An examination of the variations in estimated models for predicting annoyance due to supersonic aircraft noise

There is a need for good criteria to evaluate the acoustic outcomes of designs of future commercial supersonic aircraft. Such criteria could be used with sound predictions to assess impact on communities under flight paths of supersonic aircraft. While surveys of communities exposed to supersonic aircraft noise should be part of the criteria development and validation, some candidate models of people’s responses need to be developed to help focus the design of the community tests. While several tests have been conducted, the models proposed to predict annoyance differ. Analysis of response data from several sonic boom subjective tests is presented. Either indoor or outdoor sounds have been used in the tests, and the models are based on metrics from indoor and from outdoor sounds. The effects of the environment in which the people hear the sounds, the signal sets used in the tests and in the analysis, the metrics and types of models used are discussed.