The noisy annual Memorial Day weekend tradition will kick off on Friday, when motorcyclists from around the country will start flocking to the D.C. area to boost awareness of American prisoners of war and service members who went missing in action.
The Rolling Thunder headquarters hotel is the Hyatt Regency Crystal City, so South Arlington residents who live near Route 1, Route 110 and I-395 should expect to hear a lot of revving engines over the weekend.
Reagan National’s Runway 1/19 will be closed for milling and resurfacing each night, weather-permitting, from 11:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. The project — the first such work on the 6,869-foot runway since 1990 — is expected to wrap up before the end of the year.
There are no scheduled departures at DCA after 10:00 p.m., but there are about a dozen regularly-scheduled nighttime arrivals that will need to land on another runway after 11:00 each night, according to airport officials. The runway that’s most likely to be used is Runway 15/33, which points northwest/southeast. Depending on prevailing winds and weather, arriving flights will either be directed to approach from the northwest — thus flying over Rosslyn and the Pentagon — or from the southeast, over Southeast D.C. and the Potomac.
The Army’s Presidential Salute Battery will be conducting more firing drills from 7:00 to 8:00 a.m. on Tuesday, according to a spokeswoman.
“This elite element of The Old Guard has the duty of firing final salutes during memorial ceremonies for service members and veterans laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery,” the military said in a statement. “The Presidential Salute Battery maintains the highest level of ceremonial proficiency through recurrent training and will continue to perform to the utmost standards and traditions of the United States Army and our nation.”
NORAD will conduct exercise Falcon Virgo 11-08 from 11:30 tonight to 5:00 tomorrow morning. The exercise will “hone NORAD’s intercept and identification operations as well as operationally test the NCR Visual Warning System.” Among the aircraft expected to participate are Air Force F-16s and a U.S. Coast Guard HH-65 Dolphin helicopter.
When NORAD conducted a similar exercise last month, some Arlington residents complained about being woken up in the middle of the night by loud jet noises.
Two of the battery’s training exercises, held earlier this month, were heard loud and clear in parts of South Arlington and the District. Residents can likely expect to hear more loud booming sounds from the battery’s cannons from 6:30 to 8:00 a.m.
After hearing complaints from startled residents, the military has been more proactive getting the word out about Monday’s training exercise. Here’s the announcement from the Joint Base Myer – Henderson Hall public affairs office:
Yesterday, our District-based reverse chronological publishing counterpart DCist went on a very familiar-sounding quest to find the source of loud, early morning booming noises that roused the fair residents of D.C. from their slumber. Of course, they immediately started blaming Arlington.
First they called an Arlington County spokesperson to ask if the noise came from blasting at the Rosslyn Metro station.
The 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment — also known as the Old Guard — was practicing firing canons.
“The Presidential Salute Battery was conducting synchronized firing training within Arlington National Cemetery from approximately 0700-0800,” said Staff Sgt. Matthew Coffee, from the Old Guard public affairs office. “The reason the training is conducted at that time is to not interfere with any funerals being conducted at open cemetery hours.”
Although NORAD regularly conducts exercises in the D.C. region, for some reason this one seemed louder than others. On Twitter, we heard from Bethesda, McLean and Arlington residents who all heard the jets and wondered what was going on.
The exercise was actually scheduled for the night before, according to a press release, but was delayed a day due to inclement weather.
Hynes, the current vice-chair of the Arlington County Board, serves on the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission, recently joined the Metro Board of Directors, and is the Aviation Policy Liaison to the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments. On any given day, Hynes might be dealing with transportation issues below ground, above ground and in the sky.
On Wednesday, from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m., the multi-talented Hynes will host a community forum about helicopter noise. It’s a follow-up to meetings Hynes hosted in September and November, during which a number of residents voiced concerns about the noise generated by low-flying government helicopters.
McDonnell Gives State of the Commonwealth Address — Speaking to a joint session of the Virginia General Assembly last night, Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) urged state lawmakers to put aside their partisan differences to help solves the state’s challenges, particularly roads and transportation. He also spoke of job creation and the rapid rise of college tuition. The speech was so polished that one state delegate from our area tweeted that he thinks McDonnell “is running for president.” Despite the overall bipartisan tone, McDonnell took the time to lavish praise on Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s pending lawsuit against the Democrat-backed federal health care reform bill. [Richmond Times-Dispatch, Washington Post]
Arlington Cop Helps Nab Jersey Bank Robbery Suspect — While driving on westbound I-66 early Tuesday morning, an alert Arlington police officer got a hit on a vehicle belonging to a suspected bank robber out of New Jersey. The officer stayed with the car as it exited the county. Backup — in the form of Fairfax County and Virginia State Police — eventually caught up and helped arrest the suspect after he pulled off the highway in Fairfax. [Bergen Record]
It will now be a lot harder to hear “Reveille” and “Tattoo” being played outside of Ft. Myer.
For the past two or three weeks, bugle music from the base could be heard clearly from more than a mile away, thanks to a new public address system. According to the following press release from the base’s public affairs office, the PA system has been fixed.
If you’ve been waking up in the morning to the sound of bugler playing Reveille, don’t worry, you’re not the only one.
We received the following tips this morning:
