FAI Environmental Commission Noise Workplan

Since its formation in 1995, the FAI Environmental Commission has been working on various aspects of aircraft and airfield noise measurement.

At the 1998 FAI General Conference in Toulouse, a motion was approved as follows:

“FAI General Conference approves a plan to seek a global method of considering the effects of noise from small airfields and flying sites on the environment, based on Leq techniques, and preferably using “Chapter 10” methods of incorporating individual aircraft noise performance where appropriate.”

“The FAI Environmental Commission is encouraged to use its best efforts to influence the adoption of suitable techniques by ISO and ICAO, to link with other interested aviation parties where appropriate, and to seek reasonable and practical levels of acceptable noise which will not unduly restrict any FAI air sport activities.”

Both before and since that time, various commission members have been working to try to achieve some progress in this field. The most recent advice from professionals already engaged at European or World levels, however, is not to try to influence ICAO, ISO, or various European bodies directly at top level. Those organisations are reported to be fully engaged already in, typically, noise standards for major airports. Instead, work is proceeding at national level in various countries. It may be that one or more of these countries will then propose at the next level up (European or World, depending on which region they are in) to seek similar standardisation there.

Glossary of Terms used in this section

ICAO: International Civil Aviation Organisation

ISO: International Standards Organisation

Leq: A form of averaging noise levels over a period (e.g. Leq16 is over a 16-hour day).

[It is not proposed here to provide full definitions of the abbreviations and technical terms to be found in reading about noise measurement and certification. Noise papers and reports are often highly technical and do not always lend themselves to easy understanding by non-specialists. It is proposed only to provide with each Noise reference on the FAI Environmental Commission web site a brief explanation of those terms relevant to that particular paper.]