Aerospace Design: Soaring in Silence

There's a reason that airports can only expand so much.

Likewise, there's a reason why cities around the world enact ordinances to keep airplanes from taking-off and landing at certain times of the night.

Moreover, there's a reason why ground workers put their hearing in jeopardy everyday that they are on the job.

What's the reason? It's simple really, airplanes are loud.

Screaming jet engines have become a political and social dilemma.

Anyone who walks around the outside of an airport terminal can clearly understand what all the noise is about.

As jets speed down the runaway and lift themselves over the grounds of the airport and then over nearby residential areas, jets' engine fans, as well as their airframes, produce thunderous sounds that cause dangerous decibel levels.

But that soon may change, thanks to an initiative being led by researchers from both the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Cambridge University in the United Kingdom.

Called the Silent Airplane Initiative, a group of academics, with the help of prominent members of the aerospace community, including Rolls-Royce, British Airways, BAA, Boeing, Bruel & Kjaer, DHL, and easyJet, to name a few, has released its first concept design for what it says could be the first "silent aircraft."

While still very much in the concept stages, the group says its goal is to have the airplane, designated the SAX-40, soaring through the clouds by 2030.

more: pddnet.com/scripts/ShowPR.asp?RID=20660&CommonCoun (316)

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