Noisy Dawn of the Jet Age, The

Sound and Vibration, Jan 2007 by Beranek, Leo L

Dr. Beranek received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Cornell College in 1936 and his Doctor of Science from Harvard University in 1940. During World War Il he headed the Electro-Acoustic Laboratory at Harvard. He served as Associate Professor of Communications Engineering at MIT from 1947 to 1958.

He was co-founder of the firm, Bolt Beranek and Newman of Cambridge, MA (started as a partnership in 1948) and was its President for 16 years, 1953 to 1969. During his time there, BBN became the largest acoustical consulting firm in the world. One of his efforts at BBN was putting together the group that invented the ARPANET which was the world's first packet-switched computer network and which operated under government financing from 1969 to 1989. BBN invented e-mail as we know it today. On January 3, 1983, the ARPANET, having been split in two because of its size, was joined by the TCP/IP protocol and became known as the Internet.

The architectural acoustics part of BBN is now a separate company called Acentech, Inc., and the military acoustics and computer activities are in a company called BBN Technologies.

A lifelong interest in music led him to specialize on concert hall and opera house acoustics. Following trips to over 100 of the world's leading halls and interviews of several hundred conductors and music critics, he wrote Concert Halls and Opera Houses: Music, Acoustics, and Architecture (Springer, 2004). He has been consultant or coconsultant on many concert halls, including the Tanglewood Music Shed in Western Massachusetts, the Meyerhoff Hall in Baltimore, the AuIa Magna in Caracas, a concert hall, opera house and drama theater in the Tokyo Opera City complex and three other concert halls in Japan.

He has received numerous awards, including the President's National Medal of Science, Gold Medals from the Acoustical Society of America, the Audio Engineering Society and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and the Silver Commemorative Medal from the Society of French Language Acousticians. From 1989 to 1994, he served as President of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and was honored in 2000 with their "ScholarPatriot, Distinguished Service Award." He is an Honorary Member of the American Institute of Architects.

The introduction of commercial jet aircraft operations in the United States was marked by controversy. This article reviews the politics and both objective and subjective noise measurements that ultimately permitted successful jet operations at U.S. airports.

In the years between 1953 and 1958, one could travel by air coast-to-coast in a little more than eight hours on propeller-driven aircraft - all cross-country USA airline craft had four engines. American Airlines used the Douglas Aircraft DC-7. United Airlines flew both the DC-7 and the Boeing 377 Stratocruiser. Pan American boasted the DC-7C which flew overseas. TWA relied heavily on the Lockheed Super G Constellation. Air travelers from the West Coast to the East Coast often booked on the airline that scheduled a few-minutes shorter trip. This period was followed, starting in 1958, by the introduction of the Boeing 707, 4-jet-engine, aircraft which made the trip from the West to East Coast in less than 6 hours - today, a little over 5 hours. New York's Idlewild Airport (JFK) was and is a must airport for all the major airline services. The question in the 1956-1958 period, was, "What conditions will the Port of New York Authority place on jet aircraft wishing to use Idlewild?"

The Boeing 707

Perhaps the largest contribution that Bolt Beranek and Newman, Inc. made to the "welfare of mankind" was the company's assistance to the Port of New York Authority (PNYA), now the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, in the late 1950s in regard to the first flights of jet aircraft from New York International Airport at Idlewild, now JFK, Airport.

The first PNYA/BBN meeting was held November 7, 1956, in the offices of the PNYA, located at at 14th street and 8th Avenue in New York City. In attendance were Executive Director Austin Tobin, Matt Lukens, the Assistant Director of the Port Authority, and John Wiley, Director of Aviation, and one or two others including a lawyer, and me. Tobin opened the discussion about as follows: "Pan American Airways has asked for permission to begin jet aircraft operations from Idlewild airport in November 1958. They will be flying a new jet passenger airplane, called the Boeing 707. We must know how noisy it is. We already have a lawsuit in progress at our Newark airport brought on by residents who are complaining about the noise from today's propeller airplanes. The noise surrounding Idlewild must not be worse than that created by present large propeller-driven airplanes."

Wiley carried on, "Several years ago, we told the airlines that a jet plane must make no more noise than a large propeller airplane on takeoffs and landings. Boeing claims that they have met this requirement and their evidence is that the conventional sound level meter shows the same number of decibels of noise from the jet plane during flyover as from a Super-Constellation propeller airplane. But we are worried, because we are getting reports that the 707 is much noisier. In fact, wo have already received threats that if the noise around Idlewild increases, mothers with baby strollers will go on to the runways. We want you to set up a thorough program to investigate this problem so that we know what we're up against and what we should do about it."