© 2017 Michael
Swickard, Ph.D. Jet
engines make lots of noise, especially military jets. It seems several
communities in New Mexico are bothered by the thought that jets from Holloman
Air Force Base may fly over their towns and surrounding lands while they are
training for the role of combat pilot.
The Air
Force leadership at Holloman has announced that the jet pilots they are
training need more area to practice what they do before they get into actual combat.
Naturally it goes without saying that when you are in combat is a bad time to
learn some things that should be taught before they get into combat.
The rub is
that many people in these towns don’t want to hear military jets flying over
their homes. The very thought of it annoys some people. They are writing angry
letters and protesting having to hear the noise of jets. They say that the
pilots should fly somewhere else. What they are saying is don’t fly over my
backyard.
When I was
much younger I was working on a barbed wire fence one day about twenty miles
south of Carrizozo on my grandfather’s ranch. It was a warm quiet day and I was
almost falling asleep on my feet while I worked on this fence. Bees were
buzzing and birds were singing. Then it happened.
Four F-4
Phantom jets from Holloman AFB came over me doing about 400 knots at two
hundred feet above the terrain. Instantly I went from being almost asleep on my
feet to throwing the hammer and running over the fence in a panic. Then it was quiet
again.
It is much
worse for those cowpokes on horseback. There can be quite a difficulty for a
rider when a horse is spooked this way. That said, I am not troubled by the military
jets. To me that is the sound of freedom and I normally look up appreciatively.
The
syndrome is called, “Not in my backyard.” Be it jets overhead or highways or
power lines, people will object and demand that these things not be in their
backyard, they should be in someone else’s backyard.
How do we
decide who has a backyard that should be protected from things that annoy and
who does not? In 1965, I lived in Aurora Colorado under the landing and takeoff
pattern of Stapleton Airport. It was often very loud but we got used to it. The
airport moved after we left.
What we
are dealing with is volunteers to our nation’s military who put their lives on
the line for our freedom. They must have a place to train. The rigors are such
that some pilots will not survive the training. And we should worry that the
noise bothers some people?
Every
effort should be taken to not annoy people up to the point that the pilots are
not able to get the very best training preparing them for real combat. At that
point, we should take their training as more important than our convenience.
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