SSky

Not me, the egits on the dairy farm at the top of our road.
I've been wondering what the wailing siren sort of noise was for weeks now but at 8.10am this morning up it started again like a tsunami siren. So me being me I got in my car to hunt down this terrible noise.
I found this nice Dutch boy on a tractor moving baleage so I pulled up to ask him if he knew where the noise was coming from and he directed me towards the huge crane like structure that I'd noticed going up a few weeks back.
There it was this huge engine thingy dangling from the crane with a huddle of blokes around it all with earmuffs on. So I stood at the fence for a little while looking cross until a sheepish looking guy came over to talk.
Yep it's a jet pack he tells me and he's working with the council not to cause too much of an inconvenience to the neighbours, they were based at the airport he says but had relocated here!
I don't know what sort of jet pack it is but it's bloody loud and not really meant to be tested in such a rural farm setting I would have thought. Anyways I haven't heard it the rest of the day, and they did say they were going to restrict testing to the minimum, I rang the sound control to log my complaint ... not that that will most likely do any good.

BEVS

Nope but it helps to vent.

Charismatic

Right...so why would anyone want a jet pack? Sounds like it's a company a few weeks away from bankruptcy to me.

SSky

I've no idea, it was a huge engine thingy dangling from the crane wire.
This dairy farmer always has all sorts of ventures going on.
He's built an enormous irrigation lake, it's like bloody Windermere in Yorkshire and has his own little BBQ type area and lake side house going on there. I see boats speeding up and down it regularly.
Then there was a huge .. and I mean huge big tent like structure but the size of a two story building that went up, it was there for about six months and then disappeared in a few days, no idea what they were doing in that but it wasn't really any of my business and it didn't make any noise.
I've nothing against dairy farmers, hell I worked in dairy for three years and expect noise related to their business but this is not dairy related so I'm a bit peed off.

Damson

Id be pretty hacked off too.

Pulaski

Er, Windermere is in Cumbria, and up until 1974 was partly in/bordered by Lancashire.

SSky

Yea I thought someone would pull me up on that one, I've never been any good at that geography thing

SSky

So I've just come home from dropping my son off in Oxford and drove past the farm to see what was going on this morning.
OMG the huge crane has gone!! It's been there for weeks, well ever since the noise started any hows. No one indicated to me yesterday that it was going and they were stopping the testing!
Surely it can't have been because of little old me making one complaint. I feel a bit mean now but I dunno, I won't hold my breath just in case it comes back.
Maybe everyone in the area got on the phone yesterday and complained but it doesn't seem likely does it? When I asked the guy yesterday if anyone had complained about the noise he said just a property owner down the way that was trying to sell his house and me.

Pulaski

Is it these guys? Martinjetpack.

I am going to guess that the lake in the second of three pictures that the homepage scrolls through, is your neighbour's artificial Windermere.

Damson

I want one!!!!!!!!!


Glad they gone SSky. Just think in a few years time, and there are redundancies and reports in the paper of "it was going to be the new motorcar of the sky except someone moaned and it all got scrapped", you can say "I DID THAT".

BEVS

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

This guy likes things BIG

One crane and jet pack gone. One rocket launching pad on it's way.

SSky

Yis.

SSky

I just had a call from the council and unfortunately that sounds exactly like what is going to happen.
They'll be back , but with a proper airborne thingy next time and a quieter engine. Then laws get a bit hazy because it's classed as a plane or something or other, so the council are getting their stall into order and seeking legal advice on how to manage any noise complaints.
They seemed like a nice bunch of blokes yesterday and I don't want to get in the way of research at all, apparently they're wanting to maybe build unmanned drone like jet packy thingies to save people from burning buildings etc but he also mentioned they were working with the military to provide them with some awful killing machine thing too (don't like that bit).
The massive tent like structure was also part of their operation, they were doing the building of the thing in there.
They do ultimately want to be based permanently at the airport though, apparently it's better for their business and for clients to travel and see it but because it wasn't strictly airborne they weren't able to do that before.
Anyways this research is another three years away from being completed the council guy told me so we may have jet pack thingies zooming over our heads for a while yet
I've just been asked to jot down when the noise is excessive to help the council if they need to do anything.

Pulaski

That's where the money is.

Damson

Hope it's not top secret!!!