In its mission to build a third runway, Heathrow is going high-tech. The UK’s biggest and busiest airport is using innovative sound simulations to try and show the real impact of expansion on the people living under its flightpath. And so, on a sunny spring morning, WIRED.co.uk finds itself shut in a windowless room listening to aircraft noise for 90 minutes.
“Noise is a big issue,” explains Matt Gorman, Heathrow’s sustainability director. “Typically how experts will measure noise is in terms of decibels or average sound levels, but actually we thought it would be really helpful to provide a realistic and objective experience of what future sound levels might be like.”
By: James Temperton,
