Story ID: 
Westchester County honors quiet operators
By: Curt Epstein
Caption: At a ceremony held at Westchester County Airport (HPN) in New York, airport administrators and local operator groups announced the 2007 and 2008 winners of
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At a ceremony held at Westchester County Airport (HPN) in New York, airport administrators and local operator groups announced the 2007 and 2008 winners of the airport’s Spirit of Noise Abatement Awards. Developed in 1994 to reduce the number of citizen noise complaints, the program recognizes based operators who comply with the airport’s noise-abatement procedures, including voluntary flight restrictions between midnight and 6:30 a.m., and who have no high range noise events greater than 93 dBA for the entire year (the threshold was reduced to 90 decibels for last year). The awards are based on results from the airport’s noise and operations monitoring system, a network of 20 noise monitors.Of the 31 award recipients several earned the award in both years. Business jet operators in that category included Air Frantz, D&F Partners, Delaney Aviation, Fayair, PMI Global Services and R.T. Vanderbilt. Turboprop operators honored for both years were Air Frantz, Air Life Line, Backrow Miller, ISDM, Joe Howley, John Friel, KW Griffen Packaging, NY Power Authority, Richard A. Foreman & Associates and Robert Wilner. Of the helicopter operators based at the airport, Gateway Helicopters, IBM Flight Operations and Interlaken Capital Aviation Services were presented with awards. D&F Partners won the award for the lowest average sound level for a single jet in 2007 and 2008. The award for the lowest sound level for a jet fleet went to JPMorgan Chase in 2007 and PMI Global Services in 2008.