rickair7777

I always wondered why GA aircraft are still so loud. How hard would it be to put on a better muffler (maybe with a manual bypass to get all your power back for emergencies or operations in remote areas ) and a quieter prop? I'll bet the PR value would outweigh the cost in the long run...

The latest airliners seem quieter than an old 172, at least in that annoying piston/prop buzz range.

FlyerOnWall

I believe any half intelligent person would know how to gage height based on a reference... How many aircraft heights would you estimate it was off the ground?.... they could get a pretty accurate number very easily, from just about anyone.

Red Forman

Not really.

savall

Most people don't even have a concept of how high a ceiling is. My last roommate (who was a huge jacka**) was a paratrooper in the army and you'd think would know heights pretty well... He thought our ceiling was 30ft. It was more like 16.

USMCFLYR

Not in my expereince either, matter of fact, unless some other reference distance is known - I find it very hard to judge distance/height accurately.

Interesting military reference here dealing with misinterpretation of distance/height.
I was watching a series called 'Ultimate Warfare' It featured the Battle of Leyte Gulf
Battle of Leyte Gulf - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Part of the success of the attack was that the Japanese thought they had actually found the entire 3rd/7th Fleets and the ships attacking them were actually heavy cruisers - not destroyers and smaller/lighter destroyer escort ships.In the confusion they constantly fired over the tops of the attacking formation due to misinterpretating the actual range. LUCK plays a huge part in battles.

Ominous

What reference? It's in the sky with air as a reference. Also, ask your neighbors how high their trees are. You'll get some interesting answers.
People judging altitudes is no different than a witness to an airplane crash saying "it was on fire" as it went down. There are numerous crashes that witnesses said aircraft was on fire when no evidence of per-crash fire is ever found.

Saw a vid with a school official who said he "revved the engine, then went straight up and turned the engine off."

FlyerOnWall

The aircraft is a reference, you missed that. They don't need to know numbers, just an estimate of how many, whatever is used for reference, distance. The actual numbers can be determined later. Granted, the higher, and further away the aircraft was, the less accurate the estimate, vantage point matters too, but we're talking about a supposedly low altitude pass at fairly close proximity. I'm pretty sure most people wouldn't make a 50/500 error when estimating how many aircraft heights it was off the ground, you could use wing span. I see a 747 on approach in the distance, I can quickly estimate how many wing spans it is off the ground. I don't have to know the actual wing span at the moment.

USMCFLYR

Don't know about the other posters - but I didn't miss that. Just think it is far from what a casual observer would be doing in that situation. In the middle of it all - 'Hey - I ought to be thinking about how many airplane wing spans that guys is above the horizon and at what lateral distance he is away from me so that future calculations could be made for the eventual police report that I will be asked to fill out once the pilot is identified and charged with a crime!'

Of course these are the same people who reported (a school official mind you) that the small Cessna ""revved the engine, then went straight up and turned the engine off."

I probably wouldn't be thinking that myself but would rather stick with making terrible height estimations like I seem to do every time I step outside and try to guess the bases!

No - - unless the pilot was flying below some other reference, like the high school stadium lights or something else in the immediate vicinity, I wouldn't put much validity to eyewitness statements.

FlyerOnWall

It's an engine reliability issue. Obstructing the exhaust with a muffler substantially increases the chances for a failure that could cause a reduction in engine power. The latest airliners have achieved noise reductions without substantially increasing chances of having power reduced due to a failure.

gdpballin

I can vouch that half of the people really are exaggerating how low the individual actually was. The rumor is he was below 500'. His actions were excessive, (maybe one pass would've been a little more acceptable but 8-10 passes is ridiculous).

Peoples reaction (especially the ones at this school -- hoity toity rich folk who are always in other peoples business) was priceless though. One woman was sitting next to an employee of the DOD and someone with his pilots license -- which immediately gave her the expert opinion on the subject.

Either way, theres no debate whether or not he was wrong. He shouldn't of done it.