THE AGE OF NOISE

Southland Times, Issue 20446, 26 March 1928, Page 8

THE AGE OF NOISE

A PROBLEM OF AIR TRAVEL. “When the complete history of the present period comes to be written, it should surely be described as the age of noise,” said Mr. W. S. Tucker addressing the Royal Aeronautical Society on the problem of noise in civil aircraft and the possibilities of its elimation, states the Manchester Guardian.” “We have noise in the street, in the factory, in the office —and, through lack of satisfactory building material from the acoustical point of view, noise in the home, and lack of that privacy which the more substantial building of the past has more or less assured; noise everywhere and no serious effort to reduce it. “We are supposed to get accustomed to these nuisances,” continued Mr Tucker, “even to tolerate them, and in some cases people claim to be unhappy without them. It has been stated that our London troops during the war were able to endure gunfire with greater equanimity because of their normal conditions of living in a perpetual noise. Dead silence is knowr to be oppressive, but how shall we estimate the evils of perpetual and harassing noise?” The problem of noise in the cabins of civil aircraft was of great importance, as it was generally acknowledged as a hindrance to commercial development. “First of all, we have to travel in closest proximity to a great engine, or, it may be, two or three engines, developing from 600-h.p. to 1300-h.p.—that these engines convert chemical to mechanical energy by a series of rapid explosions, say, 4000 to 5000 per minute; that these engines are rigidly connected to the structure of the airplane and cabins by materials of highly sound conducting character; that the wings, staywires, and cabin walls are all of good resonant materials; that the cabin itself serves as sound-box in response to every contribution of noise which gains admittance either through walls, ventilators or open windows.” Mr. Tucker contended that by lining the cabin of an airplane with balsam wool, constructing it of three-ply wood, and by covering the floor with a carpet, the sound within the cabin could be reduced to one-sixteenth its volume in an empty, non-absorbent cabin.