December 10, 1999

MEMORANDUM

TO: LFA/Bill Willkie, Project Manager

FROM: 150 Study Group/Ron Scott, Chair

SUBJECT: Noise Abatement Measures and Screening Criteria

The attached noise abatement measures are a consolidated listing of those adopted by the 150 Study Group at its December 7 meeting, including measures suggested in your October 15 presentation, and those put forward either as refinements or additions by the various committees based on their discussions in the interim. Also attached is a list of approved screening criteria, arrived at similarly.

The Study Group has striven to compile a listing of measures that aim to:

    • reduce noise contours
    • leverage technology
    • make flight patterns more consistent, hence more predictable
    • reduce exceptions to standard procedures
    • keep information affecting airport operations accessible to the public
    • respect operational needs and regulatory imperatives

Many, and indeed most, of the measures listed arose in multiple committee reports—an encouraging sign of common understanding, though not a necessary condition for incorporation here. In accordance with the Study Group's Charter, instead, the listing includes all those measures that found consensus in the Group at large.

Screening criteria should be taken in the context of implementing these aims. Measures listed, in turn, should be understood as elements for preliminary analysis, not as endorsed recommendations. Indeed, many are mutually exclusive alternatives, whose relative merits and demerits need to be laid out as explicitly as possible to support an informed choice. The addition of a modeling criterion for screening, for example, recognizes that noise reduction, like cost analysis, necessarily involves quantitative as well as qualitative assessment.

Both measures and criteria are listed in abbreviated, ‘bulletized’ form. Should any require elaboration beyond that provided at the Study Group meeting, please contact the Study Group chair, or me, without hesitation. We look forward to your consultation in moving this process forward.

December 10, 1999

Noise Compatibility Study Group

Noise Abatement Measures, as Adopted

• Runway Use Programs

    • Alter preference for east runway

      • Limit runway preference to daytime only
      • Eliminate runway preference
      • Reverse runway preference

• Raise tailwind threshold for reversing flow to 10 knots

    • No exceptions to contraflow, unless emergency

• Flight track changes

    • Set uniform departure criteria for turning

      • Altitude
      • Distance
      • Navigation markers
      • Geographic features

    • Make west runway divergence 15°, not 20
    • Apply divergence to all NCP-directed departures on west runway

• Approach procedures

    • Route all arriving traffic into IFR approach corridor - no cancellations
    • No VFR
    • Noise-optimal STARs
    • Higher holding and maneuver altitudes
    • Steeper ILS glide slope approaches
    • Two-stage approach procedures
    • Delayed flap and gear extension approaches
    • Reverse thrust restrictions/limitations

• Departure procedures

    • Noise-optimal SIDs
    • Departure thrust cutbacks

      • Close-in abatement procedures
      • Distant abatement procedures

    • Reduced thrust departure
    • Begin all takeoffs at extreme end of runway

      • Use prospective overrun extension for takeoffs

• Advanced navigation technology

    • Ground-based: markers, beacons, lasers, other
    • Airborne: GPS/FMS (current vs milspec), microwave, other

• Airport facilities

    • "Hush houses"
    • Counter-frequency generators
    • Sound absorption media on or adjoining runways

      • artificial (e.g. walls, runway treatments)
      • natural (e.g. trees, other flora, earthen berms)

    • Displaced thresholds
    • High-speed exit taxiways
    • Facility relocation

• Airport use restrictions

    • Conformance to NCP by all aircraft
    • Prohibit aircraft not meeting Federal noise standards
    • Capacity limitations (noise or operations)
    • Partial or complete curfews
    • Noise budget
    • Operational quotas
    • Fleet mix goals
    • Limits based on event metrics: Lmax, SEL, TA, C-weighted DB, etc

• Airport regulations

    • Require NCP briefings for all ATCT personnel and pilots using SDF
    • Other flight training restrictions
    • Landing fees based on noise
    • Engine run-up restrictions

• Measures to enhance, monitor, or enforce noise abatement

    • Show effect of full conformance to current NCP, compared to base case
    • Establish airport noise office (already adopted by Study Group)
    • Establish community noise forum (already adopted by Study Group)
    • Maintain and expand Web site, public information centers

      • Summary and complete NCP
      • ATCT/pilot briefing
      • Real-time information on runway conditions and use
      • Scheduled activities affecting runway use (maintenance, training, etc)
      • Current monitoring data

    • Noise monitoring

      • Continuous (fixed)
      • Responsive to demand (mobile)

    • Flight track monitoring: retain, process ARTS data
    • Ongoing noise modeling

December 10, 1999

Noise Compatibility Study Group
Noise Abatement Screening Criteria, as Adopted

• Goals & objectives

    • Study goals
    • Study Group issues

• Reduces noise exposure

    • Minimize incompatibilities
    • Assess using noise model

• FAR Part 161

    • Impact on interstate commerce
    • Not discriminatory

• Consistent with FAA objectives

    • Aviation safety
    • Airspace management

• Feasible

    • Cost analysis
    • Monitorability


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