Free Response to Cross Motion [Dispositive] - District Court of Federal Claims - federal

Case 1:01-cv-00201-VJW

Document 173-70

Filed 05/26/2006

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00001 1 IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF FEDERAL CLAIMS 2 CAROL AND ROBERT TESTWUIDE, et al., : 3 Plaintiffs, : 4 vs. : NO.: 01 201L 5 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, : 6 Defendant. : 7 8 DEPOSITION UPON ORAL EXAMINATION OF 9 DIRK P. HEBERT 10 July 18, 2002 - 9 a.m. 11 Virginia Beach, Virginia 12 APPEARANCES: QUINN, GORDON & WOLF 13 By: MARTIN E. WOLF, Esquire KIERON F. QUINN, Esquire 14 Counsel for the Plaintiffs 15 JACK E. FERREBEE, Esquire Counsel for the Plaintiffs 16 SENIOR COUNSEL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE 17 ENVIRONMENTAL & NATURAL RESOURCE DIVISION By: DAVID SHUEY, Esquire 18 Counsel for the USA 19 NAVY LITIGATION OFFICE By: ROBERT J. SMITH, Esquire 20 ROBERT C. MANLEY, Esquire Counsel for the USA 21 JUDE KLENA, CDR, JAGC, USNR 22 Assistant Fleet Environmental Counsel 23 REBEKAH TURNER Acting Command Judge Advocate, NAS Oceana 24 25 REPORTED BY: Cathy D. Aiello, RPR

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00074 1 A. Not the logs. I've reviewed some of the 2 complaints. 3 Q. Okay. Do you know if complaints are made 4 by properties that are not under the blue areas on 5 Exhibit 22 that aircraft are flying over? 6 A. You know, I rarely, when I review 7 complaints, look at the actual location. 8 Q. Okay. Paragraph 8, For Navy pilots, the 9 flight characteristics (power settings, aircraft 10 configuration) and geometric parameters of touch and go 11 landings and FCLP landings are identical. 12 A. Right. 13 Q. For the same type of aircraft, right? 14 A. Right, yes. 15 Q. Okay. 16 A. Yes. 17 Q. Now, you say in paragraph 8 that the only 18 difference between a touch and go and a FCLP is that an 19 FCLP is graded? 20 A. That's right. 21 Q. That's by the line signal officer? 22 A. Landing signal officer, LSO. 23 Q. Now, we talked a few minutes ago about 24 more than one aircraft in the pattern. Are there 25 multiple aircraft in the pattern on a touch and go as

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00075 1 well as the FCLP? 2 A. There can be. FCLPs are scheduled events. 3 Normally a squadron likes to get its full complement of 4 airplanes into a pattern. Touch and go's are not -5 often, single airplanes return to Oceana for touch and 6 go's. It can join another airplane that's already there 7 for touch and go's. I couldn't tell you how often that 8 occurs, but it's not uncommon to have more than one 9 airplane and it's also not uncommon to have a single 10 airplane in a pattern. 11 Q. Would you say it's more common than not 12 that FCLPs will be multiple aircraft? 13 A. I can't state that with any certainty. I 14 have witnessed personally a number of FCLP operations 15 with a single aircraft, so. I couldn't give you the 16 distinction whether it's more common or less common. 17 It's one or two or three. That's what I mean by that. 18 You're asking is there a majority of the time, right, 19 when there's more than one airplane. I can't -- since I 20 don't record that data, I couldn't tell you. 21 Q. Right. Well, FCLPs are scheduled? 22 A. Right. 23 Q. Would you expect that it's more than one 24 plane most of the time? 25 A. I would expect that a squadron will

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00076 1 schedule more than one airplane at a time, but I'll 2 leave it at that. 3 Q. In this section, which you have a subtitle 4 called Field Carrier Landing Practice and Touch and 5 Go's, it's paragraphs 8 through 12. 6 A. Okay. 7 Q. You talk -- in general, in each of the 8 paragraphs, you talk about the consistency of the FCLP 9 and touch and go geometry over a long period of time -10 A. Right. 11 Q. -- being the same, hasn't changed. I just 12 want to make sure that I'm clear. 13 A. Okay. 14 Q. That's specifically referring to flight 15 tracks, not to things like power settings and 16 configuration of the aircraft? 17 A. As my -- well, let me read this real 18 quick. Is there one paragraph you're in particular 19 looking at? 20 Q. I thought there was, but looking through 21 the paragraphs, in a number of places, it seems to be -22 like in paragraph 9, for instance, it says proper 23 geometry. 24 A. Yes, that is referring specifically to 25 those because power settings -- that's a hard target

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00077 1 there. Yes, that was referring to the actual tracks 2 across the ground. 3 Q. Okay. And, you know, like in 12 you say 4 the flight patterns. Again, I'm assuming you're talking 5 again about the tracks, what you called the geometry? 6 A. Right. 7 Q. Okay. Paragraph 13, you talk about the 8 Testwuide's property in relation to the runways at 9 Oceana. 10 A. Right. 11 Q. And you say, "Because of its location, 12 this property is not subjected to overflights during 13 FCLP and touch and go landings." 14 How did you determine that? 15 A. I tracked -- I took a copy of their 16 address, applied it to this chart - and I have actually 17 brought a copy of that with me - and looked as it 18 applies to our standard flight tracks and its location. 19 Q. So if I understand you, you put the 20 address on this map, and if it wasn't in blue, they 21 weren't subject to overflights? 22 A. That's essentially true. I actually 23 measured the distances for our corridors as well again 24 to make sure that -- because, again, this is just a 25 reference, and the blues to me tell me that that's where

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