Welcome to the WANAG home page. Our group was formed in 2015 to address residents’ concerns specifically regarding excessive and persistent aircraft noise.
We exist to combat the nuisance caused by planes that either perform geo-stationary stunts over a fixed point, or which fly back and forth over the same spot, spoiling peoples’ enjoyment of the outdoors and peace and tranquility of the Wiltshire countryside, causing stress as they do so.
Primary sources of noise nuisance
- Southampton University Air Squadron
- No.2 Air Experience Flight
- Army Air Corps Middle Wallop Grading Flights
In southern Wiltshire, the Grob 115E Tutors of Southampton University Air Squadron (SUAS) and 7 Regiment Army Air Corps (AAC) are possibly the loudest and noisiest light aircraft in the county. Based near Salisbury at MOD Boscombe Down airfield and at Middle Wallop airfield near Andover, Hampshire respectively, SUAS shares a number of Grob Tutors with the RAF’s No.2 Air Experience Flight (2AEF) while the Army conducts trainee pilot grading flights, all of these units flying to the same local area on an industrial scale to provide university students and air cadets with free air experience and Army flying assessment toward potential careers with the Armed Services.
What does it sound like in your garden, like this maybe?
This was a recording of an SUAS Grob Tutor, made in the garden of one of our members. This is not a, “plane just passing through”, it is a persistent and intrusive noise. Typically this will go on for about 20 minutes and will happen several times in one day.
Flights seven days a week
The SUAS and 2AEF trips are not military training flights for national defence. Before the Coronavirus outbreak they flew up to four of these Grob Tutor aircraft, each making as many as eight or nine trips a day during the week and at weekends. They flew mostly at low altitude and were countless and omni-present. The Army flew a similar number of Tutors with a total of some eight trips a day during the week. All of these SUAS, AEF and AAC flights were made to the same “exercise area” generally over people’s homes when open countryside elsewhere has been freely available instead. Though flights reduced due to Coronavirus they are gradually increasing again, expected to reach their earlier volume where the high numbers and frequency of flights have since June 2014, caused considerable annoyance for people on the ground below because of their relentless presence and highly intrusive noise nuisance.
Flight activity
The potential for up to 30 short flights to the same area every day by SUAS or 2AEF Tutor aircraft and a further 8 or so daily from Middle Wallop quite often meant that as one aircraft left, another would arrive to take its place. With similar aircraft operating daily from two separate airfields, sometimes 2 or more Tutors would operate simultaneously in the same locality, the Middle Wallop Tutors remaining overhead far longer as their flights lasted for up to an hour. Operations were conducted on a truly industrial scale and for many the particularly discordant Tutor sound has on occasion been continuous. As flight numbers increase again following Coronavirus, their nature as before means they have no point-to-point destination but arrive to “exercise” until time to return home so they meander around about and back and forth frequently above inhabited areas, twisting and turning and flying aerobatics to fill up the allotted flight time. Their presence is felt over very wide areas as the Tutor is clearly audible for some 5 miles either side of its track, a total width of around 10 miles everywhere it goes. The activity is particularly invasive even though higher altitude is sometimes used, as it continues around people’s homes for long periods and the relentless engine note quickly becomes extremely tiresome.
The Grob Tutor engine sound
The particular sound nuisance generated by the Grob Tutor is uniquely identifiable from more than five miles away. Designed to RAF specification, little thought appears to have been given to the noise the Tutor makes and even ground maintenance personnel refer to it as the “noisy little beasty”. Pilots will doubtless also be aware of just how loud and intrusive the Tutor is in their ground handling of the plane alone, though their overflight of people’s homes suggests otherwise. The Tutor is intrusive at three miles and invasive at one or two miles. Its 10,000 feet ceiling is still less than two miles away overhead and its dual exhaust pipes face downward directing the sound to the ground below. This effect occurs on both sides of the Tutor’s flight path so a swathe of some 10 miles is audibly affected wherever it goes. When present in the overhead Tutors can make outdoor conversation difficult, as their endless drone persists for long periods due to a slow flying speed and an ambling flight pattern. Little consideration therefore appears to be given to people on the ground who can do nothing to escape the noise.