BBK,
I have replied to your PM.

Just been looking at the google map.

If I am right that the engineering hangers are to the north?

If that's so they are in a natural triangle.

I suspect that they could do quite a bit with planting trees or a fecking huge hedge type affair. With those pines that go huge in the space of 10 years and the foliage branches go down to the ground.

You would steal some of the football pitches ground and don't know if there is enough room without going into the farmers fields.

But a load of trees and some MTD's of the local combat engineering unit should get them installed.

They use trees quite a bit in Scandinavia for noise suppression. If your on stand in Oslo you can hardly hear a thing from the other aircraft in the next bay.

No, I was merely rebuffing TrimStab's dig that RAF pilot's waste time during start as we don't pay for our fuel - any more than a BA or Virgin pilot 'pays' for his fuel of course. A J could be started up a tad quicker but only provided we were content to discover that some systems weren't functioning until we were airborne.

As for reveted ground running bays as I understand it it's not just the cost of providing them but the damage to the props caused by reflected sound & vibration that reduces their life expectancy hugely.

Of course all the woe & tribulation for the citizens of Oxfordshire could be solved by the re-opening of the secret Wiltshire airbase but that's never going to happen (more's the pity) and besides they'd still all get a nasty shock next September when the 'beast from Seville' arrives and we'd be right back where we are now.....

That's the beauty of trees apparently they don't reflect they just absorb.

I was at Brize 72-92. It never ceased to amaze me that some of the locals, who made a very good living from the RAF, used to phone up Eng.Ops in the terminal as soon as they heard an engine. Good old Mr Giles ( the original,be about 90 now), the one that owned the biggest toy and sports goods shops in Oxfordshire. Without the Base with an audience average age in the 20's he'd still have been in his news agents.
We had a "B" shift (30-40 blokes then)bet one night to see how quick Mr Giles would be on the Phone. F.S. i/c "B" shift LSS Told the Eng. Controller to keep an eye on the time he phoned, a kite needed a late ground run with slam check, Oh goody! It was after 11.30pm and the latest bet was 1 min 50 odd seconds, The winner was the Line flt sgt (I wont mention the name) with 23 seconds! Obviously the run had to carry on, the kite was on route early next morning with extra slams!
Carterton looks about twice the size it was when I left and all those poor people must have been shocked to find there was an airfield next door.
When I moved out of MQs and bought my own place in Carterton, the people opposite (civvies) were asking for a Rate rebate and double glazing because of the VC10s (we only had 13 VC10s and a couple of Tristars then and one Herc. for the baby paras) He'd only been in the house a month but knew the airfield was there before they moved. He didn't get anywhere with it. Funny thing was he'd just moved from Kidlington ,next to the airport! Which had highest number of movements in the country at the time.
We have Hercs flying over every now and again. They're over 20.000 ft the noise goes on without change for over 5 minutes, the noise doesn't change, it doesn't creep up and die away either, its constant. Its not that easy to pin point where the plane is the whole area is bathed in engines, where as a Turbofan is easy to pick out.After reading this thread I know why! Noise or not, I'd move back there in a flash!

My apologies Ken, misread it.

They'll get hotter one supposes. Quite what that does to trees I don't know, however.

Mad_Jock

The C-130 line is south of the runway at the western end of the airfield. A lot of the engine runs take place down that way.

Whilst the Herc Det is to the south of the main runway, EGR`s are not permitted at that location. the members of the local community are well aware of the locations allowed & even have copies of the local orders.

EGR`s can be carried out (with restrictions) north side & down towards JADTEU on the taxi way.

Further to this ERO`s are no longer permitted on the south side & a further restriction also prevents AC from reversing into bays.

Bring on the A400 / ATLAS for more restrictions.

You could get a wall of trees to the North of that and to the south.

Its a pretty easy theory to test out as well.

You just need to get a rotary type with similar frequency output and get it the hover the other side of a tree line. Then take noise readings and see how much it drops the noise level down by over distance. Try different tree types and widths of barriers.

Or you could go over to Scandinavia as most of the regional airports are surrounded by trees. I have been 2km away from one of them that had saab's, ATP's etc operating out of it and you never heard them on the ground just when they took off and cleared the tree tops the noise seem to turn on. But then again that was 1km thick pine forest.

Lets face it with tree's if it doesn't work out you can just chop them down and get the sappers to blow the stumps out. And planting trees can be considered green ;) And I can't see it costing nearly as much as a concrete shield.

What a splendid idea, mad jock! Knock down all the houses around Brize (especially Clanfield) and plant a forest of trees in their place. If we start now by 2022* they should be thickening nicely.....



(* OOSD for C130J....)

:D

I know that's why I said it but I reckon a three to four tree width strip will be enough to make a real difference.

And the ones I was thinking of was those ones that everyone complains about when next door puts them in, they grown over a meter a year and the foliage is thick as hell all year round.

Go borrow a Chinook and park it behind some hedges and run around with a noise meter. I am sure your boss must have some that she could let you try it out on.

Oh and if someone is reading this and thinking h'mm might work remember to horseshoe the ends of the wall in otherwise the sound will just diffract round the ends and act as two point sources at the ends. Ideally have an section which goes past the bits that curls in to catch the spillage.

Can you not just build a set of the slatted shutters around the running bay and deflect the noise upwards?

Anyone who thinks the J is loud hasn't heard an A440 beating the air to death yet!

Indeed, Atlas seems to make a noise that is a cross between and large prop and a pure, low-bypass turbofan jet....there is quite a bit of "roar" to it, especially when airborne.

I have, and to my (admittedly uncalibrated) ears there's no discernable difference. Indeed, on the inside the A400M is considerably quieter.

Can't see the wood for the trees
 

Mad Jock

I'm not convinced, in fact I'm quite doubtful, that trees will do very much in terms of noise attenuation. They do absorb some sound, of course, compared to line of sight but you need something more "solid" like a barrier of some type. Oh and it needs to be tall otherwise low frequency noise will refract around it. My days in this field, no pun intended, a long time ago so I can't quote chapter and verse.

Of course, if you were to plant trees then a dense pine forest may help a tad. They do provide visual screening and since noise nuisance is highly subjective that may help.

Reminds me that about thirty years ago I was sent to measure noise levels at BZN at a site that was being looked at for residential development. IIRC it was right up next to the perimeter fence! In attendance was a rep from the property developers who wanted the go ahead and also a chap from the station who wanted more houses there like a hole in the head. Anyway, I wrote up the results and sent to them the MOD. What the outcome was I never found out.

BBK

There are current plans to build 700 new homes (aka 'noise complainers') in Brize Norton village.

BBK I know where you are coming from.

And again that's the reason for that particular type. They grow huge very quickly. And the foliage is a key factor as well it needs to be the thick drooping type which layers not the branches stick out at 90degrees type.

If you think about sound proof rooms the walls aren't solid they are foam with shapes in them. Line of trees with a fence in the middle of them with a shaped latex form for the problem frequency's up to 12ft may also be a solution. The trees would protect the latex fence, while also giving their noise reduction.

And the height required would be a function of how close you can get them to the apron in question.

The out of sight out of mind may have a huge effect on the complaints. It goes from they are running those bloody engines and not going anywhere to oh something must be moving. And trees are good a bloody great wall isn't

As test goes its a relatively easy one to organise. You just need to recce out some lumps of woodland and then speak to your rotary colleagues and organise them to visit on a day during training with the sound monitoring gear set up.

Another solution which would be more expensive would be a huge PA system which would pump out and actively cancel noise towards the village. But you would more than likely need a new power line into the base for it to be any use. Which is why I didn't mention it before.

Surely you must have some Engineery types in holding that could be given a project to have a look at it.

Actually you don't need to do the experiment, they seems to be plenty of Journal citations on the subject.

Guidance for noise reduction provided by tree belts