VTOL AND NOISE
SIR,—I was very interested in Mr. Oliver Stewart's article on 'VTOL at Farnborough.' The fact that technical developments are making it possible for aeroplanes to ascend and descend vertically seems to me to be of great importance. Apart from the sav- ing of public money which will be involved, I suppose this means that aeroplanes will be able to approach an airport at a much greater height and, therefore. the nuisance caused by the noise of aeroplanes approaching the airports will be very much lessened. I feel very strongly about the question of noise since I happen to live in Chiswick and aeroplanes there are allowed to fly below the minimum height at which they are otherwise required to fly over London because they are approaching London Air- port. This nuisance is rapidly increasing, and many times of the day, and even sometimes at night, life is sometimes now intolerable because of the noise.
Does Mr. Stewart agree that the development he describes will help to solve the noise problem?
A professor gaily writing in the Manchester Guar- dian Air Supplement for September 1 says that, with the use of jets, we can look forward to a period of more noise in spite of the measures he talks about which will be used to reduce noise. Can Mr. Stewart please say if the new development he described can be applied to jet aircraft?
' I very much hope that increased pressure will be put upon the Government to force manufacturers of aircraft to adopt these systems of vertical take-off and landing.—Yours faithfully,
ROBERT S. W. POLLARD
12 Rochester Row, Westminster, SW I
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