Comment by andrewem
8 years ago
I hadn't heard of this, but it's true: www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Judge-clears-Ellison-for-landing-at-night-2909426.php
8 years ago
I hadn't heard of this, but it's true: www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Judge-clears-Ellison-for-landing-at-night-2909426.php
Ehh...Larry has a point. If you care about noise levels, don't use weight as a proxy - just use noise levels. Why can a big, quiet plane not land at night, but a tiny noisy plane can?
As the other guy says, it's hard to prove in court which noise came from which plane, but besides that, they may have used weight as a proxy for distinguishing between military and civilian aircraft ("tiny noisy planes" tending to be military), and, also, perceived loudness[1] is a function of both decibel level[2] and pitch[3] (that is, a whistle will be at a higher decibel level than a drum we perceive as equally "loud"). It's intuitively plausible that larger planes tend to make lower-pitched sounds.
[1] amplitude
[2] amplitude * frequency
[3] frequency
Noise is ephemeral and therefore harder to prove.
"It is regrettable that a dispute about one airplane has consumed so large a quantity of human and economic resources and that the parties have found compromise so difficult"
So much hate. Just because someone has enough money to file a lawsuit and keep it alive for years doesn't mean the other side should somehow be penalized for not compromising with the fool.