The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has officially announced the selection of the HMMH Team to prepare “Guidebook for Energy Projects Compatibility with Airports and Airspace.”   The objective of this research is to produce a guidebook supported by empirical evidence that provides best practices for aviation safety associated with planning, developing and constructing energy production and transmission technologies at and around airports.

The project is funded under the NAS Transportation Research Board’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) and sponsored by the Federal Aviation Administration.  The ACRP is an industry-driven, applied research program that develops near-term, practical solutions to problems faced by airport operators.  HMMH has undertaken several other ACRP research projects associated with aviation noise issues.

The Guidebook will review information on energy and airports including issues associated with solar photovoltaic (PV) and concentrating solar power, wind energy, power plant stacks and cooling towers, electric transmission lines, and oil and gas drilling.  Potential impacts include physical obstruction, glint and glare, radar interference, and thermal plumes.  The Guidebook will rely on existing experience like solar PV projects at Manchester, Indianapolis, and Fresno, and oil/gas drilling operations at Elmira-Corning, Dallas-Fort Worth, and Denver.

HMMH will be working with experts in the energy field.  The Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories will evaluate solar glint and glare.  Bryan Miller, former Department of Defense Liaison to the White House, will review wind energy and radar issues.  Professor Yu Zhang from the University of South Florida will contribute knowledge about existing and future air traffic operations.  And Mary Vigilante of Synergy will provide oversight on airport operational issues.  The Guidebook will be delivered to the ACRP in the fall of 2013.  I look forward to managing this project and advancing the state of practice for enhanced energy project siting.

First, I must admit that it was the photo that caught my eye – we don’t have cable at home, and it’s killing me that I’m missing Mad Men Season 5.

What cocktail parties teach us

Today’s Wall Street Journal has an article on “the cocktail party effect” which talks about the role of background noise on our ability to focus, especially in settings such as cocktail parties.  Apparently when we focus on a single conversation, our auditory cortex boosts the signal of that conversation to prioritize what’s most important.  Pretty cool.

The focus of the article really, though, is about attention, and how the findings of the cocktail study demonstrate why people aren’t very good at multitasking:  namely, our brains are wired for “selective attention” and can focus on only one thing at a time.   This has important implications for distracted driving, walking, and other forms of multitasking.   And yet, our kids seem to be pretty good at it.

BTW, a related condition is “selective hearing” – that’s when you ask your mate to take out the trash (or any other “yes, dear” chore) and it doesn’t happen.  Hint:  ask for a “read-back” (works especially well with pilots).

Vegas, Baby.  Just returned from four days in Vegas, attending the ACI-NA Environmental Affairs Conference and the TRB Environmental Impacts of Aviation (AV030) Mid-year meeting. 

This year the Environmental Affairs Conference teamed with the Operations and Technical Affairs Conference.  There were several joint sessions, most notably on Integrating RNAV/RNP into the airport setting.  Other hot topics included:

• Further discussion of FAA’s impending Program Guidance Letter on Residential Sound Insulation.  Latest word is that ACI-NA and other industry groups will have an opportunity to review the draft shortly.  Stand by.
• Air toxics and other ongoing air quality studies in the Los Angeles area.
• Strategies for noise stringency at upcoming CAEP meeting.
• PBN implementation and integration with airports:  “NextGen begins and ends at airports”.

Our TRB meeting covered a lot of ground in a few hours, including:

• Introduction of new subcommittee chairs:  Judith Patterson of Concordia University is the new Climate Subcommittee Chair, and Kristin Lemaster of CDM Smith is the new Sustainability Subcommittee Chair.  Many thanks to John Putnam of Kaplan Kirsch & Rockwell and Burr Stewart of Burrst, the outgoing chairs of those committees, respectively.
• Discussion of possible session topics for the 2013 TRB Annual Meeting, including:  new standards for CO2 measurements (ICAO);         NextGen Environmental Impacts: operational perspective ; Alternative Fuels Update; FAA CLEEN Program update;  Implications of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV’s) on environment/planning;  Equity and Access to commercial travel; and Aviation Carbon Credits.  Stay tuned for the actual agenda!
• Presentations by Doug Bennett of the Southern Nevada Water Authority Chris Magee of the MGM Resorts International about efforts in Las Vegas to conserve water and be generally more sustainable.

I had been dreading holding two environmental meetings in Las Vegas, which I have long considered one of the least sustainable places on earth.  However, after listening to these two guys talk about water conservation initiatives in Las Vegas – not just including the Strip, but especially the Strip – I was quite impressed.  Following the meeting, several of us had dinner in the Aria Hotel, which has achieved USGBC LEED Gold Certification.   More on the City Center’s Environmental Commitment – including an on-site cogeneration plant, specially designed low flow shower heads, and CNG limos here.  My only wish is that it would be more visible to the tourist with an environmental conscience.  This is one of those cases where what happens in Vegas shouldn’t stay in Vegas.

Keeping with its commitment to sustainability, CityCenter has commissioned the first stretch-limo fleet powered by compressed natural gas (CNG).

Apologies for the somewhat belated post, but here’s a quick recap of the recent UC Davis Noise and Air Quality Symposium: Navigating NextGen, held March 4-6 in Palm Springs, CA.

The focus of much of the discussion at this year’s symposium was implementation of the FAA’s NextGen Program, the early phases of which are now being rolled out across the country.  This blog has discussed NextGen issues before, but I think this was the first conference I’ve attended that attendees were uniformly focused on finding ways to make implementation a success.

The symposium keynote was delivered by Dennis Roberts of the FAA’s ATO. Dennis is responsible for managing FAA’s Optimization of Airspace and Procedures in the Metroplex (OAPM) “metroplex” projects, a systematic, integrated, and accelerated program to implement satellite based navigation in the aviation system.   HMMH is involved in several of the metroplex projects, including the Houston Metroplex, which is on the President’s Federal Infrastructure Dashboard, which was initiated to monitor the pace of DOT efforts to accelerate major infrastructure projects by improving permitting and environmental review processes, and to improve the accountability, transparency, and efficiency of Federal actions. 

Other sessions focused on providing an overview of NextGen technologies and Performance Based Navigation (PBN) terminology, as well as airport experiences implementing and collaborating with FAA on the implementation of procedures at their airports.  The takeaway message from the entire symposium is that there is an urgent need for airports to get involved with NextGen airspace planning – airports understand local issues and provide a critical link between communities and the FAA.  Many airports have also spent years developing noise abatement programs and must be at the table to ensure that airspace planners understand both the spirit and substance of noise abatement.  As active participants in several of these projects, we at HMMH believe that this collaborative approach will be critical to early success of NextGen.

Presentations for the symposium can be found here (click on the presenter’s name).  Next year’s symposium will be held in Orange County, CA.  Please let me know if you have suggestions for topics for discussion.

The AAAE Energy Forum convened last week in sunny West Palm Beach, Florida.  The Forum was last held in Seattle in February of 2010 and several of the participants from that event, including me, worked on the organizing committee for this year’s forum.  The group expects the program to become an annual event with February in Florida acting as a great draw.

Energy Efficiency Forum Postcard

Besides the inviting weather, energy is a topic of great interest in the aviation community given escalating costs and innovative solutions.  The conference attracted 80 professionals with diverse expertise including airport staff, solar energy developers, energy and environmental consultants, airport planners, architects, engineers, utilities, and financial institutions.  Airports represented included Palm Beach, Orlando, Lee County, Metro Washington Airport Authority (MWAA), Minneapolis-St. Paul, Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA), Dallas-Fort Worth, Jackson Hole, Toronto, and Cold Lake Alberta.

I moderated the first two panels covering renewable energy topics.  I also made two separate presentations: “Technical Guidance for Evaluating Selected Solar Technologies at Airport [aka The Solar Guide]” and “Can Wind Energy and Aviation Be Compatible?”  Other renewable energy topics covered in presentations included solar development by airports and private lease holders, geothermal, and fuel cells.  There was a significant amount of programming on energy efficiency measures including the diversity of equipment replacement actions that can be taken, from light bulbs to heating and cooling systems, and quick payback periods.  An FAA representative summarized funding possibilities under the Voluntary Airport Low Emissions (VALE) Program and action by Congress just two weeks ago under the FAA Reauthorization allowing Airport Improvement Program (AIP) funds to be used for energy efficiency-related upgrades.  The second day’s lunch speaker from “Space Florida” spoke about NASA’s plans for supporting a growing commercial spaceflight business including issuing contracts to private companies to ferry payload and passengers to the International Space Station over the next few years.

As energy issues continue to impact all aspects of commerce and quality of life, the AAAE Energy Forum is expected to become the aviation industry’s prime conference for discussing energy challenges and opportunities.  The committee has already started planning for next year’s event.

Presentations are posted on HMMH’s website.

One of the highlights of the TRB Annual Meeting that I look forward to each year is the AV030 sessions on aviation and environmental impacts.  HMMH’s president, Mary Ellen Eagan, does a great job in pulling these sessions together to allow the subcommittees to present an update on progress and highlight emerging “hot button” issues.   This year sessions did not disappoint with a very interesting student presentation on “Bird Aircraft Strike Risk Assessment at Commercial Airports: Sub-Model Development Accounting for Strike Occurrence and Severity at Seattle Tacoma International Airport”. 

The climate change subcommittee provided an update on climate change issues affecting aviation, including an update from the summer Woods Hole Conference which focused on climate change adaptation and planning.  With the changing climate, airports are starting to focus on the potential impacts of climate change and incorporating these impacts into the master planning.  Some of the issues included in the planning include rising sea water, stormwater and severe weather. There was also an entertaining discussion with attendees on other topics of concern such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions, renewable energy, energy efficiency and the role of alternate fuels.  The climate change discussion supports the activities of HMMH’s Climate and Energy Group with the release of the “Technical Guidance for Evaluating Selected Solar Technologies on Airports” and the ACRP Synthesis, “Investigating Safety Impacts of Energy Technologies on Airports and Aviation”.  With renewable energy becoming a viable alternative to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, the impact on aviation is becoming a growing concern and HMMH’s experience in this area is helping the aviation industry address these concerns.

One of the best highlights from the 91^st Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting in Washington D.C. was the “Riding the NEPA Railroad Workshop” on Sunday.  I usually find the workshops interesting and engaging and this year was no different.  Leading NEPA experts from FRA, FTA and FHWA compared the NEPA processes across all three agencies – something HMMH has experienced firsthand.  HMMH is leading the noise and vibration studies for two of the three highlighted projects including the Desert Xpress high-speed rail line proposed from Victorville, CA to Las Vegas, NV and the California High-Speed Rail Project between Fresno to Merced.

NEPA experts helped to again fill the house for Session 737 on “Expediting Environmental Review: Underlying Causes for Runaway Process”.  This session focused on the growing need to streamline the NEPA process.  Did you know the average time to complete an EIS has been 67 months?!  One project for which HMMH is proud to have conducted the noise and vibration analysis is the Dallas Streetcar EA.  This project resulted in a 14-page EA that was completed in 14 months.  Horst Greczmiel, from the Council on Environmental Quality, presented on recent NEPA trends including the availability of a tool to streamline the public comment and response process.  More information can be found on these recent trends and CEQ recommendations here.

If you have not heard, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) just released Version 7.0c of its Integrated Noise Model (INM).  This update is almost entirely about database changes, and a lot of them, including:

• Updated noise information for nineteen aircraft
  • Nine Airbus jets
  • Six props
  • Four helicopters
• Sixty-eight changes to aircraft substitutions
  • Twenty-two new
  • Thirty-eight modified
  • Eight deleted
• Eleven new aircraft
  • Five Cessna jets
  • Four Bell helicopters
  • Two single-engine floatplanes
• Modified arrival profiles for twenty-one aircraft
• Sixteen Airbus and Boeing jets (updated reverse thrust segment)
• Five props (added final landing segment)

There are a few other changes, but you can find those in the release notes.  I’m an instructor for HMMH’s INM Training Course so I take an interest in any new releases, but there was something special about this one.  In the list above, I’m fairly confident that the thing that jumps out at everyone is the floatplanes.  Or maybe that’s just me.  Let’s do a little backstory here.

In June of 2007 I was at Willow Lake, Alaska doing noise measurements for a study of floatplane noise.  Willow Lake is just up the road from the now (in)famous city of Wasilla.  Each year, the frozen lake is used as the restart point for the Iditarod dog sled race.  It’s a scenic little lake, surrounded by forest with houses, cabins, and a community center along the shore.  It is also used by floatplanes.

Floatplane Departure, Willow Lake, AK

 The weather for the measurement program was great and the residents around the lake were friendly and helpful.  Folks in Alaska love their airplanes.  It is by far the most aviation-literate population that I have ever met.  Everyone seemed to be a pilot, have been a pilot, or at the bare minimum, have a pilot in the family.  Given the love of airplanes and the low operations levels (approximately twenty operations per day in-season), why was the study necessary?

In short, the floatplanes, particularly the de Havilland DCH-2, are loud and due to the size of the lake and proximity of the houses to the shore, the planes are quite close to residential locations when they are applying full thrust to get off the water.  Here’s a picture of a Beaver taking off from the deck of residence along the shore.

De Havilland DHC-2 Beaver Take-off, Willow Lake, AK

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

I have reached the age where I’m trying to be more reflective and purposeful (aka, midlife crisis).  Or perhaps it’s just that my husband’s deep thinker tendencies are rubbing off on me.  Here’s what he has to say about Rudolph:

• So.  The family was all together watching Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer last night (Mama in her ‘kerchief and I in my cap).  Our youngest daughter, the seven year old, asked if any of the reindeer were girls.  If you’ve seen the show recently, you might recall that the reindeer pulling Santa’s sleigh all are clearly males: the bucks all have antlers and the does don’t.  However, a quick Google search suggests that that this is actually backwards:  male reindeer typically lose their antlers before December, while the females, which do have antlers, retain theirs. But while the show does get a couple of mere prosaic facts wrong, it’s the mythic aspects of Rudolph I find interesting.

BTW, as further proof, David also pointed out that many of the reindeer names in Clement Moore’s original poem (A Visit from St. Nicholas) while conceivably gender neutral in 2011, were probably quite feminine in mid-nineteenth century America (just think about Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, and Cupid for a start).  This launched a long discussion of whether this 1960s portrayal of Rudolph is actually an anti-feminist screed – don’t forget that Coach Comet shoos Clarice and Mrs. Donner (she’s never named) back to the cave because searching for Rudolph is “men’s work”.  But I digress.  There’s more:

• Mythic, you ask? Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer?  Well, Rudolph himself is pretty much your basic Joseph Campbell “hero-with-a-thousand-faces”. You’ve seen him before; he’s Luke Skywalker, Harry Potter, all those guys.  However, the other characters are bit more nuanced. Consider King Moonracer.   Who is he and why is he even in RTRNR?  If you don’t recall, King Moonracer is the sovereign of the Island of Misfit Toys.  The misfit toys are in hell and Moonracer is the Lord of the Underworld – he’s the god Hades.  He’s not the Christian devil; he’s not evil.  He presides over those who are unloved and no longer alive.  He also represents the Anti-Santa.  Santa rules Christmastown with mercy and compassion; if you’re good, you get toys (and I’ve noticed, at least in our house, that Santa brings the naughty kids plenty of toys, too).  Hades rules with old-fashioned Old Testament judgment: when Rudolph, Hermey, and Yukon Cornelius ask to stay, Moonracer rejects their request and only allows them to spend a single night on the Island – just enough so they know the taste of being truly forgotten and unloved.

King Moonracer

Hermey

Yukon Cornelius

But that’s not end of the story, of course. Rudolph and his friends leave the Island to confront and overcome their fears (though Yukon dies and is raised from the dead – but that’s another story).  Santa sees his own errors of judgment and together Santa and Rudolph redeem the Misfit Toys.  And we hear them exclaim, as they fly out of sight — Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Up next:  The Grinch

Ted Schultz was one of my early mentors when I began my career in noise and acoustics.  When I first joined Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc. he was consulting to HUD, providing technical background for its noise abatement standards.  Throughout that impressive and detailed work, he considered annoyance as one of the important reactions to noise and, I believe, collected and analyzed social surveys relating annoyance to sound levels.  As a further outcome, in 1978, Ted published in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, his “Synthesis of social surveys on noise annoyance,” (see also my blog of April 2010 ).  This article provided in its Figure 6 a curve giving percent of people highly annoyed as a function of noise exposure in terms of day-night average sound level.  This curve became associated with much of present federal policy for determining noise “impact” and is commonly called the Schultz curve.

For the past few years, there has been general concern that this curve may no longer accurately represent how people respond to aircraft noise.  Because Federal Aviation Administration noise policy is required by legislation to use a system of noise measurement that has “… a highly reliable relationship between projected noise exposure and surveyed reactions of individuals to noise….” (49 U.S.C Section 47502) it is important that the relationship of annoyance and noise exposure be reliable and reflects current conditions.

The Airport Cooperative Research Program is sponsoring research to design a new national survey of annoyance reactions and sleep disturbance caused by aircraft noise.  One objective is to develop an up-to-date, unbiased estimate of the annoyance / noise exposure relationship for US airports and surrounding communities – potentially an update of the Schultz curve.   We were fortunate enough to put together a team and a winning proposal to conduct this research.  Now, I must say that I knew Ted Schultz, Ted Schultz was a friend of mine, and I’m certainly no Ted Schultz, but I am nevertheless honored to be leading this team in work that is a direct follow-on to Ted’s impressive  accomplishment.