Boom Meter
Using data generated by actual flight tests conducted at NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center and data collected from NASA noise laboratories, app developers should construct a visualization of low boom as it compares to normal sonic boom. Currently noise data is either illustrated with ‘contours’ around airport runways and surrounding areas or presented numerically in decibels. Can an app be developed that allows people to ‘see’ the difference between low boom and normal sonic boom over their geographical area? Such an app would help visual learners to grasp the difference more rapidly than traditional data displays.
This application brings you visual descriptions of the noise in your local airspace. Locate nearby aircrafts and experience their sounds from a different perspective.
Sonic Boom
When a plane starts going faster than speed of sound, there will come two really loud booms right after each other. This is what we call a sonic boom. The booms are so loud that it disturbs people on the ground. A sonic boom is feasible be listened at 130 db even if the aircrafts are flying at 13.000 meters of altitude. In the map page, the red circle represents the noise percieved of a sonic boom. If you are in the edge of the circle, you will percieve up to 70 db aprox, but if you are just in the center of the area, the noise will raise up to 130 db. 130 db is a noise level much higher than the level accepted by the goverments in order to allow planes over residential areas. We want to fly fast, so NASA is about to make a type of plane that will make more quiet booms and will produce a noise level under the 85 db.
Low Boom
Recent experiments of Nasa demonstrate that Low Boom spacecrafts are able to reduce the noise perception up to 77 db. In the map page, low boom area is presented with green. The edge of the area represents a noise level of 70 db, and the center 77 db
