Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 10, 1993 TAG: 9304100156
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
BAD WEATHER, PLANE LANDING FACTOR DENIED
Bad weather does not affect the altitude of airplanes as they prepare to land at the Roanoke Regional Airport, a Federal Aviation Administration official said Friday.Several homeowners near the airport complained this week that the noise of planes departing and landing is worst when the weather is cloudy and foggy and the planes appear to come in lower than normal.
Not so, says John Hinkle, FAA's air traffic manager at the Roanoke airport.
"It is misleading to say that the planes are coming in lower," he said. But Hinkle agrees with the homeowners that the aircraft noise can be louder in cloudy and rainy weather.
But he said that apparently is caused by atmospheric conditions and clouds that direct the noise downward.
Planes preparing to land with the help of the instrument-landing system fly the same altitude regardless of the weather, Hinkle said.
There are cases when small aircraft operating on visual flight rules might come in lower than normal because of the weather, but that is an exception rather than the rule, he said.
Jets and commuter aircraft operate by instrument flight rules and use the instrument-landing system, Hinkle said.
But Harry Morgan, who lives on Portland Avenue Northwest near Countryside golf course, said Friday he still believes the planes come in lower in bad weather.
"I've been here for 30 years and I know they are lower sometimes," Morgan said. "They're so low sometimes that you can see the windows in the planes."
Morgan is one of 218 homeowners who live in the airport noise zone, where federal money might be available for the airport to soundproof their houses, pay them for noise easements or make up the difference between the fair price for their houses and what they are offered when they put them on the market.
Consultants have proposed more than a dozen measures to help reduce the noise in neighborhoods at both ends of the east-west runway, which parallels Peters Creek Road.
One homeowner in the airport noise zone near Interstate 581 and Peters Creek Road said Friday that the planes don't bother him.
The man, who would not identify himself, said the highway noise was worse than the planes.
"Yeah, I got a problem - that damn interstate," said the man, who has lived there for 12 years.
"Once in a while, you'll hear [a noisy plane], but I don't have any complaints," he said. "People knew that damn airport was there when they bought those houses; so why'd they buy them, so they could complain?"
Staff writer Lon Wagner contributed to this story.