That’s right. On any given day several hundred flights take off from Hartsfield Airport using Fayette County air space as a virtual runway above our quiet and peaceful rural homes. [They use] the identical flight path every one to three minutes, which, along with low elevation and climbing, creates louder jet noise.

And that path is right over my house 22 miles south of the airport. Call it what you will: a freeway in the sky, a railroad track above. I call what it is: a runway!

And here’s the kicker. All of Hartsfield’s runways run east and west. They’re taking off west to go to New York City. Take off west, then turn south, then east then north or continue easterly to cities like New York, Boston or Pittsburgh or Europe, for all I know.

So why this crazy flight path? The Airport Noise Department cites wind direction and that it’s always been that way. That’s their talking points. Baloney.

I left California to get away from the city and noise to retire in a beautiful, rural Georgia subdivision with five acres of forest. I notice some residents here take it for granted, all the space and beauty you have. I see deer, geese, and listen to all the variety of birds.

I live on a cul-de-sac and there is hardly any traffic and definitely no city or commercial noise. Until the jets came.

I was living between here and Orange County for four years, so I don’t exactly know when they created this runway. I know I started complaining in May of 2006. They sent me what’s called a noise contour map. I couldn’t believe it. All those multiple yellow thin lines leaving the airport and turning into one thick yellow blob right over my address, then splitting off going various directions east and north, as high as 368 a day between the hours of 7 a.m. to midnight.

I asked for more on different dates. Same thing. I expressed my concern. “It’s always been this way.” Right.

When I first moved here, I was always out on my deck barbecuing or outside gardening. There was no annoying jets then. I was told the same thing when John Wayne airport started flipping u-turns over my house many miles away. I knew better. I’d lived there for 18 years.

Here’s the reason. They’re diverting air traffic noise because of complaints from communities east of the airport and outdated residential density data based on the 2000 census. The city and airport were required by the FAA to have open public meetings for surrounding areas that were and would be affected by the airport noise before the big future plan, FAR Part 150, could be approved and because of its expansion with the new runway.

They were obligated to announce those meetings in local newspapers and to those holding public office. The public hearings were held in Atlanta, College Park, Forest Park and Clayton County.

None were held in or for Fayette County, violating the FAA requirements for approval. No noise studies in Fayette County.

I ask you: What would you do in my situation?

Michael Meyer

michelo2000@hotmail.com