the environmental challenge of civil jet aviation.  In 1951, the Authority adopted a regulation, still in force, prohibiting any jet from landing or taking off without permission at any facility operated by the Authority.  The purpose of this regulation was to make it clear to the developers of the first commercial jets that elimination of excessive noise was as important an element of design as safety or speed.  This message was driven home in the early 1950s, when an initial model of the British-made DeHavilland Comet was denied permission to land at New York International Airport because its noise level was deemed intolerable to the surrounding communities.  Shortly thereafter the Port Authority similarly denied landing permission to Boeing's prototype jet transport.


6
By 1955, the Port11, 1976, which banned the supersonic transport "Concorde" from Kennedy Airport and spawned this litigation, the 112 PNdB standard was uniformly applied to all aircraft seeking landing permission at Kennedy.


7
The Port Authority justifiably takes pride in its tradition of noise regulation.  Over the years it has consistently welcomed each advance in commercial aviation, provided progress was not achieved by sacrificing the well-being of the hundreds of thousands of people who reside in the vicinity of Kennedy Airport.  The Authority's firmness, coupled with the implicit promise that advanced aircraft would be permitted to land if they satisfied reasonable noise regulations, has undoubtedly contributed greatly over the years to the development of ever-quieter jet planes.


8
The Concorde.  Britain and France decided in 1962 to embark upon a dramatic