READERS RESPOND

AT ISSUE: Airport’s latest quarterly noise report showed a small

decrease in noise (“Airport reports slightly less noise,” Dec. 23).

I am writing in response to an article I read in the Daily Pilot. I

live less than a half-mile from the southern end of John Wayne Airport’s

runway. I am appalled to read from John Wayne Airport “Access and Noise

Manager” John Leyerle that, “Santa Ana Heights residents are probably

less sensitive to aircraft noise because they are more accustomed to

hearing it.”

After living here for more that five years, I’m still not nor will I

ever be “accustomed” to screaming jets flying over my house.

Do you know how fun it is, Leyerle, to hear a jet “full throttle” its

engines at the south end of the runway -- sometimes up to 45 minutes at a

time so that the mechanics can check the engines? You feel that you are

in the middle of a war zone! Or the joy to hear screaming Lear jets that

are so loud you feel your eardrums are going to burst? Or the curfew

that’s habitually being broken? Jets that fail to “cut back” their

throttle after reaching a certain altitude (as per the settlement

agreement) but instead “full throttle” over our homes?

My personal favorite is when we have Santa Ana winds and the jets take

off to the north and land to the north. The only problem is that all the

residents have to smell all the jet exhaust!

Yes, John Wayne Airport reports less noise. I don’t buy it; I feel

John Wayne Airport is getting louder. Just can’t wait till 2005 -- when

John Wayne Airport goes 24-seven!

Our quality of life?

RAYMOND NIEWIAROWSKI

Santa Ana Heights

Just read the article in the Daily Pilot regarding the noise from

aircraft in the Santa Ana Heights area coming from airplanes out of

Orange County or John Wayne Airport. Let me get this off my chest: I have

lived here in this house since 1954. It was a novelty to go to the

airport and watch the Bonanza take off.

Well, now things have changed, and we all have lived through this

disaster. Oh yes, I have complained or tried to, but no one ever returned

the call.

How about the time one of those planes flew low over my house on

Bayview at 5:30 a.m., and I couldn’t do anything about it except get mad?

Lately, at 9:30 p.m. the loudest plane was intensely loud. Loud enough to

think it had crashed nearby. Just a little later another one did the same

thing.

We have had so many cracks appear in our walls that I put a stick into

the crack to hold it in place till I can have it repaired. Oh, yes, we

are accustomed to the terrible noise, but like I said, no one is around

to complain to. So why bother? Let El Toro share this nuisance with us

old-timers.

THOMAS J. HOLLAND

Newport Beach

In reference to the front-page article on the airport reporting

slightly less noise.

The article stated that residents will welcome a report that shows

little change in the noise patterns from July through September and that

complaints dropped 8.3%.

Well, I live directly under the flight path, but I must live in the

middle of the bay. There is rarely a day that goes by that I do not have

a plane fly directly over head. When I did call in to let them know at

the noise center, I was told what I see is due to my “perception” of the

plane’s location. The plane I see directly overhead is really located

directly over the bay. So when they told me the plane is over the bay and

my perception is all wrong, I decided that I must live in the bay and

have no right to call and complain.

So I quit calling. But I do have pictures of the planes taken through

my skylight in my home.

JACK DELUCA

Newport Beach