A Little Flight Music : Why More Aircraft Are Buzzing Bowl

A Rodgers and Hammerstein piece had just ended at a recent Hollywood Bowl concert and conductor John Mauceri was about to introduce the next work when a small plane droned overhead.

He spun around, raised his baton and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra launched into a few bars of “Off We Go Into the Wild Blue Yonder,” to laughter and applause.

It wasn’t much of an inside joke. Anyone who’s been to the Bowl or read a review of a concert there knows that the chop of helicopters and buzz of light planes are the bane of performers, conductors, audiences and music critics.

But now Bowl officials are pointing out that airborne interference has been worse this season, which officially began July 9, because of the weather. Clouds typical for June have been lingering into July, causing pilots of small planes landing at Santa Monica Municipal Airport to make an instrument approach--practically right over the Bowl and at low altitudes.

“The bottom line is that the only way into Santa Monica under certain weather conditions is just about right over there,” said Sherry Avery, air traffic manager for the Federal Aviation Administration. Out of nearly 200,000 landings a year at Santa Monica Municipal Airport, about 5,000 must use that approach. Tuesday night, at least four overflights were noticed during the concert.

Bowl officials are lobbying for an alternate instrument approach. “As long as that change is not unsafe, we owe it to the community, to the 18,000 people we have here every night, to try to change it,” said Mark Ferber, production supervisor for Hollywood Bowl.

But Avery and others in the FAA said they have considered alternatives, but so far none has been possible.

She said pilots can’t safely be directed closer to the mountains when they can’t see, and a straight shot to the landing site is a must to avoid a sharp turn just before landing.

“We really feel for them (at the Bowl),” said Avery, who attended a concert there just weeks ago. “But it’s pretty congested around here and the mountains don’t help.”

Changing an approach at one airport would also affect patterns at the other 18 airports in the Los Angeles basin, which handle thousands of landings every day, according to FAA spokesman Fred O’Donnell. “It’s a very highly orchestrated--pardon the pun--system,” he said.

“When a pilot is up there punching through the clouds trying to get to an airport, it’s just not appropriate to deviate from the normal approach to satisfy the (conductor),” O’Donnell said. “It’s not in the best interest of safety.”

He said the FAA frequently receives similar requests for events ranging from the World Series to yacht races. The FAA will cooperate by advising pilots to skirt these events but will not restrict air space except for a visit by the President and other rare occasions, he said.

For audiences at the Bowl, aircraft interference is aggravating. People in the audience “stare at the planes” as though that would make them disappear, said Lynn Harrell, a cellist and artistic director of the L.A. Philharmonic Institute, who also said the noise distracts performers.

“Here you are conferred with the responsibility, with the delight, of trying to bring to life a great artistic masterpiece,” Harrell said. “And then a whole segment, sometimes a very integral part of the artistic message, is violated.”

A second, nearly equal source of interference is planes and helicopters that are not in contact with a control tower and wander too close. Lots of people have reason to fly the friendly skies: There are about 14,000 private aircraft registered in the L.A. Basin.

Ferber wants those pilots to avoid Cahuenga Pass and even the Hollywood Freeway nearby. “Maybe they don’t know it, but we hear them and it’s very disruptive,” he said.

Commercial airlines are not a problem. Ferber said the FAA has cleared that up over the years. American Airlines, for example, tells flights coming into the area to avoid the Bowl when the spotlights are on.

Normally at this time of year, clouds hug the coastline and move about five to 10 miles inland before they dissipate. This year, clouds are remaining longer, often extending to Burbank and Van Nuys, and sometimes even all the way to San Bernardino and the foothills, said meteorologist Jerry Steiger of the National Weather Service.

But this summer’s lingering low clouds in the mornings and evenings are caused by a low-pressure weather trough off the coast, said Steiger. Why the system is stuck there is anybody’s guess, he said, and the extended forecast through Saturday predicts more of the same.

Clouds exacerbate the noise problem, the FAA’s Avery said, by reflecting sound back to the surface. Noise from about half the passing flights is at least as loud as the music, according to Frank Supak, an audio engineer for the Bowl. Aircraft noise also interferes with the nearby John Anson Ford Amphitheatre on the other side of the Hollywood Freeway.

Every year Bowl officials make an effort to get the word out. Just before the season begins, they send posters to airports, hangars, pilot associations and the FAA; this year’s posters show a violinist and a barnstormer eye-to-eye. And strobe lights and searchlights serve as visual reminders to pilots during concert hours.

The FAA pitches in, too. Air traffic controllers issue radio advisories, and some radar screens even have a big “X” where the Bowl is located. The agency sends thousands of newsletters to pilots and control towers.

Some of those pilots perhaps aren’t aware, aren’t thinking or are unfamiliar with the basin, said Mike Nolan, a pilot-reporter for KFI-AM/KOST-FM traffic watch and vice president of the 200-member Professional Helicopter Pilots Assn. of Southern California. Pilots should be able to avoid the Bowl unless the weather is bad, he said, adding that he was frustrated at a recent Bowl concert to witness a helicopter buzz right down the middle.

Unwanted Accompaniment When skies are cloudy--and they are unusually so this month--private airplanes landing at Santa Monica Municipal Airport follow an instrument flight plan that is low and practically over Hollywood Bowl. Aircraft noise is interfering with the open-air concerts, say Bowl officials.