We have this group here in Virginia Beach that call themselves CCAJN, Citizens Concerned About Jet Noise.
As far as I can tell, it's a group of people here in Virginia Beach that bought homes in the wrong areas and now they're screaming (they have to in order to be heard over the jet noise!) about our Master Jet Base here at the beach. They say they want to enhance the quality of life in our community. I'm still trying to figure out how getting rid of somewhere in the neighborhood of a billion dollars a year in revenue to the area is going to enhance my quality of life.
NAS Oceana has been here quite a while. The Navy started building it in the 1940s. When I first came to Hampton Roads in the 1970s, Virginia Beach was a pretty small town. Oceana was out here in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by farm land and woods, it didn't bother anyone and nobody bothered it either.
Slowly but surely, Virginia Beach got a little more crowded and some of those farmers sold some of that farm land and little communities sprang up all around Oceana. How stupid do you really have to be to buy a house right near a Master Jet Base? And make no mistake; Oceana has been a Master Jet Base since long before any of these houses were built near the base. It’s been a Master Jet Base since the 1950s and most of these homes were built in the 1980s and 1990s.
There was plenty of land in other parts of Virginia Beach and Chesapeake, but folks wanted convenience. I’d bet that most of the people that first bought these homes worked at the base. So, buying a house near the base made sense. I’d bet they knew what they were getting into at the time.
Move to 2005 and the arrival of the navy’s new Super Hornet FA-18. One bad-ass loud plane! Last year NAS Oceana made the Base Re-alignment And Closure (BRAC) list. Why, you ask? Encroachment of course! It didn’t make the initial list. It was added on later. I guess after these A-holes that call themselves "concerned citizens" complained to the right people. BRAC demanded that the city do something to stop the encroachment. The city said, "Ok."
Article comments
1 - Chip Rose
There are a number of homes, actually a fairly large number I believe, that were there at Oceana long before the NAS Oceana jet base got there.
But yes, I agree with you for the most part that if a person buys a house close to the runway, they ought not to complain about noise. Seems obvious, but that is what a lot of the debate is about.
Myself, I side with the folks that LOVE jet noise. To me, it is the cost of freedom in the USA. In some countries, if you complain about jet noise, they'll just bazooka your property and call it a day.
2 - gonzo marx
funny stuff Andy...nice ta see ya Post
/golfclap
now, take a trip back home and get some REAL pizza
Va beach...geeez...i couldn't wait ta get out of there, and yer there on purpose?
/rolls eyes
Excelsior!
3 - Andy Marsh
I was just up there in December gonzo! Va Beach ain't bad...6 hours from my folks...just far enough that they don't show up unexpectedly! Golden buckle of the bible belt...what else could you ask for???
4 - Andy Marsh
Chip - there may have been a few...but not quite a few...hell, there were only a few roads out this way back in the 40's and 50's!
5 - Bob
Im sorry but I bought this property 17 years ago only thing flying was A-7s and they were not nearly as load as the hornets.When a jet flys over your house and windows shake and cielings fall in,its to dam much I have decieded to leave the beach to the navy they have done agreat job destroying life here, just like the goverment. who gives a shit about the tax payer anyway.that is not the sound of freedom last time I looked we were freed 200 years.see ya
6 - allen
I find it interesting that all the positive comments I read come from people who moved here. Some brag that they have been here 40 yesrs. I was borne here, on land granted my family for service in the Rev. War. I have seen the quality of life go down consistant with the addition of more and lauder jets at oceana. The people who support oceana's presance are obviously sucking on the navy teat. I am a disabled Vet. and afford to move. Perhaps one of the jet noise lovers would like to give me their place and live in mine. There is plenty of noise here. You could get together and have noise parties. Everyone could bring pen and paper for conversation.
7 - erin
grow up. if u dont like the noise, leave. if the base has to move, the same thing will happen in whatever place it takes up claim, people will encroach and then complain about the noise. what is the military suppose to do, spend millions every few years to keep moving the bases because somebody complains about the noise? screw u.
8 - me
The jets are fine during the day but you get home at night and want to sit down and enjoy a program on tv its impossible. you people that say its the sound of freedom you dont live any near here. so dont give me that bullshit. i personaly know they can take different aproaches to avoid flying over heavily populated areas.the sound of freedom? what about the tax payers money that pays for the fuel that they dump before landing over and over on a daily basis. it cost thousands just to send one up for a 20 minute flight. to me thats a waste. they shit on the people that pay the salaries of the command on that base. so say what you will its a pain in the ass. we will be free with or without that base
9 - George
Langley AFB is getting just as bad since the F22 Raptors came in. I live several miles from the base on property in York County that has been in my family for over 200 years...so yes we were here before the Jet base. We were never really bothered by the F4s, F15s, and F16s, but these damn F22s are LOUD! When they rev those loud sonofabitches up for take off every window in my whole house rattles and pictures have fallen off the walls. Forget f-ing sleeping in if you have a day off those things would wake dead peopel in cemetaries. We keep hoping the Pentagon will wise up and close Langley after the runways got flooded twice by Isabel and the November NorEaster. Maybe then there will be some peace and quiet again in Poquoson, Hampton and Lower York County.
Oh yeah and then there are those load add delta wing jobs that contractors fly out of Patrick Henry. Apparently those little ear splitting jets fly out to do mock dogfights with the F22s to rehearse a battle that will never happen. The F22 was obsolete the day it rolled out of the factory and has never been deployed the USSR no longer exists and the next generation Soviet MIG it was designed to go up against was never built. It is a Cold War relic that has no real utility in the current conflicts.