NOISY AEROPLANES

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 19933, 18 October 1934, Page 2

NOISY AEROPLANES

HOSPITAL PATIENTS AFFECTED

While the Minister of Transport in Britain is devoting his attention to street noises, residents of Southsea, says a Portsmouth correspondent, are organising a public protest meeting against noise in the air. Parts of Portsmouth constitute a prohibited area over which aircrafe may only pass at a height of 6000 ft., but no such restrictions apply to Southsea, where the roaring exhausts of aeroplanes flying low over houses are proving a source of distraction. Dr. Montague Way, of Southsea. stated recently that he had received letters from several nursing homes ■complaining that patients were suffering from the noise. St. Mary’s Hospital. the Infectious Diseases Hospital, and the City Mental Hospital, are also all on the route over which these aeroplanes are flying. Dr. Way called a public meeting to consider the matter, and invited all the members of the Municipal Airport Committee to attend. “I have interviewed the Town clerk,” he stated, “but while there is a law against noisy motor vehicles there is apparently no law against noisy aeroplanes, nor against low flying except that airmen must not fly to the danger of the public.

“The Royal Air Force are not the cause of the trouble. They fly high and you only hear a droning noise then. The machines from the airport, however, take the shortest possible route over the houses. If they would only take people for their flights east over Langstone Harbour instead it would occupy longer time and use more petrol. “At some schools classes have had to be held up while the machines are flying overhead because the pupils have not been able to hear the masters speaking.”