Posted on 04/02/2010 11:51:22 PM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld
After looking for a decade to buy a dark place in the country to practice landings of its noisiest aircraft, the Navy has decided to look at renting airport space for quieter aircraft landing practice and to keep the big jets working at home.
Navy Fleet Forces Command in Norfolk, Va., announced Friday that it will survey public and private airfields within 90 nautical miles of Norfolk Naval air station for interest in renting landing strip time for its turboprop planes to practice.
The Navy has not abandoned its search for an outlying landing field, said Ted Brown, spokesman for Navy Fleet Forces Command.
“The EIS (environmental impact study) for the OLF is continuing,” he said. This is only for field carrier landing practice operations turboprop planes, including E-2 Hawkeye and C-2 Greyhound aircraft that are much quieter than jets.
“This would just be an interim solution to our existing capacity shortfalls,” he said. “This contract would not negate the need for an OLF because that is to support all fixed wing aircraft — Hornets, Harriers, the Joint Strike Fighter, and so on.”
“For this particular proposal, we would be looking at existing commercial and private airfields. It would be completely voluntary and open to those who can meet the contract specifications,” Brown said.
(Excerpt) Read more at newbernsj.com ...
ping
Navy, schmavy. Nothing beats the B2 on full afterburner takeoff for noise. You can hear it 15 miles away.
Correction - B1
Its 3 am, give me a break.
I dont know. There are some ghetto car sterios that could drown out a B52 doing a touch and go.
F111 were much louder and SR71s are incredible. Once saw 32 F16s on the runway taking off in groups of 4, each on afterburner. That was loud.
The sound of Freedom.
I’m about 8 miles in a straight line, and across a very large ridge which keeps me from seeing the airbase, but we hear them pretty well, unless the wind is blowing the other way.
Click on pic for past Navair pings.
Post or FReepmail me if you wish to be enlisted in or discharged from the Navair Pinglist.
The only requirement for inclusion in the Navair Pinglist is an interest in Naval Aviation.
This is a medium to low volume pinglist.
CFB Cold Lake is another possibility.
In a former life I lived in New Bern, what is the status of Bogue Field? Is there some reason it can not be used?
Re-open Naval Air Station Alameda right in the heart of the lefty Bay Area. Midnight air ops over Berkeley.
Is Moffett Field still open?
Wallops in VA. It belongs to NASA and they barely use it.
Clearly, you've never experienced an all-up SAC B-52 MITO — Minimum Interval Take-Off — in the 50s /60s around Minot, etc.
Loud's bad enough, but it was the unburned kerosene smell that got me. Somewhere in Canada, the caribou are still coughing!
Wallops in VA. It belongs to NASA and they barely use it.
How can they not see it? It has adjacent Navy facilities, needs the activity, relatively isolated airspace, mucho ramp space, and the area could use an injection.
I once saw a flight of 32 (or so) F-111As take off in support of Operation Eagle Claw to rescue the Iran hostages. They took off at night, and it was cool to watch the afterburners wink off as they climbed out.
Dunno. Wouldn’t surprise me if the locals have vetoed it so as not to despoil their little slice of government-funded heaven with the sound of freedom.
No. Closed in 1994. NASA operates it now, but it's little used. The National Guard has a presence there. The Google boys also use it. Mostly the buildings on the base are empty.
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