Silent Planes...The Way Of the Future?

Posted on Mon Nov 6 2006

By: Ashley Mikulik in Environment, Science & Technology

If you live anywhere remotely close rrrr to the landing area of a major airport rrrrrr you know that the noise can be rrrrRRRRRRrrrrrrrr well, deafening.

Airlines, aircraft manufacturers and politicians have struggled with the problem for decades. Now a coalition of engineers from MIT and Cambridge University say it is on the way to some solutions.

Today they showed off the results of the Silent Aircraft Initiative a design for a sleek, birdlike plane that could someday make airport noise a thing of the past. If aerospace companies decide to build it, the MIT-Cambridge consortium says it could be flying by 2030.

"Think about the noise of an office conversation," says Zolti Spakovsky, a professor of aeronautics at MIT, during a London news conference. "That's about the noise level the aircraft would have on takeoff and landing..."

Recently I wrote about a battery powered plane in Japan. Now MIT and Cambridge and developing a silent airplane. With all this new technology expected to hit market in our lifetime, we are looking at a whole different future for transportation very soon. I know that people who live near airports will gladly welcome the silence.

Read the rest of the article here.

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Comments

Andy M Says:

I think it is a fantastic idea, to be able to live near an airport and not having to secure everything when a plane is landing haha good article