB and NAS Pensacola, so there's all kinds of fun stuff flying over on a regular basis when we're down there.

I don't know why people bitch about airplanes. They aren't really that loud except in very specific areas directly next to airports, they come and go quickly, and they don't get in your way or impede your freedom of movement. The things that REALLY suck are trains.

Our town is cut into quarters by a North-South and East-West rail line. Those suckers are incredibly loud. They're over a mile long and come though about once an hour, shake buildings, rattle windows, and blast their horns non-stop all the way through town at all hours of the day and night. I live out in the country 3 miles from the tracks and I can still hear them. They cause all kinds of traffic congestion, and frequently stop for hours and block crossings, creating gridlock and hampering emergency response. People get hit and killed by them pretty frequently, too, although admittedly that's predominantly stupid people or drunks weeding themselves out of the gene pool. Anybody complaining about airplanes should try living next to a train track for a week.

I never had an instructor cut an engine, just bring it back to idle.

I was sure once I was going be landing in a farmer's field before the instructor gave me the throttle back. I really thought I was about to practice a soft field landing. I was really low.

If you are seeing a lot of small planes around your barn, some flight school(s) might have picked your land as a practice area.

Every place I trained had one not too far from the airport.

Get an N number, go to the airport and have a discussion with the flight school.

Ask them to pick a different practice area or you are getting the FAA involved.

Two common practice maneuvers are turns around a point and figure 8s. Barns make good reference points for both.

Next time you fly commercial, remember pilots have to start somewhere. The guy over your barn this week could be flying you around a few years from now.

The problem may go away on its own.

Local assholes are trying to shut it down. Two abutters are whining about the noise.

I will never understand people. Move next to an airport and then complain about the plane noise.

In my early days of flight training, operation out of a local airport having no tower, I was standing around the counter when this older guy storms in and proceeds to raise hell about the airport. He was on a full rant, the jest of which was there was no airport around when he bought his house and he was tired of the noise and low flying planes. When he was asked where he lived, he was in a direct line off the single runway about half a mile away. He wanted the airport closed and said it wasn't open when he bought his house. We took him to an aerial photo showing the airport and surrounding area. The date of the photo was 1935. There were no houses in the general area back then. This was 1984.

We live near Harrisburg airport. In fact we are on the approach path and are constantly having planes over our home. When flying in and out of Harrisburg you can pick out what was my wife's family farm due to the red metal roof on the barn and tobacco shed.

As for the noise you become immune to it. During the fall and spring when the windows are open it means occasionally pausing the TV if it's on due to not being able to hear the audio. Last fall my dad flew in on a Friday night. I knew around when his plane was supposed to touch down and in fact heard it fly overhead. That was my cue to hop in the truck and head to the airport. 15 minutes later I pulled up to the terminal as he walked out.

It's enjoyable to see the planes overhead. Airforce One will do touch and go's a few times a year and we routinely have military aircraft overhead from Harrisburg or Fort Indiantown Gap. Friday afternoon we had a formation of 4 Blackhawks fly over and routinely see the A10's and C130's.

Slight thread drift. A pal runs a www site about abandoned airfields. Some were large (Denver Stapleton is one), others grass strips. They were closed for various reasons, encroachment by housing is common.

http://www.airfields-freeman.com/

quote:

Originally posted by arabiancowboy:

quote:

Originally posted by slosig:

quote:

Originally posted by Fly-Sig:
I also highly doubt any flight school is having instructors "cut the engine" and then restart it. That used to be a thing 50+ years ago, but not for a long time now.

Pulling the throttle to idle (which is still commonly done to simulate an engine failure) may sound like “cutting the engine” to someone on the ground. Sensible instructors will add throttle periodically on the way down to make sure no carb ice is developing and that when the throttle is advanced at the “Okay, you made the field. Go around.” point the engine actually responds. However, that may be less obvious to someone on the ground.

I just finished my ATP and cutting the engine then restarting is a required portion of the check ride, which surprised me. We were using a light twin Piper Seneca. For single engines, I agree and haven’t heard of folks in the modern world intentionally cutting those for training.

Multi-engine is a whole different animal than single engine. Back in the 1970's when I learned to fly, instructors would pull the mixture on downwind and say "land it on the runway". In cruise they'd distract the student and turn the fuel selector off to train the student to stay calm and restart.

On one of my check airman check rides, which always happened in the middle of the night, the FAA inspector insisted we had to shut down and feather one engine, then demonstrate vmc in an airliner! That was 20 yrs ago, and I don't think the feds even ride along any more.

quote:

Originally posted by arabiancowboy:
I just finished my ATP and cutting the engine then restarting is a required portion of the check ride, which surprised me. We were using a light twin Piper Seneca. For single engines, I agree and haven’t heard of folks in the modern world intentionally cutting those for training.

Interesting. I don’t recall feathering the engine in the Seneca when I got my ATP a few years ago, either in training or on the checkride. Then again, my memory isn’t as good as it used to be…

I *do* recall feathering the engine on the old beat up Apache in trading when I got my original multi engine rating. It was in training, not on the checkride, and it was at five thousand feet over an airport as that Apache had no unfeathering accumulators and there was some question as to whether or not it would restart.

I always have a student feather (and unfeather) an engine on the Travel Air before sending them for a checkride. I do not want the first time they have to shut down an engine to be on their checkride, or worse a real emergency. It isn’t a big deal to shut down an engine in a twin (though shock cooling can be a consideration depending on the engine), and it shouldn’t be something a student is afraid of.

quote:

Originally posted by 92fstech:
Anybody complaining about airplanes should try living next to a train track for a week.

I love airplane noise, frequently annoying folks by looking up in mid-conversation to see what is flying over. The difference between airplane noise and train noise is that the airplane noise is sporadic enough and different enough (one to the next) that it doesn’t really fade into the background. Years ago, Mrs slosig and I lived within a couple of blocks of the train tracks in Mountain View, CA. The first couple nights it was, “Oh my Gosh, what did we get ourselves into?” After a week, when friends were over and asked, “Don’t the trains drive you crazy?” It was, “What trains?” The mind just tunes them out, and it is amazing how quickly. Even here on the ranch (extremely quiet, you think you hear a vehicle and you are looking to see what is going on), one almost never hears the freight trains rumbling by just beyond the neighbor’s place, maybe four miles away, but you rarely miss hearing an airplane go by, regardless of type or altitude.

quote:

Originally posted by sig2392]
I will never understand people. Move next to an airport and then complain about the plane noise.

Years ago, a pilot friend bought a house near Reid-Hillview airport in San Jose. The realtor made a point of saying that the airport was closing in the next year or two. The friend talked about filing an official complaint against the realtor, but I don’t know if it ever went anywhere. He chose the house to be close to the airport, and while the bastards had been trying to close Reid-Hillview for years and certainly still are, they haven’t succeeded yet. Realtors lying to buyers and presenting wishful thinking as fact doesn’t help…