Aircraft traffic; areas to avoid (Reno, Sparks: homes, living in, assessments)

[DerekS]

Looking to move from Hawaii to Reno as soon as possible.
Acreage is best, at least 3 backing up to mountains if possible.
My main concern is aircraft traffic. Out here, tour heli's fly like crazy and it would be an
absolute nightmare to move only to find myself in a similar situation.

What areas that have 3+ acres should I avoid when looking for property?

I don't really mind the jets at 30K feet, it's the tour aircraft at 500' AGL that drives me nuts.

Anywhere near Lake Tahoe is out.

FYI, when I bought out here, the disclosure did not mention anything about heli's, they just modified their routes about a year after I moved in.

Thanks in advance!

[utsci]

Airport/airplane noise is worse in town near the airport. When you get far enough out to have 3 acres you are far enough out that the planes are not that low. When the airport was built it was outside of the city. Now it is pretty much just a bit east of the center of downtown. I really don't think you have anything to worry about. And the only helicopters we have here are National Guard, again at the airport. They have no reason to fly low over any part of town. We do have Care Flight helicopters that respond to medical emergencies in mostly outlying areas. Where we live, if we hear a helicopter we run outside to see which property has called for medical care because many of our neighbors are elderly. It happens 1-2 times /year.

[braindead0]

If you search online you can fine various airport noise maps, I had one but can't seem to find it now. You can also look at an overhead map of the airport and it'll be fairly obvious where the flight paths tend to run.

There are also news helicopters around, they only show up if there's something going on though.

[utsci]

Originally Posted by braindead0

If you search online you can fine various airport noise maps, I had one but can't seem to find it now. You can also look at an overhead map of the airport and it'll be fairly obvious where the flight paths tend to run.

There are also news helicopters around, they only show up if there's something going on though.

I'm not sure what "Reno" you're living in, but not one of the news stations here owns a helicopter or has access to one. When there are police incidents there might be a police helicopter in the air, but that is fairly rare around here. I live out on acreage and we have only had a police helicopter doing searches 2-3 times in 30 years.

One that I did forget about is that if there is a wildfire locally there will be lots of low flying air traffice, helicopters dipping/dumping water buckets, big bombers dropping fire retardant, and surveillance planes doing assessments in the morning before the day's crews are sent out. Fires can happen anywhere here, but we are always happy to see the air crews show up when a fire has been in our area. It is clearly the fastest way to put down a wildfire in most cases.

From past noise abatement projects done by the airport (they payed for homes in certain areas to upgrade windows and doors to help with airplane noise) is in the south Reno area west of Virginia Street with Longley to the north and South Hills Drive to the south, Huffaker Road area, Mira Loma and East mcCarran to the east, and then central Sparks to the north of the airport. Planes generally don't fly into the airport directly from the west because the Sierras make that an unsafe situation.

[DerekS]

Thanks for the replies. The tourist flights are the ones that are absolutely annoying. Seven days a week, holidays included.
I live about 12 miles away from the airport, in a very rural area. Not in my wildest dreams did I imagine this would be a problem. It is what it is.
I guess my question should be worded a little differently:

What tourist attraction generates air traffic? I'm hoping the properties with acreage are in the OPPOSITE direction of these attractions! I guess the best thing to do is spend a couple weeks in Reno and check out the air tour operators and see where they fly.

[mamacatnv]

The National Championship Air Races generate 4 days of air traffic noise every September. The airfield is out in the N. Valleys and its kind of cool to stand on one's deck and watch the Blue Angels or the Thunderbirds fly.

I lived in the N. Valleys for 16 years, air noise was rare but the places we did notice it was in Sun Valley, Hidden Valley and SW Reno.

The sheriff used to have a helo but it was not up much. Careflight is the most active helo in the area and it has no set traffic pattern or schedule.

[braindead0]

Originally Posted by utsci

I'm not sure what "Reno" you're living in, but not one of the news stations here owns a helicopter or has access to one. ...

Late last year there was a channel 8 news copter flying around East McCarran near the 80. Might have been in from somewhere else.