Noise to Live With

To airmen flying into Washington last week for the Air Force Association's jet age conference, one big problem came up even before they arrived. A belt of bad flying weather across the entire Eastern U.S. and an outmoded air traffic control system delayed hundreds of delegates and touched off complaints about the nation's aerial traffic jam.

On the need for electronic traffic controls over U.S. skyways, there was complete agreement. But no quick solution was put forward for one of the newest and knottiest problems of the jet age: noise. Both Boeing and Douglas are working on jet mufflers and hope to make their jet transports no more noisy than piston-engine transports. Boeing has already developed a sound-suppression gadget that fits on the jet tailpipe, cuts the noise level of a J57 engine to that of the newest piston engines. But as military jet engines develop more thrust. Air Force Chief General Nathan F. Twining told the conference, they will create even more supersonic thunder. Said Twining: "We ain't heard nothing yet." To tone down the noise nuisance, he said that the Air Force is trying to locate new jet bases at least 15 miles from existing communities. Nevertheless, bases, aircraft plants or municipal airports quickly attract houses, stores and filling stations, soon find themselves in the middle of a fast-growing community.

On its jet bases the Air Force has put up sound barriers to muffle the whine and roar of preflight run-ups, but airborne noise is tougher to control. Said Twining: "The big job is to get our nation to recognize jet noise as a largely unavoidable consequence of progress. It will be handled partially by our noise-suppressing measures. The end answer is acceptance. We have learned to live with the stench, noise, expense, death and destruction of the automobile. Noise is just something we are going to have to live with."

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