DATE: Sunday, September 21, 1997            TAG: 9709180009

SECTION: COMMENTARY              PAGE: J4   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Letters

                                            LENGTH:  179 lines

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR - THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT

VIRGINIA BEACH

Want to buy a noisy home, Mayor?

Your article ``Oceana Expansion: 180 more jets. . . . What it would mean'' (Sept. 12) filled me with dread. I moved to Virginia Beach just over a year ago from another state and was not aware of the significance of the noise-level designations.

That has changed. Planes roar over my house day and night, sometimes at 2 or 3 in the morning. Seems like the noise levels may have to be expanded when the F/A-18 comes since it is noisier than the F-14.

I am trying to sell my house because of the noise. Will Virginia Beach Mayor Meyera Oberndorf, who wants us to suffer in silence, be willing to buy it? What about U.S. Rep. Owen Pickett?

So North Carolina wants the F/A-18. My suggestion? Let the state have the planes.

Ernestine Cook

Virginia Beach, Sept. 12, 1997

City has amnesia on Oceana jets

All the environmental impact studies and moving schools out of ``crash zones'' are nothing but white noise.

Where were Virginia Beach's mayor and city planners a scant 10 years ago when NAS Oceana housed a command called Tactical Wings Atlantic consisting of 12 full squadrons of F-14 Tomcats and six squadrons of A-6 Intruders? Plug in the simple arithmetic averaging around 10-12 aircraft per squadron and see how close it comes to the 180 figure the Navy is quoting when the F-18 Hornets arrive. Didn't anyone notice a bit of downsizing, including the total disappearance of the A-6s, since then?

The same number of aircraft will fly the same way they did back oh, so long ago, in 1987. They will use the same approach and landing patterns they did then, they will make the same amount of noise and, if one happens to auger in, it's going to crash in the same predictable place it would have then.

Think of all the money the city could save on moving schools and having impact studies if it just had a collective memory.

Brady L. Parker

Major, U.S. Marine Corps (ret.)

Virginia Beach, Sept. 12, 1997

Forget the new jets and write off Oceana

I am really tired of hearing about the problems associated with moving 180 aircraft to Oceana Naval Air Station.

Let's take all of the concerns compiled by The Virginian-Pilot and WVEC-TV so the Environmental Protection Agency can use them to justify placing the aircraft at Cherry Point, N.C.

In the near future, when the F-14s become outdated, the Navy can close NAS Oceana and that will end the noise and safety issues.

John J. Cox

Norfolk, Sept. 13, 1997

Base noisy jets somewhere else

In 1986, my family and I had the pleasure of relocating to Virginia Beach, to what we thought was a quiet, residential neighborhood known as Great Neck Meadows.

Shortly after we moved in, we came to experience - quite rudely - what it is like to live directly under the Oceana flight path. Our guests typically look at us in polite disbelief - ``How can you live in a place like this?'' is a customary comment.

Yes, the jet noise is the sound of ``freedom,'' but there is another kind of freedom - the freedom to live and work in a peaceful environment. Further, a strong national defense posture for our country can be accomplished without jet noise directly over our homes, schools and businesses.

I do not fault the Navy. But other parts of the country may be better able to benefit from this additional naval air presence without the quality of their lives being so adversely affected. Perhaps the EPA will choose to remind our officials of this painful reality.

As for ourselves, let's take a pass on these proffered economic benefits so as to help ensure the quality of life for all of us who reside here.

Hal Levenson

Virginia Beach, Sept. 13, 1997 o

Jet flights should stop after 10 p.m.

My wife and I bought a mobile home last year right behind the exchange at Oceana. We were well-aware that we would be in the landing zone for the base. We both work full time and most mornings are up well before daylight.

The thought of more jets coming to this base is our worst nightmare. Some nights we cannot get to sleep till after 11. Our community has many school-age children who must get up for school the next day. The few times I have called the base to ask when they would be stopping for the night, I was never left with the feeling they gave a wit about our lack of sleep or our work the next day.

If the Navy wants to bring more jets to Oceana, then it should be required to stop operations by 10 at night, just like any other citizen in this community.

Steven Colby

Virginia Beach, Sept. 12, 1997

Don't like the noise?

Then pick up and move

Only a few short months ago, "the commission" was thinking about closing Oceana. The number of people who came out of the woodwork to save Oceana was amazing. ``What will we do without Oceana?'' they said. ``We'll be a ghost town!''

Now those same people are saying: ``Too much noise!'' ``Too dangerous for our kids!'' ``I'm scared!'' And TV reporters are shoving mikes in residents' faces asking, ``How do YOU feel about all those planes and the noise?''

Let me remind you: Oceana has been here more than 50 years. Why did you buy a house next to a master jet base? Stop your whinning and move, if it scares you.

I like having Oceana here. And, yes, I do live in a flight path - behind Dam Neck, a stone's throw from Oceana and right in the path of those jets coming back to base from carriers out at sea. Yes, they are noisy. My daughter, my 13-year-old granddaughter and I watch them come in on many days.

Linda McManus

Virginia Beach, Sept. 15, 1997

Unwilling to turn a house into a cave

What good is moving schools out of a potential crash zone? Don't those same students still live in the neighborhoods surrounding those schools?

I live in the ``crash zone,'' have for over 16 years. Often the planes fly directly over my house in their approach to Runway 5 at Oceana, and the noise is quite deafening. The damage to my home and automobiles from the jet fuel exhaust is constant.

Your Sept. 13 article suggests that, at an expense I can't afford, I fortify my home to be a sound-resistant cave. This is an unacceptable loss of personal freedom when I take into consideration that my child may have to be bused away from her neighborhood school and that gone will be the days of getting up in the morning to enjoy a quiet cup of coffee.

Tom Pearson

Virginia Beach, Sept. 14, 1997

We're asking for N.C. to put bid in for jets

It would appear, from The Pilot's Sept. 12 front page that you have decided to forget the principal of reporting the news and have switched to editorializing.

Your article, ``Oceana expansion. . . . What it would mean,'' painted a picture of doom for Virginia Beach with the addition of the F/A-18 squadrons moving to Oceana from Cecil Field in Florida. There was no regard for what the consequences would be if we were to lose these additions to the community. The irony of this is the small print under the paper's banner that says, ``Serving Hampton Roads.''

If we had an NFL football team and it was going to the Super Bowl, your reporter would probably be warning everyone that if our team won, we would face a tougher schedule next year and thus should lose the game to keep things as they are.

This is the type of story that could create a case for North Carolina to step in and ask the Department of Defense to take another look at the relocation because Virginia Beach would not be able to provide the infrastructure needed to support all these squadrons and the resulting population increase.

The city can, and will, make any changes that are needed to accept the influx in population. This has been done in the past, and there is no reason it would be different in the future. Our quality of life is not on the verge of disaster, as impliedin the article.

William ``Bill'' Congleton Jr.

Virginia Beach, Sept. 12, 1997

Why all the studies when we're back on par?

About the impact of having 180 jets at NAS Oceana when all the F/A-18 Hornets arrive:

(1) Why hasn't there been more said about the absurdity of impact studies and moving schools when everything related to the coming of these aircraft from Florida is the same as it was in the '80s - total number of aircraft, same general operating parameters, noise and safety of flight?

(2) This is the same mayor and city commission who spent a million dollars on a Midwest public-relations firm to help a coastal resort city's image after the LaborFest shambles several years ago.

Whose Cousin Joe will be getting the fat contract dollars for all these studies?

Marshall Lefavor

Virginia Beach, Sept. 15, 1997

Bring on the earplugs!

We need to be careful in assessing the Navy's offer to base 180 F-18s at Oceana. Already, we are being told that the noise level will be little more than a normal conversation or a vacuum (RRROOOOOOAAAAAAARRRR!) . . . not only how loud one plane is, but how often we have to put up with (RRRRROOOOAAAARRRRR!) . . . is tempting, but there are many other ways to enhance the Hampton Roads economy that won't have such a negative impact on our quality of (RRRROOOOOOAAAAAARRRRRR).

THOMAS V. MOORE

Virginia Beach, Sept. 14, 1997

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