It’s what airports sound like

A resident of Mukilteo, writes of the one side of the activities at Paine Field, I write of the “other” opinion of the activities. (Tuesday letter, “Vintage aircraft great, but loud.”) I, too, am a resident of Mukilteo and adore the noise that the “old crates” (known to me as “vintage aircraft”) and look forward to the Saturday and Sunday afternoons during the nice weather when I can watch, and hear, them fly overhead.

At 57, I am like the 6 year old; running outside to watch them. I knew when I moved to Mukilteo I was moving into the backyard of Paine Field (which was built by the Army in the 1930s, long before I, and much of anyone else within 10 miles, moved there.)

An airport cannot move, and the activities of aviation enthusiasts cannot move somewhere else either. We can always take our loud boats somewhere else; we can always take our loud motorcycles somewhere else. We can keep a nuclear power plant from being built down the street and zone out used car lots. But if we chose to live near an airport that is home to many light and medium aircraft, with folks restoring old or building new planes and enjoying their activity that they can’t move down the street, then we have to tolerate those activities if we are to have others tolerate ours.

Richard T. Newman

Everett