Bob: Thank you, thank you, thank you for posting this. Rana Goodman and I have been spearheading a campaign against the low flying aircraft for months now, but it doesn’t seem that anyone is listening. The residents of Big Sky Village do have a petition and copies are available for anyone who wants to walk their neighborhood and obtain signatures. A lady in Canyon Crest just picked up several copies of the petition a few minutes ago to take to a party tomorrow.

Both Rana and I have copies of this petition and anyone is welcome to one. I can be reached at [3] pmccarthy@cox.net.

Patsy McCarthy
Big Sky Village

It seems to me someone didn’t read the disclosure documents when they purchased their property. “Air traffic” = “I don’t see anything now” “Premium lot” = “View lot”

Violations? What rule, law, statute, is being violated?

Federal Aviation Regulations specify a minimum altitude of 1000 feet over congested areas and 500 feet over non-congested areas. The exceptions to this rule are helicopters and aircraft that are in the process of taking off or landing.

Exemption For Flying Reindeer On Christmas Eve: On Christmas Eve only, flying reindeer and any cargo they may be towing shall be exempt from the provisions of subsection A of this section. (Ord. 77-04 § 12, 2004: Ord. 92-85 § 1, 1985: prior code §§ 2-3-8, 2-3-8(e))

Oscar couldn’t do it!

Mr. Davis:

We have received a number of emails thanking us for becoming concerned over this obvious safety matter.

You failed to read and understand Colonel Mark Cook’s posting, before you popped off. Or, you are being openly disrespectful of a fellow neighbor who deserves much better.

Why not do your homework, and then try another post with some perhaps useful comments about the serious matter of low-flying (below 300 feet) aircraft over SCA?

[4] http://blog.anthemvoice.org/2008/05/16/low-flying-aircraft-hazzards/

My fellow residents, I have some very good news to report to you. As a result of my meetings with the FAA and the airport manger at Henderson Executive Airport, the flight pattern has been changed to avoid Anthem and fly at a higher altitude around our community. King Airelines has agreed to the change. Enjoy.

Mark….

I may have missed it in prior e-mails and messages…but it sounds as though you were qualified in the Blackbird.

Thanks for you efforts and results on King’s flight pattern. We really appreciate the noise reduction, even more than you might imagine.

Do you have any “hard info” on the corridors and capacity in planning for Sloan Helio?
Moderately knowledgable speculation is: two east/west…low Anthem and high Anthem with .5 to .75 mile separation…capacity to 10 per hour, in each direction between 0700 and 2200 hours. In addition, two north/south corridors, with .5 to .75 mile separation between 0700 and 2200 hours….capacity to 10 per hour (including traffic from Ivanpah, when activated in 2017). These seem to be quite high….but, do have the look-ahead build-in.

I accompanied Mark Cook to the meeting this morning and can confirm that not only did the Henderson Executive Airport Manager respond as Mark has reported, but the Airport staff treated him with the full respect and consideration that someone with his vast expertise should receive. Mark wowed them with his knowledge, research, graphic aids, and overall command of the situation.

There was no doubt that Mark was on top of all the facts, had the necessary aviation expertise, and was proposing an workable plan to quickly solve the low-flying violation problems–with the least effort by all. In fact, based on Mark’s intensive work last week by personally contacting about a dozen appropriate aviation and FAA leaders in this area, the Henderson Airport authorities had already held a ’safety meeting’ last week and implemented some key decisions supporting what Mark had been advocating.

I must also congratulate those twenty or so residents who followed Mark Cook’s advice and called in to leave voice complaints with Henderson Executive Airport Manager, Tom Donaldson, 261-4802. THANKS! Those calls helped Mark’s efforts since your personal participation made it very clear that the danger of low-flying aircraft and related noise problems were affecting more than just a handful of homeowners.

For myself, it was a sincere pleasure to witness such an effective exchange between professional aviation executives. Sometimes they had to lapse into ‘pilot talk’ to understand the issues and alternatives, and it was obvious that having a professional like Mark Cook to represent our community interests on this kind of special problem was why the results were so quick and decisive.

The only downside to the whole affair was that we learned Tom Donaldson was being promoted to another airport position and his replacement had not yet been named. So, our residents will need to be alert and report any violations if enforcement should happen to slip in the future.

Sorry Mark you would have lost your wager,

I didn’t talk to Favil. I simply did a Google search. These links were among the 31,000 responses on which the statement that I included:

[5] http://www.modairport.com/operations.asp

[6] http://www.fly2pie.com/noise/faq.asp#9

[7] http://www.vermontairports.com/FAQ.htm#6

[8] http://www.tampaairport.com/airport_business/noise_abatement/faq.asp

[9] http://www.sandiego.gov/airports/montgomery/montfaq.shtml#airport

[10] http://www.eaglecounty.us/airport/faq.cfm#14

Mark, I and the rest of the community can thank you for contacting the folks at the airport regarding this matter. Keep it up and the community will love you as much as they do others that work constructively for the community as a whole. Don’t we all love those that have done constructive work in our community? Sure we do. Or, am I being facetious?

E.J., I have not gotten very deeply into the Sloan heliport problem. All I have is the assurance of Mr. Tom Donaldson, Clark Co. Dept of Aviation, that they will be flying two miles South of our community. I’ll trust him for the time being.

Anyway, I doubt if the helicopter tour operators want to take on this large community of feisty old codgers, and if they fly over us with 10, 30, 50 or more flights a day, we’ll destroy them!

No, although the 1A secret test did involve the black bird, I wasn’t flying it. My time at 2.5 mach above 50k was in a jet fighter. A ’sweet little ship’ as we called it.

Mark, the original 48+ acre site at 15000 S. Las Vegas Boulevard for the Heliport is only about .25 miles south of the Sloan/I15 interchange. The Airport Authority had already purchased that site when the plans were made public. A Go Cart track now occupies the space. A Heliport at that location would have made is very difficult for the tour operators to justify detouring around Anthem.

The reason the S.H.O.U.T. group worked so hard to convince the Nevada Congressional delegation, including Senators Reid and Ensign, that a location an additional two miles further south was preferred over the 15000 S. Las Vegas Boulevard parcel was that their most direct flight path to Lake Mead and the Grand Canyon would be about two miles South of Anthem.

The further south location is now undergoing Environmental studies. The Congressional act that would transfer that land to the Aviation Department is contingent on a permissive Environmental study conclusion.

I don’t know what this is: “…Your comment is awaiting moderation….”

Mark, I have never questioned your aeronautical experience. Why should I? I didn’t know that I was talking to a pilot, only someone fabricating statement about what I might have done.

I must ask, how did you determine without a doubt that the flying altitude was less than 200 feet above Black Mountain Village? You state: “…observed…” To me that seems to be akin to folks guessing the speed of automobiles on the Parkway. To be blunt, not very accurate.

How did you associate my comments regarding perceived air space violations with this statement: “….for the missing 1.375 million that was due the community in 2005 but somehow mysteriously got lost later on in the Rec 3 fiasco?…” Not really on topic… You state that I shouldn’t write about what I don’t know. But you write about the 1.375 million without knowledge. Didn’t you listen to Mike Dixon’s explanation of the Board of Director’s meeting minutes where he explained that decision was made during an official Board meeting? Not lost, the Board redirected it for the good of the community over the coming years.

Bob,

In the past years have ranted about the Oversight Committee that the Board of Directors had no control over. Yet you accompanied Mr. Cook to the Airport regarding the alleged low flying planes, Weren’t you acting as an “oversight committee” totally without the control of the Board of Directors?

If not, please explain the difference.

Charles W Davis, I invited Mr. Frank to accompany me to my meeting with the airport manager for my own personal reasons, and I briefed him beforehand on my presentation and that he was just an observer. He was not acting in any official capacity, he did not ask to accompany me, I asked him, and he was not acting as an oversight committee. Would you please stop trying to find fault with everything that Mr. Frank does?

You have had years of exposure to the exceptionally large number of faults and misdeeds of the other board members, and those are far more serious than anything Mr. Frank has done. You have had privileged insight into the management (I prefer the term mismanagement) that led to the Trumpets fiasco, the failure to collect transition funds, the failure to fund reserves, the failure to collect 1.375 million in the year 2005, the failure to document actions, the failure to comply with the laws, to name just a few, and you have the audacity to question Mr. Frank’s efforts?

Why are you so intent on attacking the messenger, who obviously has the knowledge and the desire to collect the millions owed, and provide the leadership we all so desperately need? Can you not see that such attacks on Mr. Frank are solely to put up a smoke screen to hide the guilty? Are you not part of the problem, rather than part of the solution, with your incessant nit-picking?