Westfield preps noise mitigation as F-35 fighter jets arrive at Barnes Airport

The skies over western Massachusetts will grow significantly louder in the coming months as the Air National Guard's 104th Fighter Wing receives a fleet of up to 21 new F-35A fighter jets at Westfield-Barnes Regional Airport. The first four jets arrived on June 11 and have been conducting training missions about twice weekly, with noise levels that independent measurements showed reached nearly 100 A-weighted decibels — roughly twice as loud as the F-15C jets they replace.

The arrival represents a stark change from the quiet months following the retirement of the last F-15C last October. As flight operations ramp up, Westfield officials have announced a noise-mitigation strategy that differs sharply from their previous approach. Rather than purchasing and demolishing homes near the airport, as the city did between 2011 and 2019 when it bought 24 homes for noise mitigation, the city will use an anticipated $15 million in state and federal funding to install sound insulation and noise-reflecting window glazing on residences in the affected area.

Barnes Airport manager Dan Shearer told The Shoestring that retrofitting homes provides "more bang for the buck" than property acquisition, allowing the city to improve more residences. Shearer said he expects the city to receive around $3 million in initial grants, with $2.2 million allocated for construction and the remainder for an updated noise exposure map. It remains unclear when construction will begin.

A 2024 environmental impact study by the National Guard Bureau estimated that as many as 394 households would fall within areas where 24-hour average noise exposure exceeds federal standards for residential compatibility. However, that estimate may be conservative; the Guard's modeling predicted roughly half the actual number of homes affected by the retired F-15 fleet compared to real-world measurements by the Federal Aviation Administration.

The new F-35s are expected to fly twice as frequently as the older jets once the full fleet arrives, each aircraft costing more than $100 million. The Air Force plans to operate F-35s into the late 2080s at an estimated total cost exceeding $2 trillion, according to a Government Accountability Office report. Readers as far away as Northampton and Southwick have already reported hearing the jets during training sorties.

Federal law prevents the FAA from disbursing noise-mitigation funds until an updated noise exposure map is completed using real-world data, which depends on the 104th Fighter Wing achieving full operational status with all F-35s. Because the timeline for the complete fleet delivery remains unknown, mitigation efforts may not begin for more than a year after full operations commence.

Independent sound measurements conducted by The Shoestring recorded peak noise levels of 97.1 A-weighted decibels during a touch-and-go maneuver on July 14 and 98.9 A-weighted decibels from two jets overhead on July 23. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that sound over 95 A-weighted decibels can cause hearing damage in less than an hour, and the American Academy of Pediatrics has warned that environmental noise may be especially harmful to young children developing language and auditory skills. The Shoestring identified two schools and four childcare facilities located just outside the National Guard's estimated noise exposure area.