On one ordinary Thursday, 125 jet departures from Dublin Airport’s North Runway passed close enough to be heard over the edge of Ratoath. If the same departures had been sent over Ranelagh instead, which is exactly as far from the runway, Ranelagh would have heard all 125, the loudest at 78 dB(A). On the real day Ranelagh heard one.
Our new tool, Overhead, lets you run that test on your own street.
Why we built it
Anyone who complains about the North Runway is told the same thing: you bought a house near an airport. Our older explainer, You live near the airport!, answered it with a circle on a map and one flight track flipped onto the south side of the city. Overhead answers it with a whole day of real flights.
The point it tests is daa’s own. On 18 January 2023 daa told the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Transport that “the actual flight paths, whether they are the deviated or the original, are not a factor of our planning permission”. The runway needed planning permission and cannot move. On daa’s account, where the aircraft go after they leave it needs no one’s consent. If that is true, nothing decides whether the departures go over Ratoath or over Ranelagh except a choice somebody makes.
That is why this is not only a north Dublin and Meath problem. If the routes really need no planning permission, no planning permission protects anyone else from them either. The next change of route could be over your house, and on daa’s account no planning permission would stand in the way. Overhead shows what that would mean.
What it shows
The Overhead App takes every jet departure recorded off the North Runway on Thursday 20 August 2026, 322 flights, and asks what that day would be like at a place you pick. The runway stays where it is. The routes swing round until the departure stream passes over your chosen spot. Each aircraft keeps the height it really flew at that distance from the runway, at the same time of day, so the turn cannot make any flight lower or louder than it was.
For the place you pick, it reports:
- how many departures you would hear, and how many above 60, 65 and 70 dB(A)
- the loudest flight, the median flight, and the busiest hour
- every flight of the day on a 24-hour strip, so you can see the early mornings and late nights
- the real place that sits at the same distance and angle on today’s routes, and how many flights it actually got
You can also listen. The page plays a typical departure, the worst one, or a full hour of them, outdoors, with a window open, or with the windows shut.
Ranelagh, worked through
Pick Ranelagh and Overhead reports, for that one Thursday:
- 125 departures loud enough to hear, every one above 55 dB(A)
- 109 above 60 dB(A), 90 above 65, and 28 above 70
- a median peak of 68 dB(A), and the loudest, an Airbus A330-300 at 17:20, at 78 dB(A)
- 13 flights in the 07:00 hour alone
- aircraft passing at a median of about 1,440 metres above the roof
None of this is invented for Ranelagh. It is what the edge of Ratoath, 12.5 km from the same runway end, lived through that day.
Where the numbers come from
The flights are the real ones, recorded that day. The noise levels are daa’s own measurements. The loudness of each aircraft type at each distance comes from a model fitted to 364,831 noise-monitor events that daa recorded and released to us under access to information request AIE 2611. That is the same model as our LAmax study. We do not ask you to trust our estimate of how loud a jet is.
The tool understates the day, and says so. It leaves out turboprops and ten flights with no recorded aircraft type, so it counts 322 departures where 372 actually left the North Runway that day.
If you pick somewhere already under today’s routes, nothing is moved. You are shown the real day, so you can check the tool against what you hear from your own garden.
The indoor settings use daa’s consultant’s own assumptions: 15 dB less through an open window, 25 dB less with the windows shut. The page explains why those two figures sit uneasily together.
Before you press play
Use speakers, not headphones or earphones. The page plays aircraft at their measured levels, and the loudest departure of that day reaches 90 dB(A) at St Margaret’s. If you have a sound level meter, or a phone app, the page will walk you through setting your speakers to true loudness so you can check every figure yourself.
Your location stays private. The place you pick is kept in the part of the web address after the # sign, which your browser never sends to the server. You can share the link, and we still never learn where you live.
The people under today’s routes were never asked, because daa says it doesn’t need anyone’s permission. If daa is right, the same goes for you.