Discussion Board #2: Community Connection Next Steps

The 115th Fighter Wing has grown from propeller-driven aircraft to F-16s to F-35s. Read more about the 115th’s history here. The Madison F35 Community Connection project is a relationship-building exercise between the 115th and the Madison community. We’ve heard the importance of hosting both weekday evening and weekend events – contribute to the event logistics conversation here!

Now, we would like your ideas for the next steps in the 115th Fighter Wing’s community outreach program.

What specific issues or concerns should the program address in the future? How can the Wing enhance its communication and collaboration with the community to foster a mutually beneficial relationship? Share your vision for the future of the Wing’s community engagement efforts.

What specific next steps will help build the relationship between the 115th Fighter Wing and the Madison community?

35 Comments

The PFAS issue is huge….politically it is an issue that can become very emotional and used as a divisive issue between the 115th and the community….whatever side one might align with, my opinion is that the PFAS began with the choice of fire fighting suppressants approved by the US Government and supposedly tested for safety by the manufacturer….complicated….this will cause a wedge between the County Government and the need for fire protection at the Dane County Airport….support can be gained by how this issue is handled by the 115th Fighter Wing

The PFAS issue is huge….politically it is an issue that can become very emotional and used as a divisive issue between the 115th and the community….whatever side one might align with, my opinion is that the PFAS began with the choice of fire fighting suppressants approved by the US Government and supposedly tested for safety by the manufacturer….complicated….this will cause a wedge between the County Government and the need for fire protection at the Dane County Airport….support can be gained by how this issue is handled by the 115th Fighter Wing

Gary, I’m sure you know, but just to be clear for everybody reading, it’s just not the USAF & WI ANG that used fire fighting foams with PFAS. All of the airports and airline industry used it, and probably much more than the military did. PFAS Are also in everyday things.
I agree with you that the Air Force could take the lead on this since city, county, and state talk a good game but don’t do anything!

I totally agree with the desire for both the F-35 group and military helicopter’s to move out of Madison. I am sitting in my living room listening to the helicopters do their hover drills as I write this. It will last a long time. Why can a citizen not have peace in his own living room at 8:43 pm at night. Madison is the wrong place for a military base.

Please move to Volk Field. Madison is too populated. We are home to many vets with PTSD. The incredibly loud 35’s are triggering. Thanks.

Honored to share a community with the F-35’s! Such an amazing experience to be able to see them around town. It’s unfortunate that a lot of people complain about, we are truly lucky to have them at Truax! Thank you for your service

Personally, I would like to see some full afterburner takeoff’s followed by unrestricted climbs. I think that would make the community feel more connected with the F35 and the 115th.

As a retired Naval Aviation Aircrew type, I’m pleased you are here but understand it’s a complicated PR issue.
Education is part of it … “people are down on what they’re not up on”. Find facts, communicate, educate …. repeat, repeat, repeat etc.
“Fly Navy”

When communicating with the general public, remove military speak: communication “mission,” logistics, relationship-building “exercise” as examples.

Take responsibility for the impact of the F35s, intended or not, on your neighbors.

Show leadership in removing these impacts in meaningful ways. Do more than listen.

As we were taught as campers, leave the place better than you found it. The military does not have a good record on this (e.g., Bremerton, LeJeune).

Provide a complaint hotline that is (1) quick to use, (2) focused on gathering the info, not communicating your talking points, (3) respectful of people’s desire to remain anonymous when lodging a complaint with a governmental entity, (4) available as an online form as well as call-in number for full accessibility, (5) well publicized, (6) with results available as a summary to the public for transparency.

Provide online attendance options for listening sessions and other events.

Stop marketing yourself as a pony show to trot out above area conferences and conventions. The cost to taxpayers is embarrassing. These are killing machines, not toys.

Communicate your safety plan for when an F35 crashes in our community.

Communicate your safety plan for our area as a pre-emptive strike zone.

what can we do to stop this tragic invitation to pollute our air and water? I will never forgive Tammy Baldwin for making this happen to our beautiful city. this shouldn’t be happening in a residential area.

After years of being told to contact our representatives, this is from Tammy Baldwin’s most recent response to contacting her office:

“While the decision to base the F-35s at Truax is an Air Force decision in which I have no official role, I worked to secure $50 million for a new noise mitigation program under the DOD during the Fiscal Year (FY) 2021”

Great. The listening sessions and consultant fees come out of these tax payer dollars. Maybe our taxes can pay for “Sound of Freedom” earplugs too.

WI Air National Guard needs to take responsibility for its contamination of ground and surface water in the area. They should be fully financially responsible for preventing future contamination and for paying for the filtration systems that need to be installed on the cities drinking water wells.
Revise the contract with the County so the ANG takes on all of the expenses of having the Fighter Wing at Truax.
Stop using fire-fighting foams containing PFAS. Do not take any more flights than absolutely necessary for training – each flight uses extensive amounts of fossil fuels and creates unnecessary emissions.
Avoid take-offs to the south and west where the noise is impacting large portions of the city.

I want to know what can be done about providing money for the community to improve the sounds insulation on neighboring homes and schools.
Are there any updates on where in the process the study to determine what if any grant funds can be made available to residents and others that can be shared? Are these Listening Sessions part of this process? If a community accessible portal to show milestones/timelines exists can this be shared? If it does not exist can one be created?

Has this study decided to only measure the average decibel values or will some consideration be given to the peak decibel values? I think many that live nearby will agree that the average is much louder than the peak.

There is no upside to f-35s if you live in the flight path. There is plenty of accepted science that shows the harm caused by the kind of noise they cause. My home is permeated with sustained vibrations multiple time most days. Even cushioned furniture vibrates along with feeling the pressure in my body. I am especially worried about those living closer to the airport than me. I can’t imagine being a child in school with these frightening assaults multiple times a day.

I fully support the ANG mission at DCRA. Freedom is not free and the Air Force has a long history here. Take offs and landings the noise is over quickly. To me, the biggest noise is the separation loop flown over the Eastside of the city. Moving the loop would reduce the noise by one half. If the ANG is really interested in making peace with the community they could change their Flight Plan. I have lived on the southern glide path for 40 years. Thank you, Michael W. Coenen

If the 115th wants to improve its relationship with the Madison community it needs to move the base to a less populated area, such as Volk Field. The paltry and slow moving efforts to remediate buildings will do nothing people who open their windows and go outside. The jets are too frequent and too loud.

The noise rattles my nerves. I have to hold my hands over my ears to be able to handle the noise. The only solution I can see is to move out of Madison . I’m leaving this town.

I am a big fan of the F35’s and the 115th Fighter Wing being in Madison. I love watching the jets take off, fly around and land. I live and work in the flight path and I think they are great! To me, the military presence and those jets flying over is a symbol of our freedom every time I see and hear them. It never gets old to me.

It seems that most of those who have spoken in opposition are doing so for political reasons or as a consequence of their own emotional problems. Speaking objectively, these aircraft, with modern noise mitigation technology, have less of an impact than other aircraft. The vast majority of those in the area fully support the 115th Fighter Wing and welcome their presence in Madison.

I’m grateful for this community forum. I agree and support almost all the comments and smart suggestions here. I would like to emphasize the following:

—What does the military have to say about their impact on THE OUTDOORS. While I appreciate the focus on insulation and houses, for me, the worst of it is that the impact of increased noise sends people inside. There is not a single sector of human activity (community, neighborliness, health, economic activity, connection to ecology) that would not interpret this as a negative. Please address this head on. How do you do the calculus that shows how you are understanding the relative impact on this very busy, populated and outdoor oriented community?
–your impacts on the Eastside are extreme in part because the ever expanding Dane County airport is adding flights every month. I would like both the commercial airport and the military to work *together* to communicate. This includes acknowledging the numbers of flights, and their timing, inn terms of both duration and decibels. This is all about DATA not platitudes.
—Clean up your relationship with Dane cty airport, stop wheeling and dealing about sharing fire fighting equipment and contamination. Work together as if you really cared about the community around the airport not shirking a job someone has to do or pretending you don’t have resources. I know where my tax dollars go.
–I love the comment that people are down on what they are not up on, Denny Behr (Navy Command Master Chief ret.) To me, being up on something is having all and regular data graphically presented and accessible. Where are the updated decibel maps?
–Publish a schedule for goodness sakes so people can plan. Flights SHUT DOWN all communications while they happen. Absolutely nothing else can go on when they fly near my house. People work at home and have meetings in which they are presenting online and sometimes to hundreds of people (not an exaggeration). Kids live here and have regular nap times. The uncertainty triples the impact. The lack of any notice on flights creates huge tension around not knowing when it will happen and where the flights will be. The sound from the runways alone is an attention grabber.
—I would like to calculations on the impact of the loss of public space and invasions of private space. What does it cost when professionals have to stop talking for 30 seconds while you go over? What does it cost when someone has a child wake up too early from a much needed nap? What is your ecological impact, especially on the migratory birds?
—Plan around the wind, and don’t practice when the wind patterns bring you over the most populated areas.
—MINIMIZE practicing over our city. NEVER fly on weekends, almost never fly at night. Stop all helicopter flights. Make all your decisions as if you are aware that this area is already carrying an enormous decibel burden. This burden needs to be seen as a service to the larger community and burden on the quality of life and the value of property. NOTHING has ever been said, or explained, about this differential impact. My west side friends have no idea what an F-35 sounds like. And I have never heard any communications that connects to our community especially. If you want people to be “up” on this, you have to address with data real and obvious concerns rather than some assumption that it’s all ideology and can be changed with a superficial public information campaign.
— I absolutely agree Tammy Baldwin needs to show up. The costs here include so much more than the military can alone address, and as a representative she needs to be accessible on this specific topic to some really diehard fans. That said, there’s plenty the military can do, and if they did it and publicized how they both listened and responded, I would respect that. In the meantime I’m seeing F-45s put up in Christmas lights along John Nolen Dr.(talk about irony) and reading articles in the newspaper about haggling with the airport people whose only option for me is a complaint form titled “ecomentality”. Right.

I only live a mile and a 1/2 from where they takeoff, and I and my dog don’t notice any difference from the F16’s and we’re not bothered by the noise whatsoever. I don’t even hear them unless I’m outside. I’m very thankful that we have the opportunities here by bringing them here. Thank you to everyone for their service and that made this possible! ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

I live in Waunakee, not for from the airport, and I don’t think the F-35s are any louder than the F-16s they replaced. I can tell they are trying to minimize the sound (no afterburner takeoffs) which I appreciate. I am happy the Air National Guard is near. It’s a great employer for many of my neighbors and (if I understand correctly) has a history here that predates most residents and houses in the area. The occasional noise doesn’t bother me and I see it as a necessarily mild inconvenience.

Every time the F-35s fly over, I hear the sound of freedom! I’m reminded not only of those who serve, but those who’ve given their lives, to protect our rights to freedom of speech, assembly, worship and SO much more. Very grateful we all live in a country where there are still loyal, valiant protectors of the founders’ values: life, liberty, & the pursuit of happiness????

Greetings, I lived on Myrtle Street in Madison in the 50’s and the 60’s. I loved seeing the jets fly over the house. I even found the sonic booms interesting even though I didn’t know what caused them. When I graduated high school, I joined the Air Force where I served for four years and was honorably discharged. I love jet noise. I always look up. I now live in Cottage Grove and wish you’d fly over my neighborhood. Thanks for flying the F-35’s.

The 115th Fighter Wing is privileged to be part of the Madison community. This privilege needs to be honored through treating the whole community, and especially its close neighbors, with respect and consideration. If this responsibility is being taken seriously, changes can and should be made to the way the planes operate in our airspace, including:
Using higher flight patterns;
Reducing power at takeoff;
Practicing touch and goes” away from populated areas;
Backing off on power when flying around Madison.

Such restrictions have been implemented in other communities across the United States, and Madison surely deserves no less from our neighbors in the 115th.

We are in the Carpenter-Ridgeway neighborhood. When we first moved and the F16s were flying it was annoying but manageable (we’ve lived near train tracks in the past). The F35s are much louder. My kid is really noise sensitive and he freaks out when they fly over if we’re outside. When I’m on Zoom meetings, I’ve been interrupted many times with the flyovers either making me wait to contribute or making it so that I miss parts of the conversation that have to be repeated. There’s been plenty of times where they fly over during school pick up at Hawthorne, and kids/parents can’t hear teachers or crossing guards which is a safety issue.

This could be solved by having a schedule of planned flights available to residents (or if they happen at regular times), AND if the fighter wing could work to schedule so they aren’t taking off during school pick up/drop off times. I also keep hearing that there will be noise mitigation steps, but when is that going to happen for residents and homeowners? It’s nice if there will be standards for new builds, but what about those of us in older homes and apartments? Where is the money and resources for us to improve the insulation/sound proofing in our homes? I have yet to get communication about when this is happening and how it can be accessed.

Quite frankly, I don’t get people who say they “feel safer” with the planes there. Doesn’t having these jets here make Madison a military target? While one would imagine it’s unlikely, are there any kind of emergency plans in place? What stakeholders are part of those plans? How would this get communicated to residents?

Listening sessions are only useful if there are concrete actions taken from them and I’m not confident that will be the case.

The F35s need to move away from Truax. The noise and vibration are harmful. I cannot hold a conversation indoors, with windows and doors closed, when the F35s fly over. On Friday, 2/2/24, the F35s flew over and created noise of 100 decibels or more 4 times in less than one hour! And this is just one day out of so many that they fly. There are 6 schools within 1.3 miles from my home, so these young students are hearing the same hazardous noise. There are many people of every age that are home all day and experience this traumatic noise. This is an environmental and public health hazard, and the F35s need to be moved, to practice where there are not neighborhoods and schools.

I live on the South side— supposedly far from the flight path. But occasionally the F-35s fly even over my neighborhood. (I am just on the south side of Lake Monona near John Nolen Drive. I always notice them because they are so much louder than other jets. They do not come over my neighborhood very frequently but the sound is deafening. I feel really bad for the people on the North side who live near the flight path. They must be terribly disruptive. I generally stop what I am doing until they are gone. I do not think my views are political because I do not object to the other military jets. I think Madison is unfortunate to have these. I feel particularly bad because the North side is one of the few affordable areas of town— especially if you want to buy a house. Now this!

I think jets are super cool and have previously dismissed other’s complaints as my parents lived near the airport for decades and pausing conversations was a frequent occurrence.

However, I am in the path being on Belle Island in Monona. Last summer, while working from home, it was so loud as to rattle everything right down to my bones and it terrified me and I am not easily scared.

Now, I stop what I’m doing and plug my ears while my heart palpitates and I feel for the first time that I know what PTSD or anxiety attacks must feel like.

I don’t know what the answer is because I understand the necessity. Perhaps if I know ahead of time I can prepare myself.

I don’t care about the politics of this, only the people, and some may not be able to afford ear coverage but there’s always surplus military equipment.

There is so much open land just a bit further outside of Madison. The jets are more than disruptive; it is actively harmful to our little kids, as the volume of an F-35 is nearly double the maximum recommended exposure for little ones. I’ve seen people on here say that this is no worse than F-16s, which might be true, but those are also harmful to kids hearing. And none of this gets into veterans living in the area affected by PTSD, or any other individual who is uniquely affected by loud noises (such as neurodivergent individuals). Someone on here recommended Volk field and I think that’s a great idea.

I see that there are a few people on here who enjoy the F-35s as a kind of patriotic display. That’s totally fine, and I would encourage them to go watch them wherever the new location is. This isn’t about support for the military or our troops. The point is that the jets do active harm, especially in largely populated areas. And so if the air base cannot be moved at all, at the very least, jets should take off and fly in from north/east of the airport, which are less densely populated, although I imagine the people of Sun Prairie wouldn’t be thrilled about that either.

If you want to see the noise levels generated by the F-35 fighter jets over Madison neighborhoods, go to http://www.msnsound.com There are continuous noise measurements from (currently) 17 monitors at residences, schools and community centers. During the past two years of monitoring we have learned a few things: 1) the F-35 jets are much louder than the former F-16 jets, 2) the dBA scale used for monitoring and noise regulation is based on human hearing and doesn’t measure the low frequency vibrations unique to the F-35 jets that shake bodies, homes and schools, 3) the peak noise level caused by an F-35 jet has been measured at 123 dBA, enough for hearing damage, and 4) the county airport is using an outdated daily average noise standard which doesn’t address the peak noise levels we actually measure, hear and feel, so many residents will not get the noise abatement they need.

Steven,

Thanks for your comments. I would also recommend the msnsound.com site, and appreciate the data captured from the listening stations and graphed in real time.

I moved to Madison in the past year, so I don’t have the experience of the previous F-16s to compare to. But the noise from the F35s do appear to greatly exceed the regular commercial flights and frequently, if not usually, exceed 100 dB.

As noted during the listening sessions, the county airport will have an open house on February 20th, presumably to present their updated Part 150 noise abatement plan. The Air National Guard should ask the county airport to delay finalizing its plan until the results of this public outreach has finished in case any new noise abatement options are identified.

If the 115th fighter wing actually cares about the Madison North and East side communities, please leave Madison. We do not want a “connection” with you. We want you to get out. I do care about freedom. I want the freedom to live in peace within the sanctity of my own home. I want the freedom to walk around my neighborhood on a pleasant day without having to cover my ears. The presence of the F- 35s is a removal of our natural right to live our lives normally, without fear-inducing, house- shaking noise.

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