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The team trying to design a silent passenger aircraft will release their latest research results to MPs, Peers, academics and aerospace business leaders at an Associate Engineering Parliamentary Group (APEG) event in the Houses of Parliament today.
The team trying to design a silent passenger aircraft will release their latest research results at the Houses of Parliament today. MPs, Peers, academics and aerospace business leaders attending the Associate Engineering Parliamentary Group (APEG) event will be presented with new research conducted by the Silent Aircraft Initiative that could dramatically improve the quality of life for the millions of people who live under flight paths or near the UK’s busy airports.
Professor John-Paul Clarke, Associate Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), will share new research findings from test flights conducted in the United States. The research shows that noise from existing aircraft designs can be substantially reduced by making alterations to descent trajectories and air traffic procedures. Professor Clarke said:
"These results could put the UK at the forefront of operational procedures, reducing landing noise from existing aircrafts by up to 6 decibels."
The research is being used to develop state of the art noise abatement arrival procedures for three UK airports: Gatwick, Luton, and Nottingham East Midlands.
The Silent Aircraft Initiative has a bold aim: to discover ways to reduce aircraft noise so that it would be virtually unnoticeable to people outside the airport perimeter. Aircraft capable of controlled, quiet descent would greatly improve the quality of life near airports, allowing for increased expansion of the air traffic infrastructure and boosting the UK economy. The Silent Aircraft Initiative, funded by the Cambridge-MIT Institute, has been working toward this goal by researching airframe configurations and techniques for controlling airflow, drag and descent. In addition to designing a revolutionary silent aircraft of the future, the Silent Aircraft Initiative has also identified changes in current air traffic procedure that could reduce the noise being made by the aircraft of today.