Two recent Seattle Times stories warrant CHS follow-ups. We’ll be looking into both of these soon. In the meantime, let’s jump in.

• Alaska Air tests fuel-saving landing procedure
  Part of life on Capitol Hill is jet noise. Sometimes, you don’t notice it. Sometimes, it seems like that jumbo jet is about to land on Broadway. The Times recently reported on a new effort to change the way planes land at the airport that could mean a big change in the jet noise we hear on the Hill and in neighborhoods across Seattle:

The new procedure, dubbed Optimized Profile Descent by the airline industry and its regulators, is a measure that uses high technology satellite-guided navigation, the power of computerized aircraft flight management computers with the oversight of the FAA to change the decades-old procedures for bringing aircraft from cruising altitude to a landing on the runway.

Times says that part of the new system currently being tested by Alaska Airlines would include a big change in the way Sea-Tac handles queuing its incoming jetliners by turning much of the process over to computers:

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By the airline’s calculations, 750,000 people in the Puget Sound area would hear less aircraft noise each year.

The benefit would come from more precise timing of arrivals in the airport vicinity.

What happens now, when multiple planes arrive in the Puget Sound area to land at roughly the same time, controllers extend the queue of planes lined up to land farther northward or southward depending on what direction the wind is blowing at the time.

When the line is long and planes are landing to the south, aircraft approaching from the south or west fly above Puget Sound northward, say as far as Lynnwood, before turning southward and joining the line of planes headed toward Sea-Tac runways. The same principle applies when landings are to the north with the line for landing extending well south of the airport.

Under a well-coordinated OPD system, aircraft would be instructed to slow down at cruise altitude where their fuel efficiency is at a maximum and noise reaching the ground is at a minimum to avoid reaching the area at the same time.

With the opening of Sea-Tac’s third runway late in 2008, incoming air traffic over the Capitol Hill area follows two main channels: the newest path around 12th Ave (red) and the long-term path along 19th Ave (green)

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According to the Times, the Hill could start to hear a reduction in jet noise as early as next year as Alaska Airlines puts the new process into action. But the public feedback is just starting and other neighborhoods that might be adversely affected by the change are already taking notice. CHS is looking into what is coming next on the public process front and what you can do to get behind a plan that will truly bring quieter skies to the Hill.

• Mayor candidates oppose 1st Avenue streetcar
  The Times notes that both Joe Mallahan and Mike McGinn oppose construction of a streetcar through Belltown and downtown as part of the plan mayor Greg Nickels pushed to replace the Viaduct. But Mallahan has also targeted the Capitol Hill/First Hill streetcar line:

Mallahan added that he would study and maybe oppose Sound Transit’s future streetcar across First Hill and Capitol Hill — even though it’s funded by last fall’s voter-approved Proposition 1. The line is Sound Transit’s consolation prize to one of the state’s most populated neighborhoods, after rising costs forced the transit board to cancel a First Hill light-rail station promised to voters back in 1996.

We’ll definitely have to dig into this. Standing up against the line would be a pretty bold move given that the project is being paid for by Sound Transit, not the city, and that community groups are already busy advocating for where the line should be built, not whether it should be built at all.