The Virginian-Pilot
©
VIRGINIA BEACH
The skies around Navy air strips in Chesapeake and Virginia Beach will be busier this week.
Squadrons of fighter jets based at Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach will be flying more than usual - day and night - starting Monday and lasting for about a week, the Navy announced.
Pilots will be practicing touch-and-go maneuvers, primarily at Fentress Auxiliary Landing Field in Chesapeake, but also at Oceana, in preparation for landing aboard an aircraft carrier.
People who live or work near Oceana, the Navy's East Coast master jet base, can expect even more jet activity to come. On Dec. 5, Fentress will close for about nine months for repairs and upgrades, meaning more maneuvers at Oceana in the interim.
Delicious
Digg
Reddit
Facebook
Twitter
Google
Yahoo
That Explains It
I thought what I saw yesterday might have been a raptor. It went almost straight up for the longest time. Very neat.
They are practicing where they should be.....
It only makes sense that they will practice and do their FCLP's at Oceana & Fentress, they were built for that purpose, they are housed there and maintained there and should practice and train there, not across the border to appease residents who wee allowed to build or buy homes too close to these bases, that is where the Navy and the cities failed miserably! Hoping the bad economy will be the catalyst to keep from destroying farmlands, wetlands and other natural lands from an OLF that is not needed. Fix the intruders around Oceana & Fentress and carry on with training our pilots where they are based and can remain close to home with their families while training.
In 2003 that is what the secretary of the Navy's
EIS stated is the responsibility of a homefield by performing most if not all training evolutions at the homefield to minimize flight time, improve Sailor moral, save money on gas, maintenance and other flight related concerns.
We own the night skies. We do our strategic strikes at night (mainly USN, USAF). We do close support in the day (USMC). The USAF arguably does not require the amount of training to return home safely as the USN. For the USN, they SHOULD be performing most of their flights during DARKNESS, which for much of the year will be AFTER 10pm to get all the guys trained. Yet, if we are to believe the Secretary, he "promises" to be done by 10pm or 12am. How is that possible and "train like we fight"?
An unrealistic goal?
They have been flying for weeks
The activity has been up for weeks. Did the pilot just get around to publishing this story or did the Navy just get around to announcing it.
It should get worse around Oceana when the secretary starts
to fly most of his training missions at his MJB like he should be doing. The Secretary will be failing our pilots and the people around Oceana when he does start doing this because either our pilots are not receiving the practice they require and because he is putting so many people at greater risk with his increase in training. He has know about this since 2004 and earlier with his report to the 2005 BRAC process. Something he convientely forgets to mention at OLF and other visits into the communities.
In Jan 2007, he admitted Oceana and Fentress is a terrible place to perform training (FCLP type). What has he done to fix Oceana? Does he care to fix it? Will he ever do the right thing at Oceana and abandon it as a carrier supporting MJB?
It should get worse around Oceana when the secretary starts
to fly most of his training missions at his MJB like he should be doing. The Secretary will be failing our pilots and the people around Oceana when he does start doing this because either our pilots are not receiving the practice they require and because he is putting so many people at greater risk with his increase in training. He has know about this since 2004 and earlier with his report to the 2005 BRAC process. Something he convientely forgets to mention at OLF and other visits into the communities.
In Jan 2007, he admitted Oceana and Fentress is a terrible place to perform training (FCLP type). What has he done to fix Oceana? Does he care to fix it? Will he ever do the right thing at Oceana and abandon it as a carrier supporting MJB?
Fentress
At least Fentress will be closed for a while. I wish they would close it permanently. It is not like an air port. An airport would not be that bad. At an air port the planes take off and they are gone. At Fentress they just keep going around and around and around. It constant and it is deafening.
F-18 Super Hornet
The Loudest Aircraft Ever To Fly. F-4's, A-6's, F-14's, those were the days.
Not for me
I spent almost 3 years in va beach. Once in the horrible apts on 20th street(before they renovated) and then over on ocean pebbles way. 20th wasn't too bad, but the planes flew directly over my place at ocean pebbles all day long. There was no watching tv, enjoying music or anything. At night we turned the tv off and ended up driving out of the flight path until the plans stopped. They usually flew until 10pm or so.
It was miserable plain and simple. I can remember the mainenance guy telling me stories where the planes in he 70s would dump jet fuel onto the apts. he said the sut was so bad that they had to get cleaners to clean the roofs every six months.
How anyone can deal with it is beyond me.
What?
The "sut?" What?!