A Comprehensive Look at Don Beyer’s Plane Noise Helicopter Complaint System
June 27th, 2022 Congressman Beyer, working with Congressman Connolly and commercial helicopter lobbyists from the EHRC and HAI announced a pilot program for a new helicopter noise complaint system. On April 25th, 2023 the results of the pilot program were announced along with changes to the FAA helicopter route chart and a commitment by neighboring municipalities to adopt the system and its cost from Federal tax payers.
Reporting of this complex issue has largely stuck to legislators’ talking points. The purpose of this report is to provide a resource for curious residents and journalists to understand the issue with links to primary sources.
FAA Changes
One of the major shortcomings of the communication of this plan was a failure to promote the exact changes implemented after the pilot program. I received this handout from Tammy Jones, an FAA representative, on site the day of the press conference. I have created this interactive map for residents to see the changes to each route and zone.
“Note: All amended zone changes apply with exception for MEDEVAC, law enforcement, presidential missions, homeland security conducting mission essential operations.” This list of exempted operators includes every operators regularly allowed to operate inside the FRZ (the “Flight Restricted Zone restricting low altitude flights within 15 nautical miles of Reagan National Airport) outside this zone the only non-exempted rotorcraft operators we typically see are newsgathering (NBC and a shared CBS/FOX/ABC helicopter) and power line inspections that cannot follow these altitudes by design. Photography and survey operations inside the FRZ are granted FAA waivers that would likely exempt them from altitude restrictions as well.
Understanding FAA Route Chart Altitudes
Altitudes are displayed on FAA route charts with a line above and or below the altitude in feet denoting the “ceiling” (the highest allowable altitude) and “floor” (the lowest allowable)
The latest charts are available from the FAA website.
Released Plane Noise Reports
After many requests to ERHC, HAI, FAA and Plane Noise Congressman Beyer’s office released reports to me from April and May of 2023 so journalists can understand the data that is affecting these decisions. Congressman Beyer’s office estimates the cost of the 6-month pilot program at $35,00-$40,000.
Contrasting Plane Noise Reports with Existing FAA Portal
It’s worth noting that the Plane Noise contract came about because FAA claims it is poorly equipped to follow through on GAO’s recommendation to “improve information sharing between helicopter operators.” However DCA already has a very comprehensive flight tracking suite and publicly accessible complaint dashboard that includes the ability to file a complaint about a specific flight, or a general area. Plane Noise claims they use “available flight tracking data” to correlate complaints to flights but would not tell me specifically what “available data” they would use to correlate military flights — the most predominant and actively concealed helicopter operators over the NCR.
The DCA suite also gives journalist unfettered access to the data, while Plane Noise’s system is a black box accessible only to legislators.
Plane Noise form
The Plane Noise form seems to assume residents already know the mission of the helicopter overhead and on the surface has no capability to help residents infer the operator of a flight compared to the FAA’s system. One argument for the lack of transparency is that FAA is by mandate not allowed to track military helicopters, while a private contractor like Plane Noise can. Our assumption is that operator-specific information has been redacted from the above reports.
Answers from HAI
from John Shea, Director of Government Affairs Helicopter Association International
Q: What flight data besides transponders do you plan to utilize to correlate the high percentage of military and government flights over the NCR that are exempt from enabling ADS-B out?
A: We are working with military and government stakeholders to better fine tune data collection due to the unique security requirements that exist within the NCR.
The value of this noise complaint system is it correlates noise complaints with data from flight track data and shares this data with operators. The operators will have data to better understand the root causes of noise complaints by looking at aircraft types, missions, routes, altitudes, among other factors. This system has the capacity to forward complaints to the FAA but for now during the beginning phase of this initiative the data is to be collected, logged, analyzed, mapped to ensure that decision makers and operators are working off the same set of facts.
Q: Do you plan to share this data with stakeholders at any regular intervals? when can the community expect the data to be reviewed and conclusions presented to them?
A: Plane Noise will prepare monthly reports for ERHC
ERHC and operator stakeholders to meet at regular intervals to review data
Operator stakeholders to review current routes and review potential modifications
At end of 6 month data collection, stakeholders to report out initial findings
Will noise complaints be forwarded to the FAA as they are with MWAA’s noise complaint form?The value of this noise complaint system is it correlates noise complaints with data from flight track data and shares this data with operators. The operators will have data to better understand the root causes of noise complaints by looking at aircraft types, missions, routes, altitudes, among other factors. This system has the capacity to forward complaints to the FAA but for now during the beginning phase of this initiative the data is to be collected, logged, analyzed, mapped to ensure that decision makers and operators are working off the same set of facts.
Q: Are you compiling data from the existing MWAA noise complaint system/office?
A: Currently, we are not yet compiling data from the existing MWAA noise complaint system.
About HelicoptersofDC
HelicoptersofDC is dedicated to bringing DC residents the most accurate and up-to-date information on what’s overhead and to foster collaboration and education about helicopter identification and mission profiles. 2021’s GAO report found that 96.3% of helicopter noise complaints to the MWAA from 2018–2021 were unattributed to any specific operator. This is why we feel it’s important to educate the community on helicopter identification in addition to reporting what is happening currently and why. You can find our browsable dataset at CopterSpotter.com and hear more about our program in this Def Con talk.
