It’s great when a T-6 and four Yaks do a run and break over our urban airport on a Sunday afternoon. I love it, most of the neighbors love it, and I’m happy I don’t have to pay anybody to see and hear it 
They don’t have noise certificates and don’t pay landing charges – that’s the way I like it myself, but cultures differ.
Airport noise complainers are of course virtually everywhere but the wider recognition of sound as the driving force behind many things, not just airports, is very much a German thing by my observation. Germans just have more interest in silence than most other cultures, who knows why.
I think Tupolevs have been disappearing mostly because of their poor reliability, and the former USSR’s airlines would have been banned from flying to Europe (like so many African and other 3rd World airlines have been).
Key word – hush kits. None available for Tu-134 / 154 series. Back when i was still wasting my weekends dispatching airplanes a great many Tupolevs most of them ragtag charter operators landed in Geneva and there was no word about a ban due to other issues than noise. There are still a few flying around Russia and the ex republics. I don’t remember it as being unreliable – if anything malfunctioned it was usually subject to percussive maintenance or just ignored. Even Silvaire would have been proud of the field mods they carried.
Silence, I think, is actually a beautiful thing. Like complete darkness – that cannot be found easily either anymore. I don’t think there’s a god given right to produce noise – although the SR22 has no german noise certificate, and will never get one. Compromises have to be made, from all sides, I guess.
although the SR22 has no german noise certificate, and will never get one.
Which is not true. Any certified aircraft is eligible to receive a noise certificate.
If you are referring to the “Erhöhter Lärmschutz” criteria, then that is a totally different matter.
Yes, i was unprecise.
Its just another reason to charge more money. Pure and simple.
Personally I cant stand sirens blaring day and night, night and day. Its enough to make one go nuts.
They have the same volume at night as they have during the busiest day. Its not just once a day but multiple times. When is it all going to stop!!
I liked things better before Caesar put his foot across the Rhine. But then again that was before bier was invented so I might have to rethink that.
I’ve seen that many (all?) German airports have different landing charges depending on noise level.
What is required (both in terms of noise level and paperwork) to get the lower charges?
My aircraft has an ICAO noise certificate stating 78,2 dBA on takeoff measured according to Annex 16, Volume I, Chapter 10.
In Germany you have three groups of aircraft.
1) Aircraft which do not meet ICAO sound levels. Probably some warbirds etc. fit here. The landing fee will be expensive.
2) Aircraft which meet ICAO noise standards. Those are most of the aircraft and they get the “normal” price.
3) Aircraft with “erhöter Lärmschutz” which undercut the ICAO chapter 10 max allowed value by 7dB or chapter 6 max value by 6dB. Those usually get the special price.
In EDNY I just paid 21,00 Euro landing fee for our 1950 kg aircraft which meets those criteria.
The reference noise values depend on weight and can be seen here:
http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/l_rmschutzv/anlage_2.html
So for chapter 10 at or below 500 kg MTOW you are allowed 68dB. Between 500kg and 1500kg it is a linear increase to 85dB. Above 1500kg it stays at 85dB. If you want the special “erhöter Lärmschutz” status you have to undercut these values by 7dB.
What has to said though is that all airfields/airports are a bit different in this regard. If you look at the details of the airfields’ Gebührenordnungen (tariffs and charges documents), these often have subtle differences. I studied this a bit a while ago. Some have only two tiers, some have up to four tiers, etc. Also, the tiers are often defined inconsistently, with the noise delta values arbirtrarily chosen. On top of that, they often refer to different max noise levels when calculating the delta.
Last but not least, the airport personell itself does often not really understand all this mess, which is good because they often put you into a better category than you really are.
BTW, one of the most important reasons for the noise dependent landing charges is that it is a very good measure to appease the locals. Noise is a permanent issue and a threat to every airfield. Being able to say that the airport punishes loud aircraft is a strong argument. Every airport/airfield has to demonstrate that it is doing something to deal with the noise problem.
PS: Maybe it really is a mentality thing. I worked in San Jose a few miles from the airport. Every time one of those DC10 freight planes took off, my office was shaking and all conversation in the office stopped for 20 seconds. The first week I thought it was cool. The second week I started to hate it and moved to our Menlo Park office…
