Air acrobats spawn complaints from some on the ground below

By Davis Bushnell, Globe Correspondent, 3/10/2002

CHELMSFORD - Gerard T. Hall turns on his television set and slips in a videotape. Images appear of a low-flying, single-engine plane performing aerobatic maneuvers over Hall's North Chelmsford neighborhood.

''Listen to the noise,'' said Hall, who captured the images with his video camera around 8 a.m. last Dec. 23. ''We want the noise and stunts to stop. It would be easy to say, `Push that stuff into others' backyards elsewhere,' but, unfortunately, that's been happening all over for some time.''

Hall is secretary of Stop the Noise Inc., a nonprofit group formed last July. Its 12 leaders are also spotters, monitoring stunt flying in a wide area - from Chelmsford to Townsend. The group estimates that there are thousands of these flights a year over populated areas west of Interstate 495.

Pilots purportedly fly out of Hanscom Field in Bedford as well as airfields in Fitchburg and Nashua, N.H., Hall said. Richard Walsh, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Port Authority, which owns and operates Hanscom, said the agency is only responsible for supervising general aviation ground activities. ''Once the planes take off, they're out of our jurisdiction,'' he said, passing the ball to the Federal Aviation Administration.

Hall's group is now bracing for a possible confrontation with the FAA, which says stunt pilots appear to be operating within the law, or not flying over congested areas, which is prohibited.

''We'll be meeting soon with a retired FAA official who we hope will help us deal with the agency,'' said Robert F. Casey Jr. of Ayer, legal counsel to the citizens group, adding that it's premature to reveal the person's name.

If further negotiations with the FAA prove to be fruitless, ''then we may bring civil action against the agency and individual violators,'' or pilots, said Casey, whose law offices are in Harvard.

A big obstacle so far, Casey and other members in his group acknowledge, has been an inability to decipher, from the ground, a plane's identification numbers, which are needed by the FAA in order to conduct an investigation.

''Trying to make out those numbers from the ground is like trying to read quarter-inch-high letters 10 feet away,'' said William Burgoyne of Townsend, president of Stop the Noise.

Meanwhile, Chelmsford Police Chief Raymond McCusker and Ayer officials are making their own inquiries.

In January, McCusker wrote State Police Superintendent Thomas Foley, asking whether the Air Wing could assist his department in identifying aerobatic aircraft.

''Noise is a factor, but I'm especially concerned about the safety factor resulting from stunts being performed,'' McCusker said. ''Also, following Sept. 11, people get alarmed when they see low-flying planes.''

The Air Wing has now been informed of McCusker's concerns and will ''try to identify'' aircraft flying low over populated areas, said Lieutenant Paul Maloney, a State Police spokesman. That information then would be turned over to the FAA, he said.

However, the chairman of the Chelmsford selectmen, Thomas E. Moran, said he's ''never had calls'' from residents complaining about pilots performing stunts. ''There are a lot of hot issues in town, but this isn't one of the top 10,'' he said.

But this is indeed a hot issue, one that's been unresolved ''for four or five years,'' countered Richard Sacchetti, a neighbor of Hall's in North Chelmsford.

''We're tired of listening to the drone of a biplane 25 minutes at a clip, four or five days a week,'' he said. ''The other day, a plane went into a sharp dive. There's no telling what might have happened if the plane had lost power.''

Ayer selectmen are awaiting a response to a Feb. 19 letter sent to Robert S. Bartanowicz, the FAA's regional administrator, based in Burlington.

''Selectmen want to find out whether the FAA considers Ayer a `congested community,''' Ayer Town Administrator Anita M. Hegarty said.

FAA regulation bans any aerobatic flight ''over any congested area of a city, town, or settlement, or over an open air assembly of persons.''

James Peters, a regional FAA spokesman, said, ''Our mandate is that pilots be in compliance with FAA regulations, and there don't appear to be any violations of those regulations.

''However, we have reminded [aerobatic] pilots of their responsibilities under the law.''

Peters also said that a flight standards manager at Hanscom Field had reviewed Hall's Dec. 23, 2001, videotape. ''But it was difficult to make out the end numbers [on the plane] and the area the plane was flying over. It could have been over a quarry or over Route 3,'' Peters said.

Hall said the tape also shows Lovett Lane signs. He lives on Lovett Lane. Casey, the citizens group lawyer, added, ''If an FAA inspector sat outside Hall's house, he wouldn't have to wait very long to see what the videotape shows.''

Massachusetts also has regulations, via the state Aeronautics Commission, that prohibit ''`buzzing,' diving on, or flying in close proximity to, a group of persons, farm, livestock, home, any structure, vehicle, or vessel on the ground.''

Neither Sherman Saltmarsh Jr., chairman of the commission, nor Robert Mallard, its executive director, returned phone calls regarding the commission's role in monitoring activities of stunt fliers.

Burgoyne, the Stop the Noise president, asserted, ''Pilots' groups say they have the right to do anything they want, forgetting that flying is a privilege, not a right.

''And we homeowners have rights - in this situation, a right not to be subjected to noise pollution, or another form of `dumping.'''

This story ran on page W4 of the Boston Globe on 3/10/2002.
© Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.
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