The Airport Noise and Capacity Act of 1990 (ANCA) required the Secretary of Transportation
to determine, through a study, the applicability of certain subsections of the Act to
airport restrictions on the operations of stage-2 jet aircraft weighing less than 75,000 pounds. (See 49 USC 47525.)1
The options available to the Secretary included:
(1) exempting restrictions on the lower-weight stage-2 aircraft from the regulations;
(2) applying the regulations uniformly to all stage-2 turbojet aircraft, regardless of weight; or,
(3) applying the regulations to the lower-weight stage-2 aircraft as though they were stage-3 aircraft.
The FAA completed a draft study and concluded that ANCA, as it pertains to stage-2 aircraft, provided the basic necessary protection to all segments of aviation and to the general public. The FAA also concluded that all these interests would be better served if the analyses of the impacts of the proposed restriction on stage-2 aircraft at an airport include separate detail on the costs and benefits of the proposed restriction with respect to the operations of stage-2 aircraft weighing less than 75,000 pounds. Therefore the study recommended that Part 161 should:
(a) Afford all stage-2 aircraft the same treatment whether or not they are above or below 75,000 pounds in gross weight, and
(b) Require that the airport operator in preparing the required analyses provide separate detail on the costs and benefits of the proposed restriction with respect to the operations of stage-2 aircraft weighing less than 75,000 pounds.
The draft study was included in the notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) for the new Part 161 (Docket 26432).2 The proposed rule solicited public comment on the issue: Should stage-2 aircraft weighing less than 75,000 pounds be treated differently from stage-2 aircraft weighing more than 75,000 pounds?3
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1. These sections of the Act required the establishment, by regulation, of a national program for reviewing certain airport noise and access restrictions on the operations of both stage-2 and stage-3 aircraft. This program was established by the FAA in Federal Aviation Regulations, Part 161, Notice and Approval of Airport Noise and Access Restrictions.
2. The final study (June 1991) is available in a PDF file (2.19 MB) at the Wyle Laboratories website.
3. The final rule and responses to public comment were published in 56 Federal Register 48698, Sept. 25, 1991.