The Bedford Minuteman
January 16, 2002

Hanscom Field getting noisier

By Barbara Forster, Correspondent

The Massachusetts Port Authority’s annual noise report for Hanscom Field for the year 2000 has a not-so-surprising conclusion: the airport was busier and noisier in 2000 than it was in 1999.

In 2000, Hanscom had a total of 212,371 operations, bypassing the 200,000 mark for the first time in seven years. In 1992 the total number of operations was 203,755.

In between those years, aircraft operations hit a low of 179,497 in 1996. In fact, that was the all-time low since 1978.

As for noise, not only did noise exposure levels increase at the air field in 2000, but it is one of five study years that experienced civilian departure aircraft noise levels greater than the base year 1987; previously 1978 was used. In addition, 2000 is the noisiest of the five years while 1993 had the lowest noise levels.

Civilian planes account for 89 percent of the noise and military aircraft are responsible for the remaining 11 percent.

The change in aircraft activity between 1999 and 2000 is a 7.5 percent increase primarily attributable to increases in jet and turboprop aircraft activity.

Increases also occurred in all civilian aircraft categories except twin engine piston planes. Military flights, which are less than one percent of total activity, dropped 17.8 percent in 2000 as compared to 1999.

The increase in turboprops reflects commercial airline Shuttle America’s reintroduction of commuter service in late 1999.

The number of daily departures among jets and turboprops averaged 63.74, the highest in all the study years. This is an increase of 31.2 percent from 1999.

The increase included more business jet activity, the eighth consecutive year that activity in this aircraft category went up. According to the report, " this is particularly relevant since business jets contributed over 92 percent of the civilian noise exposure, although they represented only 9.5 percent of the aircraft activity. "

Business jet activity has been up and down in the past two decades. Annual increases happened between 1981 and 1988 followed by four years of decreases. Since the late 1990s, however, activity has moved steadily up.

Nighttime use, between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m., also went up from 1,622 operations to 1,918. Jets accounted for 49.2 percent and helicopters 22.3 percent of the operations.

The change in noise exposure levels between 2000 and the base year 1987 is an increase of 1.3 decibels. So far, increases have not exceeded an increase of 1.5 decibels above the base year of 1978 which, according to the report, is a benchmark for Massport.

The report states that " in the mid-1980s, HFAC (Hanscom Field Advisory
Commission) and Massport discussed the significance of changes in EXP, (a metric that estimates cumulative noise exposure) and agreed that an increase of 1.5 [decibels] above the 1978 base year noise level would indicate the need for further study. "

In an effort to make the report more user friendly, Massport included a section that explains and defines aircraft noise terminology such as the decibel.

In 2000, noise abatement policies were expanded to incorporate recommendations make by the Noise Work Group, a committee that includes aviation and residential community members.

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