County deserves some credit for dealing with airport noise
Published October 31, 2003
Pinellas County officials have taken several steps recently to try to make the county's largest airport, St. Petersburg-Clearwater International, a better neighbor.
Hundreds of residents who live north and east of the mid county airport packed county informational meetings earlier this year to comment on the proposed rezoning of a golf course on airport property and on the county's plan to lengthen the airport's main runway so it could handle international flights.
Residents who spoke often complained about noise from airplanes they believed were flying into or out of St. Petersburg-Clearwater International, especially in the early morning hours. They said the noise woke them up and rattled their windows.
County Administrator Steve Spratt told residents that he would look for ways to address their complaints, and he has.
One of Spratt's goals was to hush airplane traffic during the hours when most people are sleeping, primarily between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. To that end, county officials have met with the major air carriers at the airport to urge them to reduce their early morning flights and use approaches over Tampa Bay rather than over people's homes whenever possible.
ATA, the largest commercial carrier at the airport, and United Parcel Service, the primary cargo shipper, agreed to make some changes to reduce their arrivals and departures during those hours. Nighttime flights have not been eliminated, but they have been reduced.
In its meetings with the airlines, the county also reinforced the message that pilots need to follow the airport's two noise abatement procedures whenever possible. Those procedures require pilots to guide their planes on a defined flight path over Old Tampa Bay whenever they are arriving or departing from the airport, rather than flying over homes north of the airport. However, the FAA approved those paths only for use during daylight and in good weather.
County officials also have met with the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Army, both of which have bases on the airport property and are flying helicopters and fixed-wing craft out of the airport. The county has asked both to do what they can to avoid disruptive noise. However, the military has substantial independence, especially these days because of homeland security, so the county can do little more than ask that Coast Guard and Army pilots be sensitive to the impact of noise on residents.
Another noise-related county initiative was demonstrated to the media this week. Within the next week or two, the county will debut to the public a Web site that will allow residents to view aircraft flying over the county and Tampa Bay, and collect useful information about those aircraft.
AirportMonitor is a computer program developed by Megadata of New York. The company installs a sensor on airport property that picks up information about aircraft in the airspace and matches that up with a database on existing aircraft, thereby providing detailed information about planes in the air. The system has been used by airports to collect their own data about the aircraft in their airspace, but AirportMonitor is specially designed for use by the public.
A Pinellas County resident who hears an especially loud airplane go over his home at, say, 5 a.m., will soon be able to go to his computer screen, click on the airport's Web site (www.fly2pie.com) follow a link to noise abatement procedures, and click on AirportMonitor. He can call up the date and time that the flight went over, watch the aircraft track right over his neighborhood, and find out how high the plane is flying, its origin and destination, the aircraft type and the flight ID.
Military traffic is filtered out entirely. And for security purposes, there is a 10-minute delay in seeing some details, and an hour delay for others. But that is better than waiting days for such information, which is the procedure at some airports, or not getting any details at all.
AirportMonitor is costing the county $7,500 in startup costs and another $1,900 a month. That's a small price to pay, Spratt says, to give residents accurate information about air traffic over Pinellas County. And airport officials can use the system, too, to respond to residents' noise complaints or to identify flights that are not using the proper noise abatement flight paths.
AirportMonitor for use by the public is available at fewer than 15 airports nationwide.
Many airports would not be interested in providing such details about their flights to residents who live nearby. It is commendable that Spratt and Pinellas County have sought out this user-friendly system and are making other efforts to address residents' complaints.
