SOUTH BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) — A new sound monitoring system is in place near the Burlington International Airport to track noise made by aircraft using the airport.

The installation of the $340,000 system comes in response to the 2019 arrival of F-35 fighter jets at the Vermont Air National Guard base at the South Burlington airport, which is located near some of Vermont’s most densely populated residential neighborhoods.

The F-35s are louder than the F-16 fighters they replaced.

The National Guard has repeatedly said it aims to fly routes which lessen the noise impact of the planes, but some community members continue to be angered by the disruptions.

“We heard what the community wanted. We heard there needs to be transparency and openness as to what those noise levels are,” acting airport director of aviation Nicolas Longo told MyNBC5.com.

He says noise impacts are often subjective. The monitoring system aims to change that.

Two microphones are in place at Winooski City Hall and at Chamberlin School in South Burlington. The microphones measure actual decibel levels and feeds the information to a computer which overlays the noise measures with a map tracking airport flight operations.

A third sound monitoring unit is under construction in Williston and is expected to be online in November.

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