Airport noise report released

caf said :

Addison: All of NSW? No, just those residents of Jerrabomberra with an overdeveloped entitlement complex.

They have the whole NSW govt standing behind them. Think of them kinda like a union!

To any Hackett residents, do you hear planes now without deliberately listening for them?

I’m not suggesting the problem is not going to get worse, but I live inside the 4.5km zone used for measurements and can barely think of a time where I have noticed any aircraft noise from commercial carriers.

The odd War Memorial related activity, yes, but nothing to worry about otherwise.

sepi said :

pps – all I can find right now is a reference to 15 flights between 11pm and 6am. The flights every 3 minutes must be increased daytime flights.

In any case – the main issue is the need for a curfew preventing any flights between 11pm and 6am – such as the residents of Sydney have to protect their sleep. Surely we deserve the same protection.

I should point out that the curfew for Sydney is only in the 16 & 34 runways not the 06 which is open 24 hours for cargo planes only. The 07 & 25 runways pretty much point directly to the sea which is why residents do not hear the noise at night.

Sure, we do need protection from excessive noise but the airport needs to make money and be viable also, this must include the running of planes at night time. Since we do not have an ocean to make unconsequential noise over, the government really needs to have a rethink about Tralee.

Of course this does not bode well with NSW’s plan to surround us with townships…

The point is they are having problems with it in Sydney and now they want to bring it here. No. Just no.

I’d like to see the noise barriers that could block the noise of a plane flying directly over the house………

I like this report and reading it they seem to be well aware of the controversy that it was going to create yet they published it anyway.

The detail of how the noise measurement is done is in appendix A where they state that they capture high noise levels as noise events and then attempt to match it to aircraft departures to differentiate valid aircraft noise from noisy kids. You could also estimate the probability of a matching event also being a kid event based on the number of kid events. Doing this analysis they came up with one 70dB aircraft noise problem every two days.

You can see this visually in the daily plot on page 39. The peak of the noise events is periodic and roughly corresponds with the weekend. For example the biggest peak is the 22nd of February, a Sunday. The biggest peaks to the left and right are the 15th (Sunday) and 1st of March (Sunday).

I’m sure there are some noise issues in Hackett and having cargo 747s flying at 3am may be a problem but it looks like Airservices is well aware of what is going on and the potential affects of more flights. Once they have a solid grasp on the noise problem there would also be mitigation measures they could introduce such as noise barriers or redirecting more flights in different directions, like over Queanbeyan 😉

There’s some bizarre looking departure tracks in the diagrams. Does it include the RAAF planes as well. Similarly, an interesting discussion on the need for a curfew in Adelaide.

http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,1,25871880-5006301,00.html

Judging by the report, Hackett residents have little to whinge about as all the readings are below the acceptable thresholds, with an average of 1 event over 70DB per day. Even then, Airservices include a warning that the general background noise is quite loud and is likely influencing the readings.

Hackett is about 1/30 of the number of events in Jerrabomberra, an excellent reason as to why residential areas shouldn’t be built under a flight path.

OK, there is a reference to flights every 3 minutes, even overnight in the stateline piece, near the end of the transcript. I knew i had read it only yesterday.

The quote is by Tim Overall, QBN mayor, commenting on the airport’s draft masterplan for the future:

TIM OVERALL: This master plan for the airport projects flight movements for 25 years. And it’s quite often said by members of the community that their forecasts are wildly exaggerated. They’re projecting on a mid case scenario there will be a flight every three minutes 30 seconds, 24 hours a day, 365 day s a year. Now, that takes into account the proposed establishment of a freight hub, that’s a major concern, and this council’s on record as supporting a curfew, a night curfew for flight movements from 11 PM to 6 AM, 365 days a year.

I qualified as an aircraft mechanic a long time ago and I love most things aircraft. I live directly under the Careflight helicopter flight path, and with my two year old grandson love to go out and watch the “copter, poppy” when it flies over. I have no problem with it’s occassional intrusion into our sleep when it is called to assist someone. We also love to watch the occasional military air manouverings that occur, and the odd flight that is close enough to give us a good roar as it goes past is all part of the fun.
I would not be at all pleased , however, if I was subjected to routine and regular excessive noise levels being IMPOSED upon me in an area I had chosen to live in good faith based on the prevailing conditions at time of purchase. Even less so if the purpose of this imposition was to enable residents in another state to sleep better at night.
I’m with you Sepi, time for a curfew.