Silvaire wrote:
A friend of mine is a highly skilled and qualified aviator among other substantial things, but has the appearance of being a bar brawling Irish thug with a little man complex, with a glimmer in his eye that indicates he is about to become unhinged and enjoy it. His intelligence quickly becomes obvious but he can be rather direct. That works for him when dealing with more genteel US airport problem children, particularly if they follow the pattern of such people in not being terribly bright, but it might not work for everybody, everywhere
So you use physical intimidation to stop people from complaining? That may be The American Way, but if you tried something like that in Europe, noise complaints would be the least of your problems.
Yes, you have to choose the right technique for any negotiation, not every method is universal to everybody, everywhere.
For example the FAA uses legal intimidation, as opposed to physical intimidation, mainly against local governments who align themselves with noise complainers in order to convert the land to a use which directs money their way in the form of property tax after development. The risk for the local government then becomes the cost of a legal battle now against the profit from property taxes that will in any case be a long time coming. Only in rare cases where the local government can fund that kind of cash flow problem do they take it on. Mostly they are profligate spenders and broke.
Having said that I’ve had some really funny experiences telling Continental Europeans in person to go screw themselves or else, when they’ve richly deserved it but were trying to set me up for some nuanced game that somehow soothes their repressed angst, or extracts money from me. Generally they get a shocked expression and leave, which is in fact the desired effect 
At that point the best thing can be to leave before they sneak out of sight and call the police on their cell phone to complain of being offended. An example of the above was when a petrol station employee accused me of not paying after I’d paid, trying to extort me but not knowing I could understand her native language and knew what she was doing.
