Design and evaluation of short-term realizable new noise abatement flight procedures

Kurzfassung

Aircraft noise in the vicinity of airports and its impact to residents represents a problem that is growing according to the increasing air traffic density. Improved and completely new designed aircraft configurations are promising approaches. But they represent only long-term solutions, whereas the application of newly designed noise abatement flight procedures (NAPs) could be able to contribute to the reduction of noise immission in a near future. The paper will describe the NAP design process and an evaluation of the results. It is based upon several studies performed in Germany during the last 6 years. Starting from existing NAPs, new procedures were designed using performance calculations, fast time simulations, full flight simulator studies and flight tests. Assessments of noise reduction as well as assessments of safety, operational feasibility, pilot workload, passenger comfort and economic aspects were carried out. The newly designed “Segmented Continuous Descent Approach” results in a reduction of the >50 dBA maximum noise level area of about 40% and was investigated in detail by full flight simulator research into pilot workload and flight tests including on ground noise measurements. Analysis of take-off procedures showed advantages and disadvantages of steep departure flight paths and full thrust use.