One of the primary objections to residential airparks – indeed all airports, large and small, public and private – centers around noise. This usually is generated by the number of airplane takeoffs and landings in a given period.
While some people aren’t particularly bothered with facts when it comes to making statements in front of governing agencies, it is best if aviation enthusiasts try to keep to the facts. Toward that end, LWYP recently conducted a survey among subscribers to determine a number of factors that hopefully can dispel many of the erroneous assumptions, particularly as it pertains to residential airparks.
A total of 43 responses were received and they came from 25 states, providing a pretty good sampling.
To get a fair comparison, we first asked survey respondents how many homesites were on their airpark. Less than 10 homes on the airpark was the response from 14 percent; 11-20 homesites was noted by 16.3 percent. Eighten.8 percent reported 21-35 homesites and 18.6 percent were on airparks with 36-50 sites. The largest group was 32.6 percent with over 50 homesites on the airpark.
Of course, homesites and homes are two very different things so next we inquired how many completed homes were existing. There were less than 10 homes at 44.2 percent; between 11-20 at 18.6 percent of the
airparks; 11.6 percent had between 21-35 homes finished, 4.7 percent reported 36-50 dwellings and 20.9 percent said their airpark had more than 50 existing homes.
Do these homes have flyable airplanes? The survey showed 53.5 percent had less than 10 airworthy airplanes at their airpark. There were 11-20 flying at 9.3 percent and 21-35 at 11.8 percent of the facilities. Only
7 percent of the airparks reported they had 36-50 flyable airplanes and 18.6 percent claimed their airpark had more than 50 airworthy planes.
We asked respondents to estimate the number of flight operations (takeoff and landing) each month. Less than 15 – 27.9 percent;16-50 at 27.9 percent; 51-100 was reported by 14 percent and over 100 operations each month at 30.2 percent.
Nearly 100 percent of the operations were from aircraft based at the airpark was the response from 55.8 percent of those participating in the survey. Another 27.9 percent said they felt probably 75 percent of
the operations were from based aircraft. About half the operations came from based planes at 9.3 percent and less than half was the estimate from 7 percent of the respondents.
The airpark was located in a tourist area according to 4.7 percent. The area has a sizable retirement community was reported by 7 percent. The largest segment – 41.9 percent reported being in an agricultural area. Another 34.9 percent indicated the airpark location was a suburban community and 11.6 percent simply reported locale as “other.”
The reports came from Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Washington and Wyoming.