Citizen scientist Scott Pigg is measuring peak noise levels from F-35 fighter jets on Madison neighborhoods
Isthmus, BY LIAM BERAN JUNE 11, 2024 8:00 AM
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The data nerd is measuring peak noise levels from F-35 fighter jets on Madison neighborhoods
After partially retiring in 2023, Scott Pigg wasn’t sure what to do with his newfound time.
“I had loved my 30 years of collecting data and analyzing energy efficiency,” Pigg, a former energy analyst and resident on Madison’s east side, says during an interview at his home on a sunny morning in late May. “I didn’t want to give that up.”
A citywide aviation controversy would provide Pigg’s answer. Walking through his backyard, he points out an antenna he installed on his roof — “that’s tracking that jet that’s flying overhead right now,” he says, pointing at the sky — and the star of the show: a white plastic enclosure attached to a roughly four-foot tall stake, with a sound level meter on top that takes recordings every eighth of a second.
Pigg built the set-up himself and has now installed 17 others throughout the city. He hopes the data he has sourced from the monitors might provide clarity in Madison’s ongoing debates around noise exposure from F-35 fighter jets, though he does not take a position on whether the jets should be in Madison or not.
“Part of what I wanted to illuminate was how many minutes of noise do we get, how many noise events, how loud do they get,” Pigg says. “The stuff that regular people can get their heads around.”
