SO, YOU'RE MAD BECAUSE ONE OF OUR PILOTS "BUZZED" YOUR HOUSE, SPOOKED YOUR COWS, OR YOU JUST HATE AIRPLANES AND NOISE?
We are reasonable. You be, too!
So, here's the scoop:
Paramotor and drone pilots love to fly as low as they safely and legally can do. It's the draw. We have no roads. You may own your land, but you do not own the air just once inch above it any more than we do. This is still an ongoing local, state, and federal legal fight as drones continue to enter the sky, but, historically, the sky is mostly FAA jurisdiction.
Our pilots know better than to fly dangerous and do not care to be annoying. We understand that the sight of a paramotor in the sky is a joy for the first time, and more annoying where repeatedly over your home at 6 a.m. We can make your dogs bark, your horses run, your livestock scared. People by the roads tend to look up at us while not looking at their driving. We keep legally distant from your home, people, and property but it is easy to miss that barking dog or not see or think about a disruption. Meanwhile, some people are just anti-airplane nasty! Or, you might be a paranoid pot grower worried we are taking pictures and that your field might show up in our video!
Keep in mind we do not control and are not responsible for the actions of other pilots or our club members. Our flight club does have rules against bothering you. Those complaints we evaluate, but there are other aircraft and ultralight pilots out here who are not with us. We are inviting them as local tourists!
How to Complain
1) The simplest, cheapest, and fastest method is to make yourself visible immediately to the pilot. This is particularly useful by manned aircraft. Over 90% of our view is out the window and on the ground, so just come out and wave to us. Do you have a flag? A bedsheet? Wave to us! Wave with one arm where saying hello, and we'll wave back or rock our wing -- sometimes dropping in lower and catching you on camera for fun if we can. Where trying to get our attention, wave with both hands or wave flags. By dusk, flashlights or car headlights. Please no lasers. Now, if you hate us, when certain you have our attention, just give us the international "F You!" -- not the finger, but one arm horizontal and the other vertical...with emphatic motion. If we see that, we'll confirm and signal you with a mutual "F You!" Then, we'll know you don't like us overhead and adjust however we can. You can even try calling us while in the air on the number published here, but probably we won't answer unless we were first waving friendly together. Need focus on our flying, not chatter and arguments....but sometimes we can have fun. The engine noise can make chatter difficult, though. If we captured you on video as friends, call or email us and we can tag you in future videos -- let you know when published. Most people enjoy seeing aerial views of their home and their selfies. We do not charge for that fun. School kids waving to us and spelling out messages in formation is a fun we have. Where able, coordinated, and depending on weather, we are happy to buzz over schools and teams that want to be seen from the air -- such as marching bands.
2) Otherwise, take down the date, time, and snap a photo of the aircraft. Tell us what happened and what's bothering you. Email it to Stan. We will see if it is one of our pilots and talk to them.
3) Provide your name, address, phone number, email, and a latitude/longitude, parcel number, or draw areas on a map for us which you'd like avoided. Or, tell us of certain times. If the request is reasonable, it's a big sky and ample terrain. It is nothing for us to mark your spot on our maps with notes so that our club pilots are briefed to avoid bothering you in the future. That correction we can negotiate if for some stubborn reason our pilots really want or need to be over your spot -- alteration of time, altitude, sending you cookies, whatever. It really isn't that big a deal for us to designate no fly zones but please understand pilots are busy flying more so than navigating. A complaining farmer whose horses are terrified and busting down his fences is a reasonable request. We will want to verify the reality, of course....so try to video it. Go about it as if you would go to court or police on it. Show us the evidence. We do not care to alter flying just because some airplane hater is mad over his neighbor's barking dog -- else, the entire sky could be walled off for us. But, if you can prove to us the nuisance or we believe in your honesty and legitimacy of the complaint, we will propose a solution for negotiation.
Likewise, if you are one of these chronic complainers; If you live on the waterfront with early a.m. boat noise and yet grumble of our little birds flying the shoreline; If you're one of Stan's neighbors upset he takes off and lands from his goat pasture....we're going to tell you to go stuff it, and probably so will the FAA and police.
4) If you are accusing us of wrongdoing or lying in any way, that would be foolish because most our pilots data record their flights exactly for defense in such incidents. Sometimes we do. Sometimes not. If you try to subpoena our records, there probably were none that day. If we need them for our use, sometimes they magically appear! If you allege we flew too close to your house and we didn't, we can usually provide data we did not. If we were guilty, probably we won't have the data to help your case. Or, maybe we just did not log that day truly.
5) Nobody we keep here intentionally buzzes your home or tries to annoy you and your animals. It is ridiculous to expect your dogs not to bark, or your livestock not to be spooked, but we don't go dive bombing and chasing them. We cannot see them all from the air. Can't see your terrier going nuts through the window. Can't see your horses in the barn upset or under some roof. Horses sometimes gallop about happy or spooked seeing us. Goats and deer run and flock thinking us a big hawk. Cows usually could care less. Dogs love to bark at us. Let them have their fun. It doesn't last long before we are gone.
Now and then, our pilots swoop in low over the area's terrain -- over hills, over pasture, almost always over private property but in public air that we citizens also own as well as you. Again, the land you own but not the sky above it. You are only entitled to a reasonable expectation of safety, privacy, not being buzzed, not being repeatedly and intentionally harassed....the same as we are entitled to not be harassed or deal with silly complaints. If there are no animals we think bothered, no people we see in danger, and we are far enough from your structures....most certainly we do enjoy swooping in over your pastures and vineyards.
Now, if you keep horses, it is not our intention to spook them. We understand. If you keep cows, they really don't care but we don't spook them. Goats and sheep? They're always baaaahing about something. Complain on ruminants to someone who hasn't been a shepherd since 2004. They do huddle up as we pass and go back to normal. Your dogs do sometimes go nuts awhile, but they'll do that for everyone, too. If your dog goes nuts over us, chances are it does over your annoyed neighbors and we will find that out if pestered.
If you're a vineyard owner, you really shouldn't mind our low passes as the birds eating your grapes flee on sight of our great hawk in the sky.
As a dog owner, you shouldn't mind that because vineyard puffers often terrify your pooches while we just annoy and embolden them briefly -- often giving them fun. The more we fly over vineyards, the better it is for those vineyards. In fact, if there were a paramotor or drone over vineyards every morning....your dogs would not be terrified of their puffers.
You can certainly complain to the FAA (contact Sacramento Flight Standards District Office), but chances are they'll just open an investigation and find us innocent while doing other work. If you are reasonable, however, all you need do is contact us first or concurrently and we'll gladly see what we can negotiate. Even though we may be legally fine, we will do our best to not annoy you.
Please do keep in mind that most annoyances are not intentional.
Most perception on us "buzzing" your home is actually at legal distance.
Most repeated grumblings come from chronic malcontents and crazies, since we do try to assist your complaints even where not legally obligated to do so. Save the government some time and money. Just contact us and we'll see what we can do.
Others worried we are chemtrailing their homes...you are hopeless. Truly you are not THAT important to us! Harassing, air stalking, genociding, and buzzing you is not our thing. If you see smoke coming from our aircraft, it is airshow and skywriting smoke -- standard, bio certified grade.
Are our drones trying to peek in your windows? No. If you aren't a farmer with crops, we could care less of your property. If you see us sweeping over your vineyard, orchard, and crop field....as if spying...we are! The more you see us passing over your field, it was selected as a candidate for imaging. That means, if you were a subscriber to our database, instead of having complaints and hostility, you would love us, as we show you where the crops are sick, dry, lacking water, and have too much water. If you were our friend instead, chances are we'd be saving you thousands of dollars per year. That same spying flight which worries you has data you need for your business which would normally cost you over $1,000 per flight; Value of normally $5k to $10k. So you call us and we can give you helpful options. Usually, we will give you some helpful images free and encourage you to become subscribers. Then, you're inviting us back!
Where a malcontent, just talk to us and we'll put you on the avoidance map where reasonable. That doesn't mean there won't be any other flights or that pilots won't miss it, but we will at least note, seriously consider your complaints, and include that avoidance area in pilot briefings.
Please understand we do fly by morning and dusk smooth air.
Where you might not value our air work, others do.
The Law
According to Section 91.119 of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) flight rule guidelines, the minimum safe altitude to operate an aircraft over "any congested area of a city" or "over any assembly of persons" is 1,000 feet. Over open water, the limit is 500 feet.
According to Section 91.119; Minimum safe altitudes: General:
“Except when necessary for takeoff or landing, no person may operate an aircraft below the following altitudes:
(a) Anywhere. An altitude allowing, if a power unit fails, an emergency landing without undue hazard to persons or property on the surface.
(b) Over congested areas. Over any congested area of a city, town, or settlement, or over any open air assembly of persons, an altitude of 1,000 feet above the highest obstacle within a horizontal radius of 2,000 feet of the aircraft.
(c) Over other than congested areas. An altitude of 500 feet above the surface, except over open water or sparsely populated areas. In those cases, the aircraft may not be operated closer than 500 feet to any person, vessel, vehicle, or structure.
(d) Helicopters, powered parachutes, and weight-shift-control aircraft. If the operation is conducted without hazard to persons or property on the surface--
(1) A helicopter may be operated at less than the minimums prescribed in paragraph (b) or (c) of this section, provided each person operating the helicopter complies with any routes or altitudes specifically prescribed for helicopters by the FAA; and
(2) A powered parachute or weight-shift-control aircraft may be operated at less than the minimums prescribed in paragraph (c) of this section.”
So, "congested areas" are clearly noted on NOAA Aeronautical charts. Areas outside those boundaries are "other than congested areas". If you have seen us flying down very low (cropduster heights and lower), usually it was under special permission (airshow, imaging) in a congested area or within the law for sparsely populated zones, such as agricultural lands. We can legally fly almost down low enough to wheels or feet touching the ground. If it doesn't damage property, down to even touch & go. If we need it for emergency landing, we will land there and have to buy your crops ruined.
Generally, though low in height, we still try to keep over 500 feet from your homes.
We also tend to fly mostly in the 100 to 500 foot altitude level exactly for safety reasons, as most other air traffic flies higher. Lake County is uncontrolled airspace. Though our wings are highly visible, other pilots are not always paying attention, it can be hard for us to see them where concealed by sun or terrain, and they come at us at 100 to 250 MPH from all directions. Most of them, however, fly above 500 feet in avoiding homes, geese, and turbulence. Though we encounter more convective turbulence, due to friction with the surface, winds also tend to be less severe for us down low.
Where you see us low over the shoreline that is love of the scenery and also because convective turbulence is much less over the water.
The other reason we do fly what seems like dangerous proximity to power lines is in looking for and remembering them, as they are pretty much invisible at greater altitude. Here is an example video of a how hard it can be to see power lines: Powered Parachute Near Accident.
If you are always flying too high to see them, then you aren't paying attention to where they are! To become intimate with an area for flying low, you do have to immerse in it down low.
If we are truly terrifying your livestock, prove it and we will gladly alter course, since that we consider potentially damaging to your property. Our demand for proof is not to be snots, but simply that airplane haters might just make things up or exaggerate. Even if your pooch is such an uncontrollable dog or terrified of us....again, prove it and our relation to that....video it....and, yes, we will gladly alter course. We are understandably less sympathetic to a barking dog that is not terrified, as it is a whole county filled with barking dogs out there and "damage" to persons and property is a tough case to argue there. If your dog barks at us on a rare flyby and it is so distressing to you, surely all the other things it barks at also distress you and your neighbors far more. As for your goats and sheep spooked, we do try to avoid that by keeping distant, but arguing damages on animals that destroy everything without us herding them from the air is sort of silly.
We will try to work with you, though.
As for roads and highways, we do understand that people are often stupid as rubberneckers, so we try to keep at least 500 feet from moving cars anyhow. Where traffic is clear, we do often cross over roads and highways at just above power line height, and then drop below. Generally, we give roads greater height as power lines are hard to see. If you see us flying below power line height anywhere, we usually spent some time and study circling the area first to be certain none cross over a field, and also scanning the area for any livestock and horses.
Our flight speed is usually slower than a bicycle ride. By wheeled aircraft, our required runway is anywhere from a few feet in a good headwind to around 20 feet on emergency landing, and a 100 foot clearing is casual landing to us. By backpack paramotor, landings are more bird-like and spot-on with the feet.
If you see our pilots flying anywhere super low and below power line height, you can be sure they fully examined the area first because, where the sight might bother you, a strike is potentially lethal to us. Generally, we don't go below line height unless having a reason to do so. We also almost never fly directly over a home down low as slight breeze hitting your home produces strong updrafts and turbulence for us which can cause an accident.