I lived under concord fought path and the double sonic boom was very annoying.

One way that you can deal with an 'externality' like this is to internalize it: rather than an outright ban, have the airline pay some money to those affected. Maybe that makes it too expensive to be worthwhile, maybe not, but at least it's no longer impossible.

That's a fake sort of internalization because you can't really establish a fair compensation.

For example, if I have a recording studio under the flight path, do I get more compensation in order to add sound-proofing?

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/preserving-sile... describes "a Natural Sounds Program .. with the aim of protecting and promoting the appreciation of park soundscapes."

> In Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, which have a major naval air station to the west and a large military air training space to the east, park officials take military commanders on a five-day "Wilderness Orientation Overflight Pack Trip" to demonstrate the effects of military jet noise on visitor experience in the parks. Before the program started in the mid-1990s, rangers reported as many as 100 prohibited "low flier" incidents involving military jets every year. Now the number of planes flying less than 3000 feet above the ground surface is a fourth to a fifth of that. Complaints are taken seriously, especially when, as has happened more than once, they're radioed in by irate military commanders riding on jet-spooked pack horses on narrow mountain trails. In that context, human cursing is generally regarded as a natural sound.

How do you charge for that?

Back around 2008, there was an aviation startup (forgot the name, started by an ex-IBMer) based out of the Boca Raton Airport. In order to use Boca as the base hub [1] it had to pay for window upgrades (and A/C) for houses in the flight path.

My house was in the flight path (about a mile from the airport as the plane flies; neighbor across the street? Not so lucky). Unfortunately, the airline went out of business due to the downturn in the economy (pity). So it is possible to internalize it.

[1] It was a charter air service. I was really looking forward to it. Even if it was more expensive than economy, it wasn't as expensive as business or first class. You did have to have very flexible travel schedule to get cheaper flights.

While it's obviously not a perfect solution, it's likely better than a blanket ban.

> For example, if I have a recording studio under the flight path, do I get more compensation in order to add sound-proofing?

No, but maybe you could sell out and move somewhere without that noise, and someone who is noise-tolerant would happily take your place + the compensation on offer.

The "no" is why it isn't really an internalized cost.

It's the same with any sort of pollution - what's the minimum I can pay someone in order to put up a insert smelly, explosive, noisy, etc. factory? Or to put in off-shore windmills which affects peoples' sea views? Or schedule airport takeoffs at 2am?

(I forgot another complication: does the payment go to the landowner or to the resident? Or both?)

Regarding "likely better than a blanket ban", a goal is to develop methods that reduce the effect of the sonic boom "to make overland flight acceptable." This is also better than a blanket ban, and doesn't require a new way to approximate impact costs and manage payments.

> Regarding "likely better than a blanket ban", a goal is to develop methods that reduce the effect of the sonic boom "to make overland flight acceptable." This is also better than a blanket ban, and doesn't require a new way to approximate impact costs and manage payments.

You can't put the cart before the horse. You have to get rid of the ban in order to make the whole thing worthwhile.

I see now that "blanket ban" is an incorrect description. As I understand it, the current prohibition is that supersonic planes (except Concorde) are allowed, so long as they are below a given noise level. Here's the law, https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/91.821 :

> Except for Concorde airplanes having flight time before January 1, 1980, no person may operate in the United States, a civil supersonic airplane that does not comply with Stage 2 noise limits of part 36 in effect on October 13, 1977, using applicable trade-off provisions.

Going back to an article from 1973, at http://elr.info/news-analysis/3/10067/faa-promulgates-strict... :

> The policy underlying this regulation puts the burden of establishing the environmental acceptability of supersonic civil aircraft flight on the proponent, rather than on the affected public. However, the FAA has also made available reasonable opportunity for aircraft manufacturers to prove the environmental acceptability of supersonic flight if they are able to control sonic boom research without harmful effects on the public.

The problem appears to be that airplane manufacturers cannot meet the existing noise level, so instead want the FAA to say what higher level is allowed. This places the cost and responsibility on the government rather than the manufacturers. So of course the manufacturers would like to shift that expense to someone else.

This is silly, you could hear the noise for tens of miles to either side of the flight path. Think about how high the plane was and how far the noise has travelled.

So are you proposing the compensation be one-time and significantly greater than the standard transaction fees on real estate? For reference, they're around $10k on an inexpensive house.

It'd have to be ongoing, I think. It's probably not as simple as a few lines in a comment on HN, no, but is a blanket ban on something potentially useful a good idea, just because it's simple? My inclination is 'no'.

Sure, but the usual outcome of such proposals is merely to placate those affected with less compensation than the actual harm caused, and to erode such payments over time after the affected have lost their veto. Honestly carrying out such a plan costs more than businesses are generally willing to pay, especially when their dollars go much further by corrupting the political process directly.

Blanket bans have costs for people, too, though. In this case, we're not talking about dumping toxic sludge in a river, either, but about a sonic boom.

Pollution is all in the amount. One drop of toxic sludge in the Pacific is okay. One sonic boom a month (like when the Space Shuttle came in, or from military flights), is okay.

What about 1 per day? 10 per day? 100 per day? What are the limits? Who determines the limits? Who bears the burden of dealing with the pollution - sludge or noise - and how are their voices heard?

As I pointed out elsewhere, the existing prohibition does not appear to be a "blanket ban". If your supersonic plane is sufficiently quiet, I believe it is allowed to fly. The problem is that we don't know how to build planes which are that quiet. What's at issue is who pays for figuring out which higher noise levels are acceptable - industry or the government. And industry doesn't like the current government answer.

You're demonstrating my point itself, by switching to a completely different talking point rather than fleshing out methods to earnestly compensate those affected.

Because it's a HN comment, not a scientific study on exactly what the best methods are. Sheez! The point is: if you spend some time thinking about it, you can probably find something that works 'ok' even if it's not perfect, thus 1) allowing supersonic flight and 2) internalizing the cost so that the market functions and there's some consideration of the costs to people in the flight path.

If it were so easy to do, why haven't the aircraft companies been able to propose a solution?

It was loud enough to make the birds take off in alarm. So I expect most wildlife was startled by the noise. You can't compensate a shrew.

I suspect that in the grand scheme of ways humans displace and cause problems for animals, sonic booms are not high on the list. I mean, you wrote that you lived there - so presumably you lived in a house, accessible from a paved road. Those things take habitat away from animals.

You want supersonic travel and sonic booms. I want the travel without the boom. It's then just an engineering exercise to remove it. Fly above the atmosphere. Travel in a vacuum tube. Make travelling more interesting so long travel times aren't an issue.

I just want people to be able to try stuff. I don't want sonic booms, but I think that the economic path from here to there is an evolutionary one, rather than making a quantum leap from booms to no booms. So to get there, you have to put up with some noise.