Couple’s rooftop sign protests noise of jets from Philly airport

FOLSOM, Pa. (AP) — The skies won’t seem especially friendly to anyone taking off from Philadelphia International Airport if they notice what a suburban couple wrote on the roof of their home.

“[Expletive]U FAA,” the message reads, though one letter of the profane word is substituted with an underline. Below that it is a picture of a plane with a slash through it and the words “no fly zone.”

Homeowner Michael Hall and his girlfriend, Michaelene Buddy, are angry that jets have been flying over their house since last month, when the Federal Aviation Administration altered departure headings out of Philadelphia. Hall says he has to sleep with earplugs.

He said he and Buddy also were frustrated after being unable to leave a message with the FAA’s noise-complaint hot line because the voice mailbox was always full. So they issued their complaint in roof sealant and 7-foot-tall letters about two weeks ago.

“Just doing it made me feel better, but I’d still like to say what I wrote directly to the idiot head of the FAA,” Hall told the Philadelphia Daily News for Thursday’s editions.

FAA spokesman Jim Peters had no comment.

The flight changes are part of a massive restructuring of the airspace over the congested corridor between New York and Philadelphia.

The couple’s Ridley Township home is in Delaware County, southwest of Philadelphia. The county argues in a lawsuit that the FAA’s environmental-impact study violated federal regulations and that the new flight paths will only marginally reduce airport delays.