COKEMACHINES,
When I was stationed out in San Diego, the Marine Corps transferred a helo squadron from another base to MCAS Miramar. Some of the people in the surrounding community started to whine and moan about the noise.
Funny thing, 95% of these people had recently moved to the area and had the audacity to complain about the noise that is a by product of an Marine Corps AIR STATION!!!
The local news channel interviewed a bunch of residents of the area and the resounding statement was the same as the banner you mentioned, "That's the sound of freedom!" I love it!!!
As a side note, I grew up right next to NAS Moffet Field in Sunnyvale, CA. We lived about 4 miles from base and right in the normal landing pattern for the multiple P-3C III squadrons that were based there. The sound that those turbo props make is so distinct. Every year since I can remember we would go to Moffet to watch the annual air show. The Blue Angels were always a hit as well as the old warbirds. Seeing as how it was a P-3 base, everybody LOVED to see the show that they put on during their flight demonstration. When they would simulate dropping a weapon on a soviet sub, they would light-off some pyrotechnics on the north side of the main runway and would always end up lighting the scrub brush on fire which meant that the Federal Fire Dept. would have to roar out onto the tarmac and runway to fight the accidentally set blaze. The stands would go crazy!!! They loved to see the trucks put out the fire. They got as many cheers as a street sweeper picking up horse dookie after a Fourth of July Parade!!
Right next door to Moffet Field is the NASA Ames Reasearch Center. They do all sorts of cool funky stuif there. They have the largest wind tunnel facility in the world, they have a variety of really neat experimental aircraft and at one point back in the 80's they were the control center for the Voyager series space probes.
During the Cold War, the P-3 Anti-Submarine Warfare aircraft was the most hated thing that ever took to the skies, according to Soviet submarine commanders! The P-3 has a 12 hour on-station or "loiter" capability which means it can circle and stay in the area for half of a day without refueling. If they needed to, they could shut down 1 to 2 engines to increase that loiter time.
As a shipboard Sonar Technician, I had a love/hate relationship with the P-3. I was a sensor operator on a peice of equipment that received data from sonobuoys that were launched by either a helicopter or fixed wing aircraft. When operating the system, I was directly in charge of communicating with the aircraft controller on my ship, the sensor operators onboard the aircraft and my direct supervisor in Sonar Control. At the same time all that was going on I was busy "tuning" sonobuoys and analyzing the data on my screen to see if there was anything of interest in or under the water. Normally we worked with an SH-60B Helo that was capable of carrying 25 sonobuoys, not to difficult to keep up with. They'd "spit" a line of buoys and I would tune them and analyze the data to see if there was a possible submarine threat creeping around.
Every once in a great while we would get notification that we would be working with a P-3. They carry HUNDREDS of sonobuoys and they aren't afraid to use them!!! Instead of spitting 10 here or 7 here they would VOMIT 40 or 50 in one drop!!! My screen would light up and go crazy!! Fun, fun, fun!
