Button offers instant gratification for those plagued by airplane noise • Hacker News Board

Re: Button offers instant gratification for those plagued by airplane noise

#31

Post by freyyj » Mon, Dec 31, 2018, 1:11 AM UTC

brankest wrote: post #15

It's a neat idea, but it's not clear from the article what these complaints accomplish. Are the airport administrators held accountable in any way? Are they required to respond to the complaints? Maintain a low threshold? It seems like this could just be a placebo button.

There's a little more related information on this further down in the article:

> Even before the arrival of Airnoise, airports had been dealing with a surge in complaints linked to the Federal Aviation Administration’s effort to modernize the air traffic system, known as NextGen.

> The multibillion-dollar program is changing the way air traffic is managed, moving it from radar to satellite navigation. Proponents say it makes the air traffic system more efficient because it allows planes to fly more direct routes to their destinations.

> But the shift has angered residents, who live in neighborhoods that are below the new flight paths. Residents in Northwest Washington sued the FAA over the changes but lost in court. A suit filed by the state of Maryland is pending.

My interpretation is that at least some of these people (see the lawsuit mentioned in the last paragraph — Maryland is where the woman mentioned at the top of the article lives) may be hoping to have NextGen reverted, which would send the planes elsewhere. It seems unlikely to happen though.

Re: Button offers instant gratification for those plagued by airplane noise

#32

Post by Anechoic » Mon, Dec 31, 2018, 1:11 AM UTC

cyberferret wrote: post #23

Just wondering if these devices are only issued to people who had houses in that area before the airport was built. IMO if you knowingly purchase a residence under a flight path, you lose any privilege of complaining about the noise. Modern aviation is already far quieter, and there are plenty of regulations in place to minimise the noise footprint (e.g. modern fanjet engines are far quieter than the older turbojets,…

IMO if you knowingly purchase a residence under a flight path, you lose any privilege of complaining about the noise.

It's not just about knowingly purchasing a home under a flight path, it's also about the commitments made by airports and airlines. For example, an excessive noise event may be caused by a pilot not following a proper noise abatement procedure. And while airplanes have gotten quieter over the last 30 years, delivery companies frequently purchase older aircraft that may not be as quiet. As those freight operations scale up, they can create more noise than anticipated. Finally, the use of GPS assisted takeoff and landings can create issues - previously aircraft were more spread out in their takeoff and landing patterns, which would mean more people are exposed to (relatively) less noise. With the increased accuracy of GPS navigation, flight patterns and much narrower, so the concentration of aircraft on a flight pattern means fewer people are experiencing more noise.

Re: Button offers instant gratification for those plagued by airplane noise

#33

Post by Anechoic » Mon, Dec 31, 2018, 1:14 AM UTC

brankest wrote: post #15

It's a neat idea, but it's not clear from the article what these complaints accomplish. Are the airport administrators held accountable in any way? Are they required to respond to the complaints? Maintain a low threshold? It seems like this could just be a placebo button.

Are the airport administrators held accountable in any way?

Not necessarily the administrators, but the airlines (and sometimes individual pilots) can be held responsible and fined if the noise complaint is due to a pilot not following the proper takeoff or landing procedure.

Are they required to respond to the complaints?

The answer is generally yes, not necessarily to the complainant, but they may have to report complaint statistics to the public and FAA. The FAA takes this very seriously.

Re: Button offers instant gratification for those plagued by airplane noise

#34

Post by Puer » Mon, Dec 31, 2018, 1:14 AM UTC

Not that there's anything wrong with reporting on the same topic by multiple publications, but this article just seems like a poor copy of this WSJ article published in August:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/airplane-noise-complaints-are-s...

https://outline.com/Kp3HcG

Out of curiosity, are there journalistic guidelines about publishing duplicate articles when there are seemingly no new pertinent developments? I haven't seen anything like this before.

Re: Button offers instant gratification for those plagued by airplane noise

#35

Post by darkpuma » Mon, Dec 31, 2018, 1:14 AM UTC

p_l wrote: post #21

ilaksh wrote: post #18

In San Diego the airport is right downtown. Many people are pretty much gauranteed to be dealing with airplane noise regardless of the routes taken to land. Of course La Jolla is probably the most expensive area in San Diego. Should we route the airplanes around them? Lol. I mean you can't move the airports and most people can't move their houses so it feels like this is mostly a structural issue. And to me more dire…

Sats have wild accuracy shifts and depend heavily on the plane being fully operational. Ultimately what you end up with sats anyway is list of waypoints, not anything dynamic, and it can be done with radar as well.

Then why are airports trending towards satellite navigation? Do they not realize something that you do?

Re: Button offers instant gratification for those plagued by airplane noise

#36

Post by darkpuma » Mon, Dec 31, 2018, 1:16 AM UTC

exabrial wrote: post #26

Do you also complain about thunder and lightning to the NWS?

They should make a button to file noise complaints about city buses. This would be very useful for people living in low-level apartments located on busy city streets.

Re: Button offers instant gratification for those plagued by airplane noise

#37

Post by Anechoic » Mon, Dec 31, 2018, 1:16 AM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #25

A small part of my job (air force) is taking noise complaints. I find their rate has absolutely nothing to do with actual noise. It is all about time of day. A rainy tuesday afternoon: we can land on a roof without complaint from the owners. But on a sunny saturday evening, suddenly the same flight pattern we have flown for years without issue starts my phone ringing. Standard, honest, responses: 1) Civilian air traf…

A rainy tuesday afternoon: we can land on a roof without complaint from the owners. But on a sunny saturday evening, suddenly the same flight pattern we have flown for years without issue starts my phone ringing

This isn't surprising - sound propagation is partially dependent on atmospheric conditions.

Re: Button offers instant gratification for those plagued by airplane noise

#38

Post by neffy » Mon, Dec 31, 2018, 1:17 AM UTC

runarberg wrote: post #30

ilaksh wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are they supposed to do? They can't move the airport and if they change the routing then someone else will complain.

Sometimes you wonder if they could possible move the route a little to the side. I live on an island close to Seattle, and airplains flying from California will fly straight over the island, almost like it is on purpose. You wonder why they couldn't move the route a little to the west or a little to the east and fly over the sea instead. https://flightaware.com/live/flight/ASA1041

There are two answers to this. The obvious one is, yes of course they could. The annoying one, is that it has to be negotiated, world wide flight maps would have to be updated, flight traffic control reprogrammed, and it is just easier by far in terms of bureaucracy not to do this stuff. After all, people must have known when they chose to live there...

The flight plan into Keflavik in Iceland goes directly over Mount Hekla (the way point is Mount Hekla, which probably made more sense back in the days of visual navigation). Mount Hekla is a fairly active Volcano, and is a little overdue for its next explosion, for which there might be at most about half an hours warning time. After all, people must know the risks when they choose to fly...

Re: Button offers instant gratification for those plagued by airplane noise

#39

Post by socialist_coder » Mon, Dec 31, 2018, 1:18 AM UTC

cyberferret wrote: post #23

Just wondering if these devices are only issued to people who had houses in that area before the airport was built. IMO if you knowingly purchase a residence under a flight path, you lose any privilege of complaining about the noise. Modern aviation is already far quieter, and there are plenty of regulations in place to minimise the noise footprint (e.g. modern fanjet engines are far quieter than the older turbojets,…

If you read the article you would have learned that this became a problem in the last 10 years because the FAA rolled out a new system for managing flight paths so a lot of new homes were now experiencing aircraft noise for the first time.

Re: Button offers instant gratification for those plagued by airplane noise

#40

Post by Anechoic » Mon, Dec 31, 2018, 1:18 AM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #9

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #2

>That’s because with one click, Deckert has done what could have taken her hours to do a few months ago — she has filed a noise complaint with officials at the Maryland Aviation Administration. One thing though is that the very ease diminishes how much attention the officials actually pay. Same as when you contact your officials, a hand written letter or phone call is much more effective than an email template or a r…

In a properly functioning regulatory environment, an independent third party would establish a noise sensor monitoring network around the airport and use that data as feedback to stakeholders (officials, aircraft operators, private citizens around the airport). Failing that, you have angry citizens who push the button hard, and officials who (as you mentioned) don't care, which will probably end up with press (ie thi…

In a properly functioning regulatory environment, an independent third party would establish a noise sensor monitoring network around the airport and use that data as feedback to stakeholders (officials, aircraft operators, private citizens around the airport).

This is almost exactly what happens in the USA. Pretty much all of the major airports, and many of the intermediate airports have aircraft noise monitoring systems. See [0] for example.

[0] https://www.dfwairport.com/aircraftnoise/