The FAA plays a cruel Catch-22 joke with your aircraft noise complaints. Noise complaints are handled by the local airports. The local airports have no regulatory control over flying airplanes. The airports can only make suggestions to the offending noisy pilots. An airport can not restrict an airplane from landing because of the airplane’s noisiness. By FAA definition, once the FAA certifies an airplane (unless it is modified), it can’t be too noisy. The FAA does not handle aircraft noise complaints. The FAA has given this responsibility of handling aircraft noise complaints to the airports, but the FAA has not given the airports any authority to solve the problem. There is a way around this FAA's Catch-22. Your noise complaint could really be that the airplane was flying too low, because the lower an aircraft flies, the nosier it is to the people on the ground. The FAA’s Flight Standards District Office (FSDO) is the regulatory authority over flying aircraft, and the FSDO is responsible for handling low flying aircraft complaints. In Ventura county the FAA doesn’t have (or even plan to have) anything to monitor for low flying aircraft. The FAA requires you to prove that the offending airplane was flying too low. The Lowflying.com Aircraft Monitoring System can provide the documentation and proof that the airplane was flying too low.
There are some hot dog pilots who love the noise of their aircraft’s engine and want to share this noise with the general public. They accomplish this by flying lower than they should be. This flying too low violates regulatory and safety rules. The FAA people responsible for enforcing the low flying regulations are located over in the next county 35 miles away. The FAA requires the people reporting the low flying airplane to supply the proof that the airplane was flying too low. Without proof it’s just your opinion that the airplane was flying too low. This lowflying.com monitoring system identifies and documents these hot dog pilot’s violations.
I’m trying to get the airports and pilots to educate the few pilots who fly far too low. These few low-flying pilots give the majority of the pilots a bad reputation. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the only entity that legally has any control over flying aircraft. If the airports and pilots were to police themselves it would have to be on a voluntary basis. I think voluntary peer pressure from fellow pilots is the fastest and easiest way to solve this problem.
If you don’t do something then who will? Your concerns as a homeowner are very much different from the airport community’s concerns. The FAA and the airports don’t want to know if there is noise problem because the airplanes are flying too low. Their position seems to be "why confuse the issue with facts?" To the airport community your silence means that you like the situation like it is. If you want to get something done then you have to make some political noise of you own. Contact your county and city elected officials and let them know you want something done.
Taxable property values would go up 12 million dollars. The citizen’s quality of life in the community would be improved. This Lowflying.com Aircraft Monitoring System is 10 time more accurate and 1/100th the cost of any radar system the government would build. The Lowflying.com Aircraft Monitoring System uses low cost items that many families already have-- camcorders. The secret of its low cost and accuracy is calibrating the camcorder’s video picture. This is done by using a known standard such as the United States Naval Observatory’s data of the angle of the sun above the horizon. With an inexpensive Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver and a bubble level you have all the tools to build a low flying aircraft motoring system.
I’m a retired Electronic Engineer who worked for the Department of Defense for 31 years. For six of those years I served in the U.S. Navy, four of these years were on nuclear and diesel submarines. This Lowflying.com Aircraft Monitoring System project is my version of doing community volunteer work. Anyone may freely use my ideas. I’m willing to volunteer to calibrate video cameras and to help build a system for people who are tired of aircraft flying too low. 
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