PROPOSAL TO ASSESS THE FEASIBILITY OF AUTOMATED COLLECTION AND DISPLAY OF AIRCRFT INFORMATION FOR ENVIRONMENTAL NOISE ANALYSES

Noise has consistently been the highest visibility environmental issue facing civil and military air facilities in the United States and abroad. Over the past two decades, models and databases of increasing computational accuracy and sophistication have been developed for depicting environmental impact. In many situations however, input data reliability, not model sophistication, has been the limiting factor in the overall accuracy and defensibility of the end product. This study investigates the feasibility of automatically accessing digitally encoded data from the Air Force's air traffic control Programmable Indicator Data Processor (PIDP) and using this data to develop input to the DoD NOISEMAP/BASEOPS computer programs. Objectives of the project are (1) to assess and document hardware options for extracting data from the PIDP system and to determine the preliminary requirements for an automated, on-site data extraction and storage system, (2) to assess the feasibility of developing a sufficiently sized database to accurately determine annual average values of data parameters (such as flight corridors, altitude and speed profiles, numbers of operations, runway and corridor use), and (3) to assess the feasibility of developing a computer-based, interactive system for generating NOISEMAP/BASEOPS input parameters directly from this database in a consistent and repeatable fashion.