The main appeal of commercial and general aviation is that it enables people to travel to places that would, by any other means, be unavailable to them. No-one wants to give up that freedom, which has almost reached the level of being considered a human right - like owning a car - in most people's perceptions. But not quite, which is why aviation is going to be an easier target for environmental restrictions than personal motor vehicles.
This is perfectly clear to those who, like the International Civil Aviation Organisation's Committee on Aviation Environmental Protection (CAEP), have the task of limiting its undesirable by-products - noise and emissions. The CAEP has just provided a hint as to what a move from Chapter 3 noise standards to the still imperfectly defined Chapter 4 will entail.
Decibel (dB) reductions of between 8 and 14 were proposed to the CAEP, with the USA voting for 8dB. The compromise decision was a 10dB reduction. With a few exceptions, most aircraft built since the mid-1980s are so far inside Chapter 3 that they would already meet the higher demands of Chapter 4. Aircraft which achieve Chapter 3 by hushkitting would not qualify, because they meet Chapter 3 minimums with virtually no margin. Other aircraft which would fail to qualify for such a Chapter 4 include all classic Boeing 747s and early Airbus A300s.
And it is not only hard-line environmentalists in developed economies who will be unhappy that almost all the aircraft they see (and hear) operating at their country's airports today will be acceptable for an undefined, but certainly long, period in the future. The crucial issue is not the date when Chapters begin, but the adoption of phase-out dates for qualifying aircraft, and that, conspicuously, has not been agreed.
Today, Chapter 2 aircraft, like un-hushkitted Boeing 707s, 727s and 737-200s, and McDonnell Douglas DC-8s and DC-9s, are still legal, and they only become illegal in 2002. That they have been banned from many individual airports, or can only operate into them under special dispensation or by paying fines, is an indication that much of the world is not prepared to wait for CAEP rules to take shape.
It is unlikely that, having the difficult task of gaining consensus on a global scale, any ICAO environmental forum could ever move fast enough to satisfy regions like Europe, Japan, or Australasia. If they are not able to outlaw noisy aircraft, they will make them pay for it. The industry has seen evidence of this already, the European Commission has warned of it, and any part of the aviation industry which thinks it can play to environmental minimums will eventually pay for it one way or another.
Source: Flight International
