Aircraft noise - a threat to aviation

Almost five years ago, the Sixteenth Session of the ICAO Assembly adopted a resolution on aircraft noise in the vicinity of airports. The resolution was followed by a special international meeting on noise in Montreal in 1969 which called for recommendations for the development of noise requirements for existing subsonic jet aircraft “as a matter of the utmost urgency.” Despite increasing public, local and congressional demands for noise relief and the demonstrated technical feasibility of modifying current aircraft to afford significant noise reductions, nothing of a tangible nature, other than research, has been accomplished to date. While curfews and restrictive legislation limiting the growth of aviation have abounded, U.S. governmental agencies have failed to carry out the mandate given them by Public Law 90-411 in 1968 which directed the FAA to “... prescribe and amend such rules and regulations ... to provide for the control and abatement of aircraft noise ...”, as far as the existing fleet of aircraft is concerned.