Worry Over Noise
	News-Gazette Photos/Marvin G. Cortner Gene Sumner, left, of Yeehaw Junction, looks over a map of the Avon Park Air Force Range with Osceola County Commission Chairman Fred Hawkins Jr.

By Marvin G. Cortner
Editor

It’s shake, rattle and roll some days or evenings for Nancy Zimmerman, of Yeehaw Junction, as a military plane or helicopter makes its low-level training run to the Avon Park Air Force Range.

Those new uses at the 106,000-acre range, the largest military training facility east of the Mississippi River, involve certification of a runway to allow training flights to originate there, additional Florida Air National Guard training and operational training for the new F-35 Lightning II, a joint strike fighter.

U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Buck MacLaughlin, Avon Park range commander and the meeting’s facilitator, said he didn’t have all the answers about what additional noise might occur with the new uses, especially for the new fighter jet, and he conceded that the range might not always be the best neighbor.

“This meeting is pre-emptive; we want to look for ways for us and the surrounding communities to develop and grow compatibly,” MacLaughlin, a military pilot who has flown A-10 Thunderbolts and Stealth fighters, said.

The range, established in 1942, is centered in Polk and Highlands counties, but training flights impact Osceola and Okeechobee counties as well. The three municipalities that could be affected by range changes are Frostproof, Avon Park and Sebring.

The purpose of the 18-month, $261,000 study, which the Bartow-based Central Florida Regional Planning Council sponsored, is to protect the health and safety of residents around the range and to discourage incompatible development in high-noise and accident-potential areas.

MacLaughlin said it is the “perfect time” for the study, given that a number of proposed residential developments surrounding the range have been put on hold or abandoned due to the economy or other reasons, giving the range breathing room to find “compatible ways to grow into the future.”

MacLaughlin assured the 40 or so people gathered at the community center that there would be no expansion of range boundaries or flight areas, either horizontally or vertically.

“There won’t be any sonic booms,” he said, adding that only subsonic-flights are allowed at the range.

The commander also said there would generally be no increase in training with high explosives and no extension of training hours, which are now generally between 7 a.m. and 11 p.m. He also said the Navy “was not pursuing” a plan for more extensive training at the range involving more missions and high explosives.

MacLaughlin, responding to a resident question, said air traffic at the range had indeed increased over the last five years, going from perhaps 6,000 a year to more than 13,000 now.

Range officials also said a committee of public officials and state agency representatives was established to guide the study process along and make recommendations. Fred Hawkins Jr., Osceola County Commission chairman, is the local member of that committee.

When the air space over Yeehaw Junction and Kenansville is designated for military training use by the Federal Aviation Administration, it becomes what is called the Marian Military Operating Area, and planes and helicopters can fly as low as 500 feet through it. This operating area has been a part of the Avon Park range for more than 20 years, officials said.

It is that ceiling that the developers of the proposed city of Destiny last year requested be raised to 5,000 feet.

MacLaughlin said range officials oppose any change to the ceiling and that any change would adversely impact training.

“Jets at 500 feet would not be compatible with a development,” the commander said, adding that the area around Yeehaw Junction is used as a marshaling area for low-level weapons runs into the range, about 27 miles to the west.

Representing her city at Hawkins’ request, St. Cloud Councilwoman Mickey Hopper said the range needs to undertake a study to look at the impact of “year-after-year’ noise on residents and vibration on homes and that there should be a system in place – such as a reverse 9-1-1 – to notify residents of impending training operations.

“There should be give and take,” she said, adding that one would expect to see more noise impact with more flights.

Range officials said there is no program now to look at subsonic flight impact but that the range does have a noise control program whereby residents’ complaints are addressed through possible flight path changes.

For additional information about the study, visit www.avonparkjlus.com. Comments and questions can be addressed to: JLUS Project Manager, Avon Park Air Force Range JLUS, Central Florida Regional Planning Council, 555 E. Church St., Bartow, FL 33831-2089. Call 863-534-7130 or e-mail This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .