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STEVE HUETTELAll airlines are now required to perform runup maintenance inside the noise-reducing enclosure.
TAMPA - Bob Hennessey has been jolted awake many Sunday mornings around 2 o'clock by the roar of a jet engine.
Planes rarely fly at nearby Tampa International Airport at such a wee hour. But airlines routinely perform jet maintenance overnight and rev up the engines to make sure everything's in working order.
"It sounds like someone's getting ready for a takeoff," says Hennessey, whose Town 'N Country home is about a mile north of the airport. "I feel like I'm sleeping with an elephant. If the elephant rolls over, we're awake."
He and other residents of neighborhoods near Tampa International got some relief Thursday when the airport opened a $5.9-million "runup enclosure" that dampens noise from engine tests.
The structure consists of three 43-foot-tall, sound-absorbing walls and sits on a 11/2-acre concrete pad on the east side of the airport. All commercial airliners and the noisiest private planes are now required to perform engine tests inside the facility.
"We're very fortunate to be so convenient - we're very close to the community," said Louis Miller, executive director of the Hillsborough County Aviation Authority, the agency that runs Tampa International. "But it has some negative aspects in terms of noise."
Delta Air Lines operates a hangar where mechanics do overnight maintenance on the airline's fleet. Other airlines fix planes as needed overnight, and the airport is trying to get an airline to take over a maintenance hangar that US Airways closed a year ago.
Complaints about the late-night engine tests most frequently come from neighborhoods bordering the airport, such as Drew Park, Dana Shores and Town 'N Country, said Ken Reed, Tampa International's noise officer.
But depending on wind direction and cloud cover, the roar has riled residents as far away as north Carrollwood - 8 to 10 miles distant, he said.
The runup enclosure is only the seventh of its kind at a U.S. airport, said Christopher Lynn, president of Blast Deflectors Inc., which built the structure. Its walls are made of 63/8-inch-thick panels designed to muffle engine noise.
At the core is a "pillow" of compressed fiberglass wrapped in protective material resembling Astroturf. That is stuffed between two layers of steel. The interior of the structure, facing the jets, is perforated to let sound inside the panels.
The aviation authority paid for the enclosure with a combination of Federal Aviation Administration grants and fees the agency receives from each passenger to pay for capital improvements at the airport.
"The airlines fly airplanes, and the the FAA tells them where to fly," Miller said. "But we're responsible for their noise impacts. We enforce the noise policies and educate the public."
Also Thursday, the aviation authority's governing board voted to spend $1.3-million for eight electronic message signs along the parkway leading in and out of Tampa International.
The signs can be programmed to give visitors a variety of information, from security alerts to parking directions, Miller said. The authority also plans to put smaller signs that display information about arriving flights for drivers waiting outside the baggage claim area.
In other action, the board selected the consulting firm Gresham, Smith and Partners to design a new parking garage on the remote lot behind the airport post office.
Tampa International has had enough parking for peak times such as Thanksgiving and Christmas since expanding the remote lot to 3,400 spaces last year by moving employee parking to the north side of the airport. Its master plan calls for 8,000 more spaces by 2020.
Miller expects to complete the first phase of the garage in two or three years. Besides designing the garage and performing engineering work, the consultant will recommend how to time construction.
- Steve Huettel can be reached at huettel@sptimes.com or 226-3384.