Hearing more airplane noise? Blame it on construction at MSP.

A plane has passed over Dave Walstad’s home every three minutes since mid-April, sometimes so low the Apple Valley resident swears he can hear the landing gear clunking into place.

“It’s just like a parade,” Walstad said. “It goes from four in the morning until midnight.”

Construction at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport is amping up airplane noise for some Twin Cities metro residents, as a temporary runway closure routes more planes over certain suburbs and portions of Minneapolis.

Parts of Apple Valley and Eagan, plus south Minneapolis, are all contending with noisier skies as the south parallel runway remains closed, giving workers time to improve grading, drainage and shoulders on the 10,000-foot strip.

The first phase of construction wraps up May 23, before another phase begins Aug. 18 to Sept. 26, with the runway remaining open during peak summer travel season.

The work to ensure the runway complies with Federal Aviation Administration regulations has winnowed the airport’s available takeoff and landing areas from four to three. That’s forced air traffic controllers to direct pilots to use the remaining runways — and led to more planes cutting through suburban skies.

Patrick Wheeler said he supports the airport’s effort to improve safety. But residents in his Eagan neighborhood, he added, “have been under an onslaught.”

“It has been terrible noise pollution,” he said.

Jeff Lea, who manages communications for the Metropolitan Airports Commission, said the MAC has worked with the FAA and airlines to minimize the runway closure. Similar work occurred last summer, when the airport closed two runways for reconstruction and safety improvements.

Lea added that neighborhood representatives on MAC’s Noise Oversight Committee have worked hard to disseminate information to residents about the runway closures. The projects, he said, are “necessary but temporary.”

“As soon as those projects are done, then the FAA will resume a more typical pattern and their preferred runway usage that residents have come to experience,” Lea said.

It’s not just suburban residents who are looking up and seeing more planes in the sky.

Parts of south Minneapolis are contending with the increased overhead traffic too, said Minneapolis City Council Member Aurin Chowdhury, whose ward encompasses Minnehaha, Hiawatha, Morris Park and more neighborhoods in the city’s far southeastern reaches.

Even Chowdhury has had to adapt. At a recent community meeting in her ward, she said the group of attendees paused their conversation when the roar of a plane smothered the discussion.

The council member encouraged constituents to contact her with questions about the construction. She also noted residents can receive more detailed updates at Noise Oversight Committee meetings, which the MAC hosts on the third Wednesday of odd-numbered months. They can also file a noise complaint online.

“It’s a temporary inconvenience for long-term safety for everyone that uses the airport,” Chowdhury said.

Charles Grawe, Apple Valley’s assistant city administrator, said the construction has forced more pilots than usual to land on Runway 35, typically used for arrivals from the south. Reaching that landing strip requires directly descending over residents’ homes, he said.

The MAC has previously taken steps to mitigate airplane noise for some residents. Since the 1990s, the commission has paid for sound insulation measures for homeowners and renters in parts of southeast Minneapolis, Richfield and Eagan. (People who live in Apple Valley aren’t eligible for those improvements.)

As for muffling noise from the current parade of planes? Grawe said options are few, and residents should learn to live with the noise until construction wraps up.

Jeremy Bierlein lives in Eagan south of Runway 35, putting him in the direct line of planes flying north toward the airport.

Bierlein said he’s noticed an uptick in activity since construction began, but he’s adjusted to the “constant” sound, save the deep rumbling from an occasional cargo plane early in the morning. It’s a slight inconvenience he’s willing to put up with.

“Every time I have to get up to get to a 7 a.m. flight to get somewhere for work, I’m thankful I live only 15 minutes from the airport,” Bierlein said.

Crystal Thaxton-Dombrovski has found a silver lining in the situation.

She and her husband, an aviation buff, like to sit in their Apple Valley backyard at night, watching the planes pass overhead through a gap in the trees. He’ll point out the airline and where it’s coming from. She’ll listen and pepper him with questions.

“We made fun with it,” she said of the construction-induced air traffic. “It brought us a lot of happiness, sitting back there talking.”