The most common form of hush kit is a multi-lobe exhaust mixer. This device is fitted to the rear of the engine and mixes the jet core's exhaust gases with the surrounding air and a small amount of available bypass air. Modern high-bypass turbofan engines build on this principle by utilizing available bypass air to envelop the jet-core exhaust at the rear of the engine, reducing noise. Most hush kits make further modifications to the exhaust, including acoustically treated tailpipes, revised inlet nacelles and guide vanes. They reduce the forward propagating, high-pitched noise caused by the small, high-speed fan. This kind of high-pitched noise is much less of an issue on modern high-bypass turbofan engines as the significantly larger front fans they employ are designed to spin at much lower speeds than those found in older turbojet, and low-bypass turbofan, engines.
Use
Modern aircraft equipped with Mid and high-bypass turbofan engines are designed to comply with contemporary aviation noise abatement laws and ICAO regulations. Several older aircraft that are still in service have hush kits retrofitted so that they are able to conform with noise regulations needed to operate in many commercial airports. Some of the examples include:
Hush kits can adversely affect the range and performance of the aircraft they are fitted to because of the extra weight. It also reduces engine performance and aerodynamic efficiency. For example, the hush kit fitted to the Gulfstream II adds to the total airplane weight of, causing around a 1.6% reduction in aircraft range. Meanwhile, the hush kit for the Gulfstream G-III jets weighs about and cause a calculated 2% drop in range, although the reduction in range has not been noticed during actual flights, which are rarely made to the very limit of the aircraft's range anyway. On a larger aircraft, like Federal Express's Boeing 727s, the hush kits add of extra weight and this results in an overall 0.5% increase in fuel burn for short trips.
Regulation
While hush kits effectively reduce noise emissions from older aircraft, noise cannot always be reduced to the level of modern planes at a reasonable cost. In 1999, this concern led to a regulatory dispute between the United States and the European Union, where the EU proposed a new noise ordinance which effectively prevented the use of hush kits in Europe. This regulation threatened to reduce the value of the mostly-American used airplanes that employed hush kits and hurt the profits of American hush kit manufacturers. EU Regulation 925/99 was passed over US threats to ban Concorde but was superseded by EU Directive No. 2002/30/EC issued March 26, 2002. In 2013, the FAA modified 14 CFR part 91 rules to prohibit the operation of jets weighing 75,000 pounds or less that are not stage 3 noise compliant after December 31, 2015. Any Stage 2Business jets that have not been modified by installing Stage 3 noise compliant engines or have not had Stage 3 hush kits installed for non-compliant engines will not be permitted to fly in the contiguous 48 states after December 31, 2015. 14 CFR §91.883 Special flight authorizations for jet airplanes weighing 75,000 pounds or less – lists special flight authorizations that may be granted for operation after December 31, 2015.
