Common Ground

So someone wants to fly their helicopter to their business somewhere around the city. I don’t know if the particular location is appropriate. I have not checked it out myself. However, people should not be so quick to speak against it. One of the long time dreams of the future has been private aircraft that you can take home with you, if not land right by your house. Much hullabaloo has been made on the cable channels about the Moller Air Car. A car sized personal aircraft that uses brute force to move it along, much like the Hawker Harrier hovers. The problem, unlike a helicopter, is that loss of an engine means you descend with all the aerodynamics of a car! But the point is that people are working towards the goal of personal aviation that you take home.

Personal aircraft that you take home. You’d like to have something like that. Drive down highway 12 near Lake Geneva and you will see houses clustered around a runway. Here people can pull their plane out of their garage/hanger and fly away from the homes. The late Harry Quadracci had a helicopter that he’d take to his Pine Lake home. A person in Greenfield built a platform on his roof to land his helicopter until the local spoil-sports showed him that there really is no true freedom in this country. I knew a fellow that landed his Luscombe in a field behind the machine shop he worked at.

Usually the neighbors object to the noise. I doubt it is really that. For years now we have tolerated people taking the mufflers off their motorcycles and kids illegally modifying their pocket rockets and trucks so they can share the rumble and noise with the rest of the world. All the time the police “turn a deaf ear” to the problem.

So the complaint can’t really be about noise. Could it be jealousy? I know I am.