Reason #89237 not to invest in aviation

by philg

What if you bought a fleet of $5 million Pilatus PC-12 airplanes and hoped to make a return on your investment? Then people who live near the San Carlos Airport, established during World War I (and therefore likely predating anyone who might be complaining about it), get together to shut you down. Here are some excerpts from “Proposed San Carlos Airport Ordinance Targets Surf Air, Excludes Ellison”:

Angered by noise from Pilatus PC-12s operated by Surf Air, residents of San Mateo county have taken a new tack in their fight to shut down the operation. A proposed curfew ordinance, drafted by the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors, would limit any operator to one takeoff and one landing of a “noisy airplane” between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. and prohibit all operations after 9 p.m. In a thinly veiled attempt to target Surf Air’s PC-12 specifically, the definition of “noisy airplane” is one whose FAA certificated noise level exceeds 74.5 dB. There are several PC-12 configurations, but the quietest one is rated at 74.6 dB.

The proposed San Carlos ordinance has an exclusion for jet aircraft and helicopters regardless of noise.

(The PC-12 is a turboprop rather than a pure jet, so it is noisier than some piston-powered airplanes but quieter than a lot of turbojets.)

4 thoughts on “Reason #89237 not to invest in aviation”

  1. Ironically Surf Air is headquartered at Santa Monica Airport. The city has succeed in getting our 100 year old airport closed. The city has made the airport so difficult to do business in, Surf Air operates at nearby Hawthorne Airport. I think the issue is of white privilege. White people do not like planes flying over their heads but are fine when the planes fly over the blacks or Mexicans. Surly this is the same situation in the bay area?

  2. The PC-12 is an irritating noise. There is a contractor PC-12 operating at night from a nearby USAF base that sounds like drilling my teeth as it meanders around all night at perhaps 2000 ft. No idea what the mission is, probably Special Forces training but Eglin AFB has many programs.

  3. @toucan sam: in the case of Surf Air and the San Carlos Airport, it’s definitely the case of the whitest of white privilege. The problem is the flight path of Surf Air planes is over one of the most ritziest and whitest towns in San Mateo County and the Bay Area: Atherton, the home of many Silicon Valley billionaires.

    (Note though: Atherton was widely settled by the gentry of San Francisco as early as the 1860s and 1870s (though it wasn’t incorporated as a town until 1923). This predates the San Carlos airport by many years. The residents of Atherton wanted to remain an unincorporated community but finally decided to incorporate so they wouldn’t be swallowed up by the adjacent and more plebeian communities of Menlo Park and Redwood City.)

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