For nine days, pilots at Naval Air Station Patuxent River will practice landing on an aircraft carrier without leaving St. Mary’s County.
The base has scheduled noise-generating Field Carrier Landing Practice flights from Oct. 5 to 13, between 8 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. The Navy says residents of the communities around the station “may notice increased noise levels” while the training is under way. Today is the second day of the advisory.
What the pilots are doing
Field Carrier Landing Practice, known as FCLP, is a series of touch-and-go landings flown on land to simulate a ship’s deck. Pilots hit airspeed, altitude and power targets precisely enough to approach within the narrow window needed to land safely on a carrier. The Navy calls the training “essential for the precision and safety of our aviators and the success of their mission.”
The skills fade quickly. A Navy FCLP fact sheet from Naval Air Station Whidbey Island says a pilot’s carrier qualification lapses after more than two weeks without a carrier landing, and night qualification lapses after more than one week. Planes fly a left-hand racetrack pattern that stretches 1.25 to 1.5 nautical miles to the side of the runway, with up to five aircraft in the pattern at once. The fact sheet describes Whidbey Island’s program, not Pax River’s, but it shows how the training works in general.
Daytime hours, but not all of them in daylight
The hours matter for neighbors. The advisory’s 8 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. window is the same one the Navy used for its September FCLP notice, according to a local summary of that advisory. It is not an overnight schedule. But sunset comes before 6:30 p.m. this time of year, so the final hour or so of each day’s window falls after dark.
The notice does not say where the flights will take place. Recent advisories have named both the main air station and Webster Outlying Field, the base’s satellite field in St. Inigoes. The Navy builds outlying fields in part for landing practice and to reduce noise over the main base, according to the Navy’s Webster Field listing. Whether this week’s flights use one field or both is something to ask the base.
A fall of back-to-back notices
This is not an isolated advisory. The Chronicle reported in August that the base had issued FCLP notices throughout 2026, including multi-day windows in February, March, June and July, and then a 17-day window for Sept. 14–30. Add this Oct. 5–13 window and the Navy has posted FCLP advisories covering 26 of the 30 days between Sept. 14 and Oct. 13. A separate FCLP notice was also posted for Oct. 2. An advisory window is the maximum period when flights may occur, not a promise of flying every hour.
Who to call
Residents who want to report noise can call the Navy’s toll-free hotline at 1-866-819-9028, weekdays from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., or email paxnoise@us.navy.mil. According to the base’s citizen-concerns page, the noise team investigates every phone and written inquiry about a noise event within one business day and contacts the person who reported it. The Public Affairs Office can be reached at 301-757-6748 or 301-757-3343. All current advisories are posted on the Navy’s Pax River noise page.
