Sports Plane Airplane
FAA: Airplane pilot rules when doing touch and go landings...question below.?
I live near an airport in an urban area. Mostly used by private jets and regular small airplanes, and occasionally larger jets (usually by pro sport teams). [no regular public flights]. I love to hear the jets land, and watching the planes. I have heard that there is some rule that you must have reached 1000 feet in altitude going in a STRAIGHT direction after liftoff, BEFORE you are allowed to make a TURN, over residential areas with many, many houses. Is this a law, or is there some law that requires anything like this? Many of the small planes turn immediately after lifting the runway, perhaps only 100 to 250 feet in the air, right over the top of my house, and they can be very loud. So I ask two questions. IS THERE A LAW about turning so low, and WHAT CAN I DO when this happens. (Yes I do have phone number of control tower).
I love planes, but don't want them on my roof! If they went straight, and got a little higher before turning, they would not be on my roof.
You're getting a lot of confusing (and some confused) answers. But, it doesn't need to be complex. You asked about FAA rules (regulations), so here are the answers:
(1) Is there a law? There is NO regulation requiring any minimum altitude before turning after takeoff. (You're probably getting the 1,000-foot number from a regulation which requires this as a minimum altitude when flying over heavily populated areas EXCEPT when taking off or landing: FAR 91.119, at the link below.)
(2) What can you do? You make it clear that there is a control tower at the airport. This means that the airplanes turning soon after takeoff are probably doing this because they've been asked to by the tower. If the tower didn't want the pilots doing this, the tower would tell them not to do it. (And, in fact, if the pilots were doing this in spite of the tower's instructions, they'd already be in trouble.)
But, this doesn't mean there's nothing you can do. Whether or not you will have any success will depend on your attitude and the reality of the situation.
As to your attitude, don't think of this as a law enforcement situation: "Some bad people are doing some bad things and I need to get a policeman--or in this case a tower controller--to make them stop." Realize that pilots WANT to be good neighbors. Unless you're a real stinker and have lots of enemies, nobody is flying over your house on purpose to bother you. So, instead of threat and punishment, think of this as a situation in which everybody is trying to be good and do the right thing, but there's still something not working out: You're trying to enjoy your house, and the pilots are trying to enjoy flying, and do so safely.
The reality of the situation also matters (as does being realistic). So, it is important that you get educated about the reality of the situation. I commend you for asking this question rather than calling up businesses at the airport and shouting at them with bad information. The people who make noise complaints and cite rules which don't exist always look silly, and it just makes them madder that pilots and businesses (naturally) don't take them seriously.
You would do yourself a great favor if you would go down to the airport and have a look around. If there's this much non-airline flying activity, there's probably a flight school at the airport, and maybe more than one. (If you told us the airport, we could help you look this up.) Go to one of the flight schools, but don't go there to complain. Go there and give them facts, and tell them that you want to take an introductory flight. Say something like, "I live in the neighborhood close to the airport, and lots of airplanes fly over my house. I'd like to understand why they're there, so I'd like to take in introductory lesson." Be prepared to pay some, but it won't be too expensive. You'll learn a lot, as long as you don't become confrontational or belligerent.
Seeing things from the airplane point of view may really help, particularly with being realistic. And, again, being realistic matters. You used the figure 100 feet, and I'll admit I'm skeptical about that claim. Even under the worst conditions, a training airplane would have only 10 to 15 seconds to get from lifting off the runway to flying over your house, which would have to be a tenth of a mile away. If this is truly the case, you live ON the airport property, or immediately next to it. (And, if you really do live immediately beside the airport, the airplanes will, I'm afraid, be just as loud if they go straight.)
As you educate yourself further, you may find that there are a number of options. You can contact the airport manager or other authority to find out if a noise study has been done at the airport. Homeowners who have genuine noise problems near airports are often helped with noise-remediation measures (such as better insulation). Further, airports can modify their traffic procedures to accommodate problem areas identified by such noise studies.
You can also ask the airport management if there are any "noise abatement" procedures in effect for the airport. If there are, you could take a look at them to see whether they're being followed. (Noise abatement procedures usually don't have the force of law, but pilots try to follow them because pilots want to be good neighbors.) If noise abatement procedures aren't being followed, you could ask whether you could help convince the city to put up better signs to inform pilots of the procedures. You could also ask whether the tower controllers have been asked to remind pilots of the procedures or to try to work within the procedures. If there are no noise abatement procedures, you could talk about putting together something reasonable to help pilots help themselves and your neighborhood. If all of that seems too formal, you could have the same kind of discussion with the flight school(s) or the local pilot's group, talking about where it would be best that they fly.
But, as I keep saying, being realistic matters. If encroaching residential development has turned the airport into an island in a sea of houses, pilots are going to have to fly over houses to get to and from the airport. And, they have to get really, really low to land and takeoff. Remember that no noise abatement request or procedure, no matter how serious, can change aircraft performance. (If the airplanes could climb higher, sooner, they would do that already; pilots don't like maneuvering near the ground.) Remember also that safety matters more than any other consideration. You can't ask, or expect, pilots to avoid flying over your house if that's the safest thing to do.
With the right attitude and some education, you may get results. At a minimum, you will get to the point where you understand what's happening, and sometimes that by itself actually makes things better.
