Leadership at Davison Army Airfield respects the privacy of residents, employees and wildlife by adhering to a Fly Neighborly Program.
The program includes measures with regards to altitude and routes to reduce the impact the aircraft's noise has on community members.
"We take residents into consideration when we're developing traffic patterns and when pilots are conducting operations," said Lemuel McCullum, DAA Airfield Division chief. "They can't just arbitrarily deviate from traffic patterns. There has to be a reason to deviate and those cases are few and far between."
Leadership recognizes excessive aircraft noise can result in annoyance, inconvenience or interference with the uses of property and it can adversely affect wildlife, according to the Fly Neighborly Program section in chapter nine of DAA's operation manual.
DAA defines noise-sensitive areas if noise interferes with normal activities associated with the area. Areas include residential, educational and health locations where a quiet setting is a generally recognized feature or attribute.
DAA's policy is to achieve an appropriate balance between efficiency, technological feasibility and environmental concerns, while maintaining the highest level of safety in efforts to minimize aircraft noise. "We don't infringe upon the privacy of the citizens in the surrounding area," McCullum said.
DAA's two main missions are training, and departures and arrivals.
Departures and arrivals occur day and night depending on mission requirements, according to David Arroyo, Davison Army Airfield Traffic and Airspace manager. To prevent noise problems, pilots avoid prolonging flight at low altitudes during landings and takeoffs.
"They get to their height as fast as they can," said Arroyo.
Training flights occur Monday through Saturday, from 8 a.m., to 10 p.m., and Sunday, from noon to 10 p.m. The training consists of helicopter and fixed-wing crews practicing takeoffs, landings and flying short distances near DAA. The exercise is important experience pilots and crew members need before participating in missions, Arroyo said.
"They're preparing to fly in combat situations," Arroyo said. "They need to be good at completing their missions prior to combat, and training allows them to gain critical skills."
To mitigate the noise issues, DAA plans training routes that avoid noise sensitive areas wherever possible. Pilots also fly at the maximum height allowed by the Federal Aviation Administration. Normal traffic altitude is 800 feet but fixed wing aircraft fly at 1,500 feet and helicopters fly at 1,100 feet to create more space between the aircraft and the community below, according to Arroyo.
"We fly max altitude whenever possible," Arroyo said.
If a pilot encounters an emergency during flight, they may have to lower their altitude for safety reasons, McCullum said. In such situations, pilots are still conscious of minimizing noise.
"They still have the inherent responsibility to try to do something to mitigate the noise over a particular area … maybe they can throttle back the engine or maybe they can adjust their route a little," McCullum said. "If they go below the established altitudes it will have an impact on noise."
If community members do see aircraft hovering over a noise-sensitive area, Arroyo said it's not a DoD aircraft. The aircraft likely belongs to law enforcement officials who are potentially searching for a criminal or criminal activity.
"None of our aircraft hover over residential areas," Arroyo said. "There's no reason for us to do so … DoD consciously tries to fly neighborly."
DAA officials participate in town hall meetings with garrison leadership and local community members to explain their fly neighborly policy and their efforts to reduce noise problems, McCullum said.
"We take all noise complaints seriously and see what we can do to mitigate the noise," Arroyo said. "We'll identify who the complaint came from and analyze the situation. If we can change the route then we'll do so."
Another benefit of community outreach is that it allows DAA to tell the military story, McCullum said.
"It allows us to come together as an aviation community to discuss what we do and how we do it and let (community members) know that we try to complete our mission as safe as possible," McCullum said. "At the end of the day, we're trying to be safe and we're trying not to disturb the community."
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