It's been so quiet here, I couldn't figure it out...
 

...until I realized all the private aircraft are on the ground instead of in the air. We used to have flights over the house pretty much all day long with a big increase in traffic at noon and at 5 PM. I called 5 PM happy hour. Up to 4 flight school planes doing touch and goes making for about 30 operations an hour right on top of me. Sometimes I could see all 4 planes at once in their pattern. It was basically an hour of solid prop noise.

They're all gone except for an an occasional flight out. Hardly any T & G. Commercial traffic uses a different approach and take off pattern. I could get used to this.:)

Opps, here comes one now. Nope, not a school job, he went straight. Let's see how long before the next one.

Wow, 5 minutes. He's out of here, too. Waiting for a 3rd. Ah, a full 15 minutes. I think that's a record.

Next up is a commercial flight. They tend to be in clumps so I won't get a privateer for the next half hour. I'm sorta reminded of the week after 9/11.

I guess no one can afford piloting lessons at the moment.

Nah they can't afford the avgas.

Or both. Anyway, it's been eerily quiet.

Ahh no biggie. It's only more peoples' jobs and livelihoods.

Well, an F 15 or F 22 just left over at Boeing. I can't tell one from the other. That definitely broke the silence. ;) I'll bet he passed over Catalina Island before I finished typing.

Those make my ears bleed when they go over. I do love watching the C-17's and DC-3's take off though. I'm glad I switched from the dish to fios. The planes would interfere with my signal since they go right over my house (worse for me there buddy :) ). Whats worse though is when they switch the approach to the SE. I swear I can see faces in the windows of those jets they're so low. It is far better than being near LAX. That's how I deal...

The mcab near here is getting some JSF's that are supposed to make the 18's sound quiet. I can't freakin wait.

:)

Well, someone found some funds. The school planes started at 8AM this Sunday morning. I guess I have Monday to look forward to for some more of that new found peace and quiet while the students are hard at work earning some more money to spend in the air.

I always wondered abut those private planes that circle for hours. I assumed they were school planes, but man, sometimes they used to just fly what seemed like all day without a break. I thought since I live in a sort of high crime area (Northeast Portland, OR) they might be cop planes, but no one from the neighborhood association or the airport could ever tell me definitavely. That noise is really irratating when your are tring to do something frustrating like replace a hood strut.

(Having said that, until my dad had a stroke, he lived at an Airpark where everyone had hangers and airplanes like we have garages and he called that noise music - I have to admit, in some cases he was right)

I feel your pain, every morning where I used to live, between 9 and 10 am there were at least six and up to 11 F15s leaving the base, my house was right in the line of fire of the afterburners. I never got used to that racket.