U.S. navy pilot’s penis in the sky raises another issue: The Rumbles.
Give the U.S. Navy pilots this: They may give Vancouver Island the Rumbles, but at least they don’t draw penises in our skies.
Can’t say as much for our neighbours in Washington state, though.
It seems one of the jet jockeys based at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island took advantage of Thursday’s crisp, clear weather to draw a giant phallus over northern Washington with the contrails of his jet.
Don’t know how long the airborne artwork stayed aloft before collapsing (if your sky-writing lasts for more than four hours, consult the Federal Aviation Administration), but it was long enough for outraged/delighted Okanogan residents to snap and post photos, which we will refrain from reproducing here lest they give sensitive readers the vapours (as it were).
Officially, at least, the U.S. military frowns on the use of its aircraft for mile-high Etch-A-Sketching. It grounded the aircrew and called their actions “wholly unacceptable and antithetical to navy core values.”
Still, you have to suspect Uncle Sam harbours a sneaking respect for the plane-handling skills of Goose and Maverick, or whoever. Skywriting isn’t easy even for those who do it for a living. In February, a National Public Radio story entitled Say It Out Cloud detailed the difficulty: Because the pilots can’t see behind them, they must rely on calculations, not eyesight, to draw with trailed smoke.
Hearts are relatively easy to illustrate, but commercial skywriters say the letters “M” and “R” are murder, which makes it tough when the message is “Marry me,” the NPR piece said. You have to applaud whoever wrote “3.1415” — pi in the sky. Also, thumbs up to the comedian who paid to have “How do I land?” written over Los Angeles.
But I digress, as is so frequently and lamentably the case.
This week’s contrail graffiti did dredge up a related, unresolved matter: The Rumbles, the low, sounds-like-God-bowling acoustic phenomenon that periodically sends Greater Victorians — particularly those in Oak Bay or on the east side of the Peninsula — into earthquake/Armageddon mode. We’ve been hearing the Rumbles for close to a decade, which coincides with the arrival of EA-18G Growler aircraft at Whidbey Island, at the mouth of Puget Sound, about 50 kilometres southeast of Vancouver Island.
The Growler is an electronic-attack aircraft, one used to jam the enemy’s radar and otherwise mess up communications. On Whidbey Island, pilots practise on a simulated aircraft carrier deck, repeatedly powering up, taking off and touching down. It’s this noise that is believed to be the source of the Rumbles, drawing the Grumbles from residents of the San Juans, the Gulf Islands and Victoria.
“These Growlers have been a source of annoyance — and more than that — for a long time,” said Saanich-Gulf Islands MP Elizabeth May, on the phone Friday from the UN climate talks in Bonn, Germany.
Complaints from constituents inspired May to raise the matter with Bruce Heyman, the Obama administration’s ambassador to Canada. Heyman gave her an encouraging response, but he was then replaced by Donald Trump’s appointee, Kelly Craft, who is just settling into the job.
The thing is, Rumbles-related grumbles have eased off. “It comes up less frequently than it did initially,” May said. She gets more grousing about noise from Victoria-based seaplanes, helicopters and commercial aircraft.
Likewise, Oak Bay Mayor Nils Jensen said Friday that he hasn’t heard much about the Rumbles lately. Last November, Jensen responded to complaints from residents, including an internationally renowned composer who said the noise was interrupting his work, by sending the U.S. Navy a message saying it would be awfully nice if they could do their job without rattling our teacups.
Jensen’s online submission was part of an environmental-impact study tied to the planned addition of another 36 Growlers to the 82 already at Whidbey Island. The study was due this fall but was extended by 10 months in September, with the navy saying new technology could allow it to cut the proposed number of training flights by 20 per cent.
That might satisfy those who argue the Rumbles are the price of freedom, but probably won’t do much to calm those Vancouver Islanders whose internal air raid sirens are set off by any combination of A) ’Merica B) ominous Big Brother electronic-warfare technology and C) the military.
Who knows what would happen were a chemtrail penis added to the mix.