Over the last few weeks there have been small noisy planes flying low over Sheringham and the French Beach area. Apparently this is going to escalate as summer approaches, we believe it is a non-local flight school doing pilot training in our area now. Doug Harvey lives near Muir Creek in Otter Point where the training exercises are also occurring, and he has been looking into this. Doug has been in contact with the flying schools and the Airport Authority, and this is what he’s found out:
“The small plane doing training flights over Otter Point, Shirley, and Sooke has become quite annoying. I have been in touch with the local flight schools and suggested they train over the interior of the island where they wouldn’t be bothering anyone. They deny it’s them. Apparently they used to do their training over Cowichan but got a lot of complaints so have now come to our area. I contacted the Airport Authority about this. It seems there not much that can be done other than complain. The rules are that they have to fly above 1000 ft and they not supposed to practice over built up areas.”
If you wish to join Doug and voice your concerns, email him at douglaseharvey@gmail.com. If complaints from Cowichan meant they changed their training site to our area, we need to voice our concerns too, or we’ll be continuously subjected to planes flying low over our homes both disturbing the peace and increasing the potential for mishap with pilot training.
OPSRRA 
Hello There
I am a retired commercial pilot with well over 35 years of flight experience . I also live in Sooke BC for over 15 years and low flying aircraft is a problem here . According to Cars 602.14 aircraft are allowed above 1000′ over a populated area . BUT this does not mean it is the right thing to do. An aircraft at 1000′ or even 2000′ over the town of Sooke area experiencing an emergency or engine failure would have no place to land safely and would certainly have a very high risk of crashing into buildings , homes and injure of kill personal.
After the accident has accrued it would be too late to do the right thing and stop this activity .
There a high volume of aircraft flying low over the town of Sooke on an almost daily bases. Its only a matter of time when an aircraft will have an emergency over the town area of Sooke and it too late then.
In my career I have seen repeated situations like this many times when people complain and no one did anything about it. And eventually I have witness aircraft accidents as a result. It will happen . Its only a matter of time . People living in Sooke should take this situation far more seriously than they are now.
LikeLike