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The Air Force is very quiet about a noisy fighter.
At military housing areas and base schools on Eglin Air Force Base, Fla.,
noise from F-35 Lightning II operations will be twice as loud as current
Eglin F-15 flights, reaching 83 decibels.
Off base, F-35 noise will be even louder, reaching up to 90 decibels in
civilian neighborhoods under an Eglin flight path.
All that is revealed in an environmental impact study prompted by plans to
set up the joint F-35 pilot and maintenance training school at Eglin. But the impact of the study goes beyond Eglin, as the Air Force looks to
stand up F-35 units at bases across the country. The service has not yet
decided where that would be, but is looking at Eielson Air Force Base,
Alaska; Luke Air Force Base, Ariz.; Moody Air Force Base, Ga.; Mountain Home
Air Force Base, Idaho; and Shaw Air Force Base, S.C.
Air Force officials declined to discuss the report other than to say its
findings have their attention.
“The Air Force is committed to being a good neighbor to the communities
which surround Eglin and the future installations selected for F-35 basing,”
Kathleen Ferguson, deputy assistant secretary of Air Force for
installations, said in a written statement.
“We are diligently exploring methods to mitigate the impact.” Around Eglin, much of the public’s environmental concerns center on jet
noise.
People living near the base are accustomed to the roaring jets at the base
and don’t look twice when a fighter circles for a landing or takes off at
full military power.
In fact, the seal for Okaloosa County, where Eglin is located, pictures two
airborne F-15s.
But when the Air Force issued a preliminary environmental study in June
showing an F-35’s single engine would generate more noise than the two
engines of an F-15, people started paying attention.
In the city of Valparaiso, along the north side of Eglin, civic leaders
bristled at suggestions the residents and businesses under the F-35’s flight
path should move to quieter areas.
The preliminary findings were confirmed in the environmental assessment
released by the Air Force on Oct. 10.
“At military takeoff power, noise from the F-35 is about 9 decibels higher —
or twice as loud — than an F-15C at military takeoff power,” the report
said.
The F-35 is even louder coming in for a landing. “During approach, noise
from the F-35 is about 19 decibels higher than noise from an F-15C,” the
report said. “This corresponds to the F-35 being about four times as loud as
the F-15C” when it lands.
There should be plenty of opportunities at Eglin to hear just how loud an
F-35 is. On training days, about 125 F-35s will take off and land at Eglin,
the study said.
Overall, the combination of louder engines and different flight patterns
drastically expands the areas where engine roar will reach 75 decibels and
higher.
The number of people living near Eglin exposed frequently to sound levels of
75 decibels or more would rise by more than 1,500 percent, jumping from 142
people to 2,174 people, the report said.
The study calmly noted that once sound levels exceed 75 decibels, more than
one third of the people are “high annoyed.”
Still, the new center might bring some good news: jobs. Overall, 2,146 airmen, sailors and Marines would be assigned to the training
wing, including 109 student pilots and 436 student maintainers. In addition,
180 civilians would work for the wing.
The training wing replaces the operational 33rd Fighter Wing, now phasing
out as its two squadrons of F-15s are retired or sent to other units. Regardless of the F-35 basing, Eglin would continue to be home to several
Materiel Command units, including the 46th Test Wing and Air Armament
Center, and Air Combat Command’s 53rd Wing.
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