OT Aviation guru's - Altitude/Safety ?

Ok, I'm getting concerned about some local single engine traffic buzzing my home at about 100'-0", just had a guy in a yellow single engine, buzz my house, then turn around and do it again, something has to give here, its becoming frequent, and I know the small airport its coming from. Its a low ceiling today, what the heck is the deal with someone doing this, my father used to fly, owned a 172 Cessna, early 80's, I know a little about it, and I thought they had to maintain 500'-0", minimum, I mean if one of these had a problem.... ticks me off they can strafe your home, loud and out of nowhere, its downright rude, especially having witnessed what happened at the WTC, what gives ?

http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/field_offices/fsdo/atl/local_more/media/nlowfly.pdf

I am a flight instructor. Just moved but will try and find my FAR's. Need to also know what kind of airspace your home is in. I will get back to you. Yes he needs to stay 500' unless landing or taking off. What is the distance house to runway.
Are there other houses near by?

I think the reg says he has to be 500ft from any structure person etc etc. So he could fly at one foot of altitude if he was 500 ft away from houses etc. Of course there is another reg involving "unsafe operation of an airplane" that gives the FAA all kinds of subjective leeway to punish a pilot if they deem any action "unsafe"

The FAR is 91.119. If he is that low you should be able to get an "N" number. A picture would be great. Is it a J3 Club, or maybe a homebuilt? does it have a nose wheel, or a tail wheel. I'm guessing it is not a flying MM tractor. Sorry just had to say that. My E-mail is open.

It's not a crop duster, huh? Had one living about 2 miles away and from sun up to sun down he was cruising tree top level over the house. Didn't bother me, kids got a kick out of it!!

Small airport is a few miles away, but you can tell by the aircraft, flight path and altitude as the flight path is parallel to the runway, its well beyond take off and landing, as I am not adjacent to the small airport. I tried to see the number on it, N.... whatever, no binoculars at the moment, he was way too low, other end of the property is higher in elevation and he would have buzzed treetops, or to the right a mile or so a small mountain with a huge broadcast tower on top, highest elevation and structure in the vicinity, rising 1185 feet above average terrain, with low visibility today, and the proximity of it, makes no sense to me. He was centered on my house, and it sounded like he was going to crash or peel the darned shingles off LOL. Rude, hey if worked the nightshift, I'd have bee-lined it to the runway and made my point known. There is commercial traffic bisecting his flight path at a higher altitude, and it can be busy depending on wind I assume, they use it to land, commercial jets fly over often, landing gear down, but they're a lot higher, upwards of 1000 feet or better, once in awhile they might be lower for some reason, but not often. Its not used daily, must be which way incoming traffic is directed to land based on the wind. I've been here the better part of my life and in that time I've never seen small single engine aircraft doing this, lately it was another plane, white, this was yellow and an older aircraft for sure. Just rude, no chance to recover if there is a problem and no reason to fly over residential areas that low, it sounded like he was going to crash land being so low. Late last fall, NYSP aviation hovered over this house and a few others while a dangerous suspect was on the loose, it was night time and he was below hedge row trees at times, I thought for sure he would hit a rotor and crash into a house, just nerve racking when these aircraft get so close. In that situation the only thing we heard was to lock our doors, almost 2 hours of this helo at treetop level, so I took appropriate measures and hoped he saw all the trees, it don't take much, and I understand they had a job to do, but was after something went awry, suspect escaped. Just a concerned citizen, nothing to hide, but sheesh, buzzing my house repeatedly, like the 3rd or 4th time in the past few weeks ? Maybe its just me LOL !

LOL, it was the color of a MM ULDX, wings were up high, with braces, older aircraft, would have to look at a piper cub, to see. I may jus ride over to the airstrip and see what the heck it is, Its local for sure, I will get that N number, I used to record those numbers of helo's that inspect the high voltage lines here.

That would be no problem, he's doing work, has a good reason, I've seen them work south of here, fun to watch like you say, but the one today was lower than the previous 2 or 3 and a different aircraft, not sure what the reason is, just seems unsafe, rude to the people who reside here, especially if anyone works nights, very loud being that close, pretty good airspeed too, not a low throttle by any means that engine and prop is very loud that close. And if for no reason, whats the point, something goes wrong, he's done, and you hope no one on the ground is too.

About a year ago, a vintage aircraft blew through here right OVER my barn. Barn is 40 feet above ground level. Radio tower adjacent to barn is 140 feet. He flew over the barn, below the top of the tower. That would have put him at just about 100 feet. Went in, called state police, gave them a desdcription of incident, aircraft... Officer was mildly amused, didn't even want to take report. I was not pleased TWICE.

Got any kinda set schedule ?
Get the buddies all together for a day of trap shooting ! Get all set up and be blasting at those targets when he comes by. Everyone fire all at once to make lots of noise too.

You reminded me, years ago in Indiana there was a small plane that lost a wheel on a radio tower brace wire. If I'm not mistaken it made a landing around Indy. VERY lucky it didn't "catch" harder on the wire.

Had that happen South of Raleigh, NC in the 70's. New tower, highest ever in that area. Plane caught leading edge and goober'd it up pretty bad but still landed ok.

I took a ride over to the airport, whomever was there was way over in the back running a TLB, so I walked around, 2 closed hangars, rest were open with aircraft inside or not, other aircraft were staged outside, none fit the description, the closed hangars did have doors with glass windows, but I did try and look inside, to see if this yellow aircraft was inside. At the entrance there was no trespassing signs, but visitors ok, stop by office, I did, it was locked, so I walked around and left. If it keeps happening, I'll find the best way to figure out who it is and let the authorities deal with it. If I had any horses in the field, this low fly by would not be appreciated.

Well, if the guv-ment was open, they might help :-(
One thing to do if it continues is to call the Tower at that airport and tell them that a "yellow, single-engine" plane is buzzing your house, use those terms. They will either know who it is OR have a radar flash to see it. There IS a possibility that your house is located on a normal flight pattern, maybe the VFR overhead pattern. IF they are unable/won't help then please call the nearest FAA field office and lodge a formal complaint, the number should be in a local phone book. IF you get no help then call your congressman and complain LOUDLY that you don't appreciate aircraft buzzing your house, you may get a No-Fly zone over your house. Noise/overflight problems normally get a very high priority when you have a legitimate issue. Good Luck and keep this board informed!

Fall turkey season is open, so I could be out there bird hunting, that would be interesting, create a new dilemma, he's flying too low, hears the noise or gets pinged by shot, now we're accused of trying to shoot him down! Its rude, I believe he's violating FAA rules and I firmly believe there is a safety aspect of this to consider, by the seemingly inconsiderate pilot of that aircraft.

Will do, I'd otherwise not be concerned but today sure was different, funny how he turned back and did it again, same altitude, saw him in the cabin too, while looking out my window.... happens again, I'll make sure to report it, its just odd, in all the years, I've never seen any fly this low directly over the house.

(quoted from post at 12:56:28 10/04/13) About a year ago, a vintage aircraft blew through here right OVER my barn. Barn is 40 feet above ground level. Radio tower adjacent to barn is 140 feet. He flew over the barn, below the top of the tower. That would have put him at just about 100 feet. Went in, called state police, gave them a desdcription of incident, aircraft... Officer was mildly amused, didn't even want to take report. I was not pleased TWICE.

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Not trying to be a wise guy, but what did you want the SP to do? Chase the plane in their car? Shoot it out of the sky? We used to get complaints like that, mostly about military aircraft. About all you can do is direct the caller to the nearest airport or air base to file some sort of complaint. SP don't have much authority in the air, so to speak.

They should be maintaining a 500 foot distance from your house. Photographs are your best tool to prove you're being buzzed and by whom. I kind of doubt they're coming within 100 feet of you, but less than 500 is another matter.

Funny you should post this. The local skydiving guys moved to Saratoga, so we haven't seen any small planes or at least the usual one that dropped the skydivers off in awhile. Well yesterday I was at the farm around 5:40pm or so and heard a small plane flying over the place, I noticed it because we haven't see any in awhile. The plane was low and made 2 passes over the place, it was a grey plane with a yellow star on the underside of the wing. I was surprised it was so low and flying so slow.

I recall there was skydiving over in that area, assuming wider open spaces or favorable conditions, winds etc. ?

This old yellow bird was just obtrusive, being so low, and how loud the noise was alone but I forgot to mention previously, the high up 115KV lines power lines beyond, 6 lines + another set of 6 lines 30KV ea. +2 steel towers on my side, one 125' or 130' (I saw the plans way back when) 2 sets of lines, then our woods beyond that, 250' higher in elevation, does not make much sense for a fixed wing aircraft to get that close, not much room for error, on a low ceiling foggy day, even if the pilot has IFR rating or what the heck it is when on instruments etc. Nothing against aviation, much to appreciate about it, but just something's up here, 2 times another aircraft, white, not much higher, then this one, the yellow one. Small airfield was like a ghost town when I went to it, no one was flying today.

That nice run of weather we just had must have been good for outdoor tasks, landscape, late hay and so on, being dry I was able to log off a sloped area deep with topsoil, bunch of mature, dead or dying off trees, + storm damage etc. 3 days I was able to get out 5 cord in logs with the ole 850 ford tractor, Seems to get slick once wet and being shaded, long time to dry,

You haven't lived 'til the B-52 guys line up to your barn or shop for a low-altitude practice bombing run. (Northern ND, back in the 70's.) I swear you could see the grin on the pilot's face!

Neighbor call this AM to ask if they could shoot coyotes out of a Super Cub tomorrow morning I doubt they will be over 100 feet when making a shooting pass, he lost 3 lambs last nite.
Nothing better than watching a good pilot and gunner after coyotes.

During WW2 my brother told me a plane buzzed our farm. He said, he found ground leavs below one of our trees after that. In the 50's us kids were swimming in one of our dams, in our birthday suits. A military plane kept flying over us, hoping it may be a couple girls, I guess. Stan

Mike, who is supposed to hear all this noise? Certainly not the pilot of a small plane; between the open exhaust, prop blast and wind noise, he's doing good to hear himself think. Most pilots wear headsets or earplugs, so even if your shotguns could be heard over the racket, it wouldn't be much more than a pop to the pilot.

I don't think buzzing is even a misdemeanor; assault with a deadly weapon is a felony. Shooting at planes is a bad idea.

Few years ago, and I've never seen them so low before, a C130 came roaring over the trees while I was cutting a field. It came from behind, so I never heard it, they train out of a local airport, fly over where I live and the other place, but usually much higher, that certainly rattled my cage LOL !

Worked on helicopters here in town for navy for five years in 2011 went to farming full time and when the pilot would see me out working in field would buzz me and buzzed the barn a few times so low I could here the beat through the roof. Most of the pilots are retired or at different command now but was neat to se them.

I had to spend the night at a tower in west Texas. Had my cot outside my trailer nice cool night. About five I was just waking up. When three B1s came over. I counted the rivets and noticed a few spots that needed painting.

Back when Carswell was a Sac base. Used to eat at a burger joint near the end of the runway.When they scrambled the B52. It got real loud and things shook.

(quoted from post at 20:51:19 10/04/13) You haven't lived 'til the B-52 guys line up to your barn or shop for a low-altitude practice bombing run. (Northern ND, back in the 70's.) I swear you could see the grin on the pilot's face!

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They did that all over east ND and west MN. Was fun to watch em. I think they were using our house of the one to the south as an aiming point because they would come in low, bout 500 feet and dead center over the house every time. North to south the place south of us lines up too. That house would be a little harder to see from the air but our could be seen a long was off from both north and south.

Rick