I honestly don't even know if all these planes are DCA traffic or Dulles that fly over NOVA suburbs.

If you're close in they're absolutely all DCA and IAD.

Get the free app, flightradar24, and you'll see that flight paths for DCA are incredibly simple. Not all that complex for IAD.

Sometimes you'll see planes circling close to DCA but this is rare, way less than 1% of arrivals. It must be when the timing is off for runway usage and they need to readjust to prevent a near incursion.

I spend too much time on the app...but it's better than spending too much time on DCUM! Maps are cool.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People who are bothered by plane noise seriously bother me. Especially being that far out.

I walk/run by DCA several days a week - it's about 1.5 mile from my home on paths, and considerably shorter if you draw a direct line. It's white noise. And you physically FEEL takeoff and landing sometimes.

Not a big deal, but a tradeoff for living in the neighborhood we choose to live in.

If you're that abnormally sensitive, move elsewhere and don't complain about not having an airport you can get to easily.

This PP seems a bit too defensive. I actually work for a major airline, and I still hate the sound of airplane noise.

In about 15 years, we can expect quieter aircraft, as Boeing and Airbus have those in the plans. (Granted, electric airplanes are less likely.)

You are right. This is the first of these threads that took off; probably because the adverse effects and the terribleness of the situation are wholly undeniable!
Otherwise they just try to shame people into not dragging their real estate $ down by mocking it and others (calling them crazy, abnormally sensitive) but then can’t stop complaining on the private listserv.

Real estate $ won’t save anyone from a near certain disease. Estimate is 70% increase in cardiovascular alone. The only positive from a recent study was that
people go deaf sooner and then the effects lessen a bit. It’s the kids that will have the worst effects later in life from the ultrafines pushed by jets into lungs, brain etc. (not an exaggeration, directly from UWA, German, NJ studies).

Reminds me of Spring Valley people doing the same. We figured ok, but we’ll test the “cleaned” soil. I could have killed people with a pool me of the heavy metals from a spoonful of that yard.

No, thanks

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Anonymous wrote:How can any the Palisades be worse than Old Town with regards to airplane noise. I know it’s 5:45am because that’s when the first planes start.

It’s probably the same? But when I walk around Alexandria (King St) it’s not as noticeable? I don’t live there so not worried about the effects of the inevitable pollution on my health. But, honestly, how Palisades feels today is like that old movie with low flying plane and the guy having to duck for his dear life

I think the difference is that in Alexandria you have a lot of other noise that drowns out the planes (except in the early morning I guess, as PP suggests). It is the same in Rosslyn or Foggy Bottom. The planes are very loud there too but you do not really notice, because there is a lot of other stuff going on. In a place with a suburban feel like the Palisades though the planes become much more noticeable.

If you check the monitoring web site that was posted up thread, it looks like the noise level in Alexandria is lower than Palisades. I used to live in Alexandria in Old Town and further down river and was never bothered by the plane noise. I think there are two reasons (1) the DCA traffic usually lands from the South and takes off to the North, so plane traffic over Alexandria is usually landing aircraft. Palisades gets aircraft taking off and the engine noise on take off is greater; and (2) Geography. Old Town is lower and the river is wider there.

Here’s the web site. I just looked at they are currently landing from the North and taking off to the South, and I think my theory holds. Palisades is not as loud as it was when they were getting outbound traffic the other day and Alexandria is getting into the 70’s under the current outbound planes. It doesn’t look as though it is as loud or for as long as for Palisades the other day, though. So, I still think it’s a combination of prevailing flight paths and geography. Maybe taking off to the North is more common in the AM? I know it has to do with wind direction — maybe there’s a pilot on here who knows?

Planes take off and land into the wind. If the wind has a northerly component, flights will take off to the north and land from the south; if the wind has a southerly component, it's the opposite. The prevailing wind in this area is typically from the north in the fall and winter and from the south in spring and summer (although the actual wind direction will obviously vary each day).

This is sort of right. Planes have to account for the wind, but the runway doesn't rotate to face the wind. And as soon as a plane is aloft, it adjusts to the planned flightpath, again accounting for the wind.

And the winds in this latitude are usually out of the west - NW or SW, perhaps, but west. Only occasional, temporary weather conditions bring the winds from other directions.

Anonymous wrote:People who are bothered by plane noise seriously bother me. Especially being that far out.

I walk/run by DCA several days a week - it's about 1.5 mile from my home on paths, and considerably shorter if you draw a direct line. It's white noise. And you physically FEEL takeoff and landing sometimes.

Not a big deal, but a tradeoff for living in the neighborhood we choose to live in.

If you're that abnormally sensitive, move elsewhere and don't complain about not having an airport you can get to easily.

This PP seems a bit too defensive. I actually work for a major airline, and I still hate the sound of airplane noise.

In about 15 years, we can expect quieter aircraft, as Boeing and Airbus have those in the plans. (Granted, electric airplanes are less likely.)

The birds chirping are much louder than the planes. Can someone take care of this for me?

Oh no! The DCA flights are taking off to the south this morning and I have planes flying overhead in Burke! Yikes! Time to build that underground bunker so I can hide underground for the next couple of hours...

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Anonymous wrote:It’s always someone trying to deflect from the real issue. That people should stop buying in these areas or if they do get it for cheap because you’ll pay in chronic disease, stress etc

Classic DCUM. There are no bad polices and there's never a reason to fight to improve the status quo. It's all about people who made poor choices and their problems aren't deserving of attention.

"improving the status quo" means sloughing off airplane noise to areas where people bought houses that were not in the flight path previously. Seems kinda selfish.

Not really. Dispersing the flights more would mean occasional noise for many instead of constant noise for some. Sounds more fair to me and not that disruptive toward those not affected by the noise now.

Dispersing flights would make the airspace unnecessarily more hazardous and chaotic. The skies are already congested. Concentrating flight patterns isn't about screwing certain neighborhoods on the ground; it's all about keeping the flying public safe.

As others have said, places like the Palisades have dealt with airplane noise from DCA for decades. This isn't a new issue. Frankly, I have no sympathy for whiners who knew (or chose to ignore) that they were buying into a neighborhood that sits either adjacent to or underneath flight paths.

It's about keeping you nice and comfy and smug, isn't it? Because you want this to assure this never happens to you, don't you? Hopefully you are wrong and one day you get your share of traffic, but like PP is suggesting it will be dispersed, so not life altering for you to hear a few planes per day, and a huge break for others who live under the beelines of planes right now. Also it was explained ad nauseum here that flight patterns changed, so many people bought in the areas they thought were far enough away from the airports and even inland from the river, but now got planes flying close enough in beelines for hours on end.

No, it’s about doing your own research and not expecting to be spoon-fed information by a realtor or builder.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to identify the “risks” of buying near existing takeoff/landing patterns for an airport, especially for an airport like DCA where planes have very narrow pathways to fly. All it takes is one minor adjustment to bring more noise overhead.

It’s akin to the “risk” of buying near an Interstate highway, which could always be widened in the future.

People who are mad in the Palisades have no one to blame but themselves. Do a better job of researching potential “risks” in the future when you buy into neighborhoods.

Also, for the record, given that the region has three airports that typically serve around 70 million passengers a year, a lot of us hear airplane noise throughout the day.

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Anonymous wrote:How can any the Palisades be worse than Old Town with regards to airplane noise. I know it’s 5:45am because that’s when the first planes start.

It’s probably the same? But when I walk around Alexandria (King St) it’s not as noticeable? I don’t live there so not worried about the effects of the inevitable pollution on my health. But, honestly, how Palisades feels today is like that old movie with low flying plane and the guy having to duck for his dear life

I think the difference is that in Alexandria you have a lot of other noise that drowns out the planes (except in the early morning I guess, as PP suggests). It is the same in Rosslyn or Foggy Bottom. The planes are very loud there too but you do not really notice, because there is a lot of other stuff going on. In a place with a suburban feel like the Palisades though the planes become much more noticeable.

If you check the monitoring web site that was posted up thread, it looks like the noise level in Alexandria is lower than Palisades. I used to live in Alexandria in Old Town and further down river and was never bothered by the plane noise. I think there are two reasons (1) the DCA traffic usually lands from the South and takes off to the North, so plane traffic over Alexandria is usually landing aircraft. Palisades gets aircraft taking off and the engine noise on take off is greater; and (2) Geography. Old Town is lower and the river is wider there.

Here’s the web site. I just looked at they are currently landing from the North and taking off to the South, and I think my theory holds. Palisades is not as loud as it was when they were getting outbound traffic the other day and Alexandria is getting into the 70’s under the current outbound planes. It doesn’t look as though it is as loud or for as long as for Palisades the other day, though. So, I still think it’s a combination of prevailing flight paths and geography. Maybe taking off to the North is more common in the AM? I know it has to do with wind direction — maybe there’s a pilot on here who knows?

Planes take off and land into the wind. If the wind has a northerly component, flights will take off to the north and land from the south; if the wind has a southerly component, it's the opposite. The prevailing wind in this area is typically from the north in the fall and winter and from the south in spring and summer (although the actual wind direction will obviously vary each day).

I've seen planes fly both directions over our area in one day, I don't think it's as fixed as you are saying. They do consider weather and wind and clouds and storm formations and their movements, it's why it's not constantly the same, it's probably what gives us a break. I still think creating airplane highways is a wrong way to go. Noise carries, you are creating large swathes of areas that are constantly subjected to noise while sparing others entirely. Then those who are currently spared come here with their smug attitudes blaming those of us who happen to be under the flight paths for our poor choices even though we had no way of knowing, and especially if flight paths changed years after our purchase. There are risks like living really near airports or factories or other hazardous structures, which are obvious. But flight paths are unpredictable when are you are far enough removed from the airports.

There are a lot of reasons planes fly on designated paths relating to how they are controlled and avoid other planes. It's not about the noise. It's about air traffic control and making flights go in pre-determined patterns where deviations are either a problem or to avoid a risk.

And the flight path for National is the same as always: follow the river. Just they stick more to the course of the river post 9/11.

So I’d sell and not worry about it any longer

I don’t know. I just couldn’t imagine putting my family under the Palisades flight path. Especially with all the recent health studies. Maybe it goes someplace else in a few years, which I doubt, but that’s fewer years of taking on a great stress and health risk. Also I don’t think houses there will ever again sell as well as now/before

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Anonymous wrote:How can any the Palisades be worse than Old Town with regards to airplane noise. I know it’s 5:45am because that’s when the first planes start.

It's not. It's just full of more entitled people.

Just stop. You have never set foot in the Palisades. More entitled people than in Old Town. Lol.

Just stop with the gaslighting. And calling people weak for not enduring absurd levels of noise and near certain chronic disease.
What I think should happen is the next generation suing the parents who were so blasé about living under a flight path. Kids don’t get to choose but are affected.

Palisades agents are the worst. It’s nothing. Have a drink… ugh

I think all this anger is much worse for your health than the noise. Just move if it bothers you so much. You will find a buyer for your house. Dont worry.

+ 1

Why should people move when airline traffic changes? Airspace is open, there are no roads, there are no structures and like I said before, WH proximity or CIA is a nothingburger, planes still fly near. These "highways" aren't fixed. These aren't even land related issues, these are manmade logistics issues. And there is no insurance for people who move that they won't experience the same at a new location when traffic may change again.

Anonymous wrote:I am so sorry. It must be awful. I’d hate for you to foist it on another person but there are still willing buyers

Builders are like vultures in our area, selling isn't the problem. My problem is the fact that there is no way to ensure you won't experience it at a new location you are moving to. You seem to be so smug that some areas just will never have any airplane traffic, I wish I could be this confident. When we bought there was no airplane highway nearby.

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Anonymous wrote:How can any the Palisades be worse than Old Town with regards to airplane noise. I know it’s 5:45am because that’s when the first planes start.

It's not. It's just full of more entitled people.

Just stop. You have never set foot in the Palisades. More entitled people than in Old Town. Lol.

Just stop with the gaslighting. And calling people weak for not enduring absurd levels of noise and near certain chronic disease.
What I think should happen is the next generation suing the parents who were so blasé about living under a flight path. Kids don’t get to choose but are affected.

Palisades agents are the worst. It’s nothing. Have a drink… ugh

I think all this anger is much worse for your health than the noise. Just move if it bothers you so much. You will find a buyer for your house. Dont worry.

+ 1

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How can any the Palisades be worse than Old Town with regards to airplane noise. I know it’s 5:45am because that’s when the first planes start.

It's not. It's just full of more entitled people.

Just stop. You have never set foot in the Palisades. More entitled people than in Old Town. Lol.

Just stop with the gaslighting. And calling people weak for not enduring absurd levels of noise and near certain chronic disease.
What I think should happen is the next generation suing the parents who were so blasé about living under a flight path. Kids don’t get to choose but are affected.

Palisades agents are the worst. It’s nothing. Have a drink… ugh

I’m the PP and not gaslighting. What a ridiculous accusation. “Have a drink..” Charming.

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Anonymous wrote:Just to clarify, I emphatize. Not the PP who was accused of being smug (I don’t think they intended to be). I do think that the gvt should buy anyone out who wants out and can’t sell because disclosures should become mandatory (if there’s anyone who doesn’t know)

I don't see how this is plausible, what is easier for the government is to disperse traffic after its' been proven that these flight patterns are untenable. They can figure out better ways. Imagine the logistics of having to empty entire neighborhoods to create fixed flight paths, you'd have to clear miles and miles of housing and business infrastructure. And what if you have to change them again for whatever reasons?

It will never happen. VA and MD are better organized. Planes follow the river. They can’t fly over POTIS/VP etc

Planes fly over National Mall, a fact. They may not directly fly over the WH, but they fly close enough to be near it and hear the noise. You can also see the planes pretty close when you visit Washington Memorial. Planes turn inland from the Potomac Path right over CIA from what it seems like, so this has no protective power for the nearby areas with $$$ homes. No $$$ or landmark importance protects you from flight paths, you just have to be lucky to be away from them at the moment. Also, how often do you go to Georgetown, Kennedy Center area, etc? If you are around there you will notice that it's not a lot of planes all the time flying over Potomac river or it would be unbearable to walk around there. I honestly don't even know if all these planes are DCA traffic or Dulles that fly over NOVA suburbs. I've seen planes fly different directions.