McClellan sac area noise questions (Davis, Cameron Park: how much, neighborhood, school)

[jendevi]

Hi! I am looking at the area and wondering how much noise comes from the McClellan airport or there is another private airport in the area. Any other feed back is greatly appericated!

[cb73]

According to their website, the airport is available for private, corporate and cargo planes. But mostly all I ever hear are the fire-fighting planes being refueled during wildfire season.

[jendevi]

thank you so much for the info!

[jguillot]

I believe the Coast Guard still has planes flying in and out of McClellan Airfield.

[zhangster]

I don't live near the airport but as a pilot I can give you some info. McClellan is a lightly used civil airport. There are some propeller and small to medium sized jets based there. But during fire season a lot of heavy tankers fly in & out of the airport.


You would normally expect more noise if you lived under the takeoff path than if you lived under the landing path. On landings planes are near idle power so the noise footprint will be much less noticeable.


About 70% of the time (based on nothing more than my personal gut feeling) - the wind blows from the south so planes take off to the south. When they do they usually have to stay on a strictly southerly path to stay away from the D airspace of Sac Exec airport to the west and Mather airport to the east. The other 30% of the time when they take off to the north there is not much airspace restriction and they can pretty much go any direction.


I don't think there is any flight school at this airport so there should be much less flight training activities here. At training intensive airports such as Lincoln you have airplanes doing patterns, touch and gos, etc generating much more noise than planes that just come in for business and trips.


I've covered most of the general aviation airports in the area - Sac Exec, Mather, Lincoln. Rio Linda is there but doesn't really get used much. Further out you have University (Davis), Auburn, and Cameron Park. Learning about low altitude air traffic flow pattern in any major metro area is not an easy task. Perhaps the best way is to spend some time in the neighborhood and feel for yourself.