Stirring from their usual slumber, in the face of increasing community dissatisfaction with respect to noise and emissions from aircraft overflight, the Federal Aviation Administration (“FAA”) and United States Congress each took some action in recent months. First, FAA awarded more than $19 million to various universities and other organizations through the “ASCENT” program, a cooperative aviation research organization founded in 2014 (but apparently only lightly funded until now).

The primary purpose of the grants was to allow the universities to study ways to reduce aviation noise. Many of those awards were for noise resulting from episodic impacts of: (1) uncrewed aircraft; (2) supersonic aircraft; and (3) advanced air mobility or AIM. However, giving some thought to more “mundane” causes, FAA gave nearly $2 million to Boston University to study the relationship between aircraft noise, sleep, mental health, and cardiovascular health. Similarly, the University of Pennsylvania received slightly over $1 million to study the way in which noise from aircraft affects sleep. All of these latter grants go to the fundament of impacted communities’ concerns.Continue Reading FAA and Congress Finally Awaken to Citizens’ Discontent with Aircraft Noise Impacts