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AIRPORT: Congressman wants 'microjets' included in noise study
Fourth District Congressman Christopher Shays has written to the regional Federal Aviation Administration official, decrying the fact that microjets were not included in an FAA study of Danbury Airport and its noise.
Ridgebury residents and Ridgefield officials fear that the small jets, which will soon be available for recreational piloting, will add significantly to the aircraft noise over the northern part of Ridgefield, near the airport.
On March 8, Mr. Shays wrote Amy Corbett, regional administrator of the FAA in Burlington, Mass., expressing his “significant concern over the Part 150 study of Danbury Airport now being conducted by the FAA.”
Mr. Shays said that “when Michael Sohn of my staff met with your noise study team and the staff of the Louis Berger Group at Danbury City Hall on Feb. 2, 2006, the issue of ‘microjets’ not being included in the Part 150 was raised. As I understand it, Michael was told that certification of microjets was several years away and thus outside the window of the study. I am told Ridgefield First Selectman Rudy Marconi has also raised this issue with the FAA on more than one occasion.”
Mr. Shays told Ms. Corbett that recent articles in the Wall Street Journal (“The Next Thing in Jet Travel,” March 1, 2006) and New York Times (“FAA Says Era of the Air Taxi Is at Hand,” March 1, 2006) report that in the second quarter of this year the FAA will certify the first microjet, and the FAA “expects 100 or so of the jets to begin flying this year.”
He quoted The Journal as saying, “The use of private business jets will triple over the next decade, driven by the introduction of relatively inexpensive ‘microjets,’ the Federal Aviation Administration predicted. ...The FAA said yesterday that it expects these jets to be popular enough to drive up use of privately operated jet aircraft by more than 10% a year over the next 12 years.”
Mr. Shays said that Danbury Airport would seem to be the ideal location for the “new business model” of microjets discussed by Nan Shellabarger of the FAA in The Times. Ms. Shellabarger had disclosed the FAA predicts more than 1,650 microjets will be flying by 2010 — “well within the time horizon of the Part 150” study, Mr. Shays said.
“It is hard for me to understand why these planes have not and will not be included in the Part 150 study and it is my belief that any study that excludes the predicted impact from these planes would be incomplete if not wholly meaningless,” he wrote Ms. Corbett. “This study is an important step in building better relationships between Danbury Airport, the City of Danbury and the surrounding communities. To purposefully ignore what your agency has identified as a key growth area would do all involved a disservice.”
He urged “your reconsideration of this matter.”
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