Concepts of aircraft noise calculations

The various approaches to calculate aircraft noise are reviewed and the state of the art is described. Special attention is given to the description of airport operation, which has to be mapped into suitable input data for the calculations. The key feature of any aircraft noise calculation program is the availability of reliable and accurate sound source data for the aircraft types. Therefore, the lack of detailed source data for a large number of aircraft types prevents many sophisticated models from being used outside research areas. Within the EU6 project Imagine the methods are developed to use for aircraft noise calculations the same acoustic approach as e.g. for traffic noise by separating source emission and propagation. The application of that concept to aircraft noise is described.