ASA 129th Meeting - Washington, DC - 1995 May 30 .. Jun 06

2pNS6. Wide area modeling of en route aircraft noise.

Nicolaas Reddingius

BBN Syst. and Technol., 21120 Van Owen St., Canoga Park, CA 91304

Michael Ebersole

National Park Service

Most aircraft noise modeling methods have been so carefully focused on airport-based policies and analyses that they are awkward to use for other purposes. For example, standard noise modeling software is of limited utility for characterizing en route noise exposure or assessing the potential impacts on nonurban populations. The National Park Service has developed alternative methods for modeling aircraft noise and its impacts in outdoor recreational settings. Software created to support Public Law 100-91 analyses permits users to perform observer-based (rather than source-based) aircraft noise analyses; to consider the masking provided by localized sources when modeling noise impacts over areas of tens of thousands of square kilometers; to take terrain relief into consideration; and to present results in the form of map layers for a geographic information system.