During the Burlington Mayoral debate on Thursday, January 21, City Council President and mayoral candidate Max Tracy questioned incumbent Mayor Miro Weinberger about whether he continues to support the F-35 basing at the city’s airport “despite the near daily disruption of peoples’ lives.”

First declaring, “I believe in the science,” Mayor Weinberger went on to say that he still believes the F-35 jets are only modestly louder than the F-16s were and that they are less noisy in some places.

However, the science, as presented by the Air Force, shows that high aircraft noise levels cause distress and suffering, damage hearing, impair learning, interrupt classrooms, and degrade the cognitive development of children. The CDC, the EPA, the World Health Organization (WHO), and the Vermont Department of Health all added supporting evidence. More recent scientific papers also point to noise-induced hearing damage accelerating cognitive decline as people age.

Weinberger’s “less noisy” talking point requires omitting mention that F-35s currently take off without afterburner while the F-16s were routinely using afterburner for 90% of takeoffs (BR4-23). The afterburner squirts fuel directly into the exhaust stream, sharply increasing thrust and vastly increasing noise level.

The Air Force reported that the F-35 is more than 4 times louder than the F-16 when both are in non-afterburner flight (BR4-23 and C-2).

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