Overhead

By airport

Heard: at least 6 dB above the background at the time. Loud: at least 15 dB. Share adds up the sound energy each airport's passes put above the background, over the whole of each pass. In the pass list, SEL is the FAA's sound exposure level: all the sound energy of the pass squeezed into one second, so a long quiet pass and a short loud one can be compared. Tap a row to show only that airport below.

Noise budget

Each airport is measured on its own against the whole budget. The running total works like a day-night average level (DNL): it adds up the sound energy of that airport's passes since the day began, counts passes between 10 pm and 7 am ten times over, and spreads the result over 24 hours. A line is crossed when that running total reaches it. The same daily total can come from a few loud flights or many quieter ones: one flight with an SEL of 114 dBA, ten at 104 or a hundred at 94 each add up to DNL 65 (FAA). Reference levels: FAA DNL 65, where the FAA treats homes as not compatible with airport noise (14 CFR Part 150); EPA 55, the outdoor level the EPA identified in 1974 as protecting health with a margin of safety; WHO 45, the World Health Organization's 2018 guideline for aircraft noise. All three are written as yearly averages, so a single day above a line is not the same as a year above it.

Through the day

Map

Dashed ring: 6 nm. Brighter, thicker tracks were louder at the house.

Every pass