7.2 The Airport and the Environment

     I believe the single greatest challenge concerning airport managers is in fact noise from standard operation and its effects on the population. As understood by Visser and Wijnen (2008), there is a common understanding of the tolerance to noise being greater during the day than at night. Keeping that in mind at my particular air base is fortunate enough to be, isolated, host of a massive range, and generally understanding enough about the noise produced during aircraft operation. That is to say, we're not immune or tolerant, just a little more understanding than someone who's house is within range of a newly built airport. However, very recently we had some foreign aircraft stay with us and contrary to our practice, they were not familiar with the amount of noise to be produced and the time of day, and ran up completely around midnight. Needless to say many people were unhappy with their decision, but it was all addressed after the fact.

    The FAA in their infinite wisdom, has identified that the noise might become a problem in areas not as fortunate as my base, and began a program for qualifying communities to provide financial assistance in soundproofing or the construction of noise barriers. Personally I think this is great, since there happens to be a direct relationship between how close to an airport you are and how low your land value sinks. I think a way to improve this is to remove the question out of it, so to speak and take the initiative in approaching the communities and airports for soundproofing and sound reducing measures, because the greatest downfall of a great program is lack of awareness, especially when you consider the probability of limited resources from someone forced to live near a low land value plot near the airport. I think this approach is more realistic than designing less noise producing but just as capable engines, or strictly limiting training opportunity for aircraft.  

References

AvgeekJoe. (2017, November 20). Rhino afterburner and jet wash into the oregon sunset. Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/avgeekjoe/37646959695.

LLC, S.-S. (n.d.). Airplane noise is a growing problem affecting millions. Sonic. https://www.sonic-shield.com/airplane-noise/.

Visser, & Wijnen. (2008, October 1). Management of the Environmental Impact at Airport Operations. Proquest. https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/lib/erau/reader.action?docID=3019371&query=.