Norfolk, Va.
Award of Excellence
Information Graphics, Mapping, 175,000 and over

Graphic Artist: Robert D. Voros
Reporter: Jon Glass
Editor: Marc Davis
Graphics Director: Charles Apple
Deputy M.E./Presentation: Deborah Withey

In September, the Pilot published a pair of stories covering issues regarding the surburban sprawl surrounding Oceana Naval Air Station, where air wings for no fewer than five aircraft carriers are based. The city of Virginia Beach has grown significantly around the base, which leads to issues with jet noise and safety. But hey, the Navy was here first.

It's an issue covered frequently by the Pilot. But this was an in-depth look.

Part one — which with piece accompanied — covered the developers' angle and also pointed out how, thoughout the years, the Navy had constantly issued warnings about the development. Part two covered the story from the pilots' point of view. The graphic with part two showed common flight paths, why there are so many touch-and-go practice runs both day and night and why rules about flight paths around Oceana cause pilots to not practice how they'd actually fly while at sea. That graphic did NOT win, but you can find it here.

Anyway, this piece was extraordinarily complicated. Ace Pilot artist Bob Voros used official "AICUZ" noise zone maps from the Navy, detailed source maps and a detailed history of development in the area compiled by reporter Jon Glass to show the noisy areas around the base and all the developments in those areas. The beautifully-rendered map is cool enough, but what REALLY does it for me is the timeline — Never before has anyone in this area shown, in one place, 30 years of development in the noise and crash zones. Interspaced among the developents — in bolder, greyed-back text — are incidents like May 1986, when an A-6 bomber skidded across a local street, killing its crew and a woman in a car. Or October 1988, when the new base commander asked for manadatory noise-disclosure laws for real estate, but was ignored by the city council. Fascinating stuff — especially for a newcomer like myself who hears those jets flying over at 2 a.m.

Bob had hoped to overlay the info onto existing maps, but he found he couldn't match up the sources with our base maps. So he drew the entire thing from scratch. Yes, it ran in a color position.

We thought it came out rather well, but neither of us really thought of it as a contest winner. We put it into the new infographics/mapping category as a bit of a lark.

I'm delighted that SND recognized the fine attention to detail that Bob Voros brings to his work.

In addition to Bob and Jon, we credited Marc Davis — the editor of the project — and DME Deb Withey, as well as myself for some minor art direction. — Charles Apple, Graphics Director