When Qatar Airways passed overhead last week at 9 pm, it peaked at 90 dBA. This is way too loud for residential areas. But last year, only 102 individuals reported excessive aircraft noise to Dulles Airport. WAY more people than that have complained about noise to us alone! So let's make sure Dulles Airport is getting a better picture of how disruptive aircraft noise is to Loudoun residents.

The best way to file consistent noise complaints easily is to do these three steps first. It will take about 15 minutes to get it all done. Then once you are set up, you only have to hit one button each time to report a noisy plane to the airport.

1) GET THE PLANE INFO: On your phone, download the useful app, FlightRadar24, and turn on the location services to find you. When you hear a noisy plane going overhead, hit the plane icon near your location and then do a screen grab. You will have the name of the airline, the altitude of the plane, the tail number (bottom right) and more information. Or log onto Webtrack from your laptop to get the same plane information.

2)  CREATE YOUR ACCOUNT ON THE DULLES WEBSITE: Next, go to the Dulles noise complaint form and create an account. It works best on Chrome. You only have to do this once. This is called your Viewpoint account. Note your user name/email and password. Then submit your first complaint as directed on that form, using the information you got from FlightRadar24 or Webtrack.

3) AUTOMATE COMPLAINTS THROUGH AIRNOISE: To save time in the future, all this can be automated through AirNoise.io. Visit that site and create your free account. You can submit 30 noise complaints a month with the free account and that will definitely help. To submit more, you need an inexpensive subscription. Once you have set up your account on Airnoise.io, go to settings and add your Viewpoint user name and password. That’s the account you created on the Dulles site. Now with Airnoise, all that is automated. You can access this website from your phone and just press the red plane icon when a noisy plane passes overhead and your complaint is sent directly to Dulles.

Let everyone you know who is affected by plane noise how to do this! And don't forget to join us for the November 9th Board of Supervisors hearing about the Aircraft Impact Overlay District. The LANMC team will be there and we are already signed up to speak.