New Muffler Is Something To Shout About
Sydney Morning Herald
Saturday March 5, 1988
A Polish immigrant turned inventor and two brothers who run a Blacktown exhaust-pipe company believe they have a key to making Sydney a much quieter place.
But they claim few people have stopped to listen to them, and even fewer have offered to help develop the idea.
Charlestone Exhausts has now fitted a new muffler to an Airship Pacific blimp and has won a contract to cut noise from ground generators for F/A-18 Hornets.
Suddenly car and truck makers are also showing an interest.
Mr Stuart Badman, who runs Charlestone Exhausts with his brother Phillip, believes Australia could take a world lead in the huge potential market for reducing noise from vehicles and equipment.
Before Mr Badman took up development of the muffler system used on the blimp, its inventor, Mr Jan Kula, who runs a service station in Auburn, had been stewing over the idea for 20 years.
Mr Kula, who trained as a fitter, immigrated from Poland in l949 and worked as a foreman for Westinghouse brakes division, supplying equipment for trains.
In the l960s his workshop was working on the problem of fragile warning whistles - designed to alert train drivers - which were too easily damaged by cleaners. They experimented with two whistles directly facing each other, but this reduced the sound.
Twenty years later Mr Kula patented his invention for a muffler system based on the principle that opposing sound waves of the same pitch and frequency act destructively on each other, and within a muffler this does not effect the flow of gas.
He spent a year knocking on the door of large companies who he thought might be interested in making an innovation and stealing a competitive edge, but to no avail.
Then the Badman brothers, who have long been critical of apathy in the trade, seized on the idea in l986 and have made it an initial success.
They have since tried to get government assistance to speed up research and development and to go into full production, but they have approached seven separate authorities without result.
Mr Badman said yesterday that if he had been touting potential breakthroughs in computer software or pharmaceutics "things may be different"
"Even though noise is our worst form of pollution, no-one ever thinks of mufflers unless they break," he said.
Mr Badman said that he was now discussing a joint venture, if it was possible to do so and retain the identity of the small company. He claimed that within a year it might be possible to design and start producing muffler systems to reduce the roar of diesel trucks and buses to the sound level of a small car.
BLIMP CRITICS WON'T BE SILENCED
The new muffler system on one of Mr Alan Bond's airships has not silenced public opposition to blimps over Sydney.
One of the most vocal critics, the North Sydney Mayor, Mr Ted Mack, said yesterday: "It's quite obviously an improvement, if it works. But that won't get rid of the complaints."
Mrs Barbara Chapman, a Vaucluse ballet teacher, said the blimps are an eyesore. "I think it depends on what it's advertising, but people resent being advertised to. With beer and cigarettes, I feel doubly affronted."
She and Mr Mack believe there is also general resentment about the ownership links.
Mrs Chapman said: "If one has a conscience, one must have an opinion about a man who sells beer and has political dealings with Chile," she said.
Mr Mack said: "People see it as a continuation of the growth of the power of the millionaire entrepreneurs, like Bond and Murdoch, and the powerlessness of the people."
Mr Carl Daley, chief pilot of Airship Pacific, said the company was investigating a new material to house the propeller gearboxes, to cut noise further.
"I would like to believe that noise emission was the only reason people complain," he said. "But it's adopted a symbol of something it's not."
The Department of Aviation has received more than 1,130 complaints about the airships since they began regular flights last June.
Although the aircraft's drone has always ranked highly in what people hate about the blimps, it is only one of a few dislikes. There is also the advertising question and the threat to people's privacy that causes concern.
© 1988 Sydney Morning Herald