Hush! Our company's journey toward quieter skies

Shah explains how the performance of the prototype created by the San Diego-based company ATA Engineering, of its proposed Engine Air Brake, safely induce quiet drag during aircraft landings. The noise during landing results mostly from the air disturbed by aircraft structures, such as edges, control surfaces, landing gear, high-lift devices and speedbrakes. An alternative would be to incorporate quiet drag devices that permit steeper, slower and/or aeroacoustically cleaner approaches. One such device is an Engine Air Brake, or EAB, prototype developed by ATA Engineering, developed under NASA sponsorship with Williams International of Michigan and Utah as an engine partner, and with subject matter expertise from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The pursuit of quiet drag received a big boost from the "Silent Aircraft Initiative," a research project carried out in the mid-2000s by the University of Cambridge in England and MIT with a host of aerospace industry partners. Aim to develop the conceptual design of an aircraft whose noise would be effectively imperceptible outside the perimeter of an average daytime urban airport.