Entitled Tampans And Tampa Airport
I don’t know if some people just don’t think, or feel entitled in some extreme sort of royalty-like way. I recently came across a Facebook Group for people who are complaining about the sound of airplanes landing at Tampa International Airport.
Let’s start with a little background. Tampa airport is actually the birthplace of regularly-scheduled commercial aviation when pioneer aviator Tony Jannus flew the inaugural flight of the St. Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line on January 1, 1914, from St. Petersburg, Florida, to Tampa using a Benoist Flying Boat – the first scheduled commercial airline flight in the world using a heavier-than-air airplane.1
What is now Tampa International Airport was completed in 1928, and was then known as Drew Field. In 1940, the City of Tampa leased Drew Field to the U.S. Government for 25 years, or until the end of the “National emergency.” During the war, the United States Army Air Forces expanded and modernized the airport. After World War II, the Army Air Forces vacated the facility and Drew Field was returned to the City of Tampa. The Peter O. Knight Airport and Drew Field reversed roles as the main Tampa airport because Drew Field was greatly expanded by the United States Army Air Forces during the war years.
It’s especially important to note the airport has two primary runways going almost due north-south, and it’s been so for a very long time. Apparently, there’s been a recent movement to try to somehow make TIA stop planes from landing from the south and disturbing the folks in an affluent neighborhood.
I live in South Tampa not too far north of MacDill Airforce Base. While their runways are not due North-South like TIA’s, we certainly get military aircraft (which can be very noisy) flying overhead from time-to-time. Also, depending on weather conditions, if TIA operations have planes landing south-to-north, they sometimes cut in close if they are east of the airport, and they fly overhead. Now I knew all this when I bought the house, and so I live with it. Either some folks didn’t pay attention to where they were buying, or just decided they shouldn’t have to deal with airport noise, despite buying homes they knew to be right under the approach path.
I’m just trying to figure out what these people were thinking when they purchased. Also, using that photo of a house isn’t going to garner a lot of sympathy from me either. Sure, I wish I never heard dogs barking at 5 in the morning, a plane flying over the house, cars racing on the Cross-Town in the middle of the night. But I knew where I was buying my house, and knew what came with that. These folks have big huge waterfront homes, often behind guarded gates, and want me to suddenly be concerned that planes fly over their houses when landing. “Cry me a river.”
