New Thames Airport for London

[silverstrata]

.
A report in today's Sunday Times says that Boris Johnson will make a new proposal for a new Thames Airport for London (Boris Island).


Clearly, London needs a new airport.

Heathrow:
Heathrow is bulging at the seams, and taxying there is a nightmare, with the ever present danger of wing-tip collisions. While terminals 1,2 & 3 are a national disgrace. Plus the approach and take off can both be over central London. Had this Korean Air 747 crashed on take-off from Heathrow, rather than from Stanstead, the results could have been dire.

Stanstead Boeing 747 crash.
BBC News | UK | Crash jet 'on fire at take-off' (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/575795.stm)


Gatwick:
Gatwick probably has the slickest ATC in the world. But this does mean that "take-off immediate" actually means "why are you still here? you should already be half way down the runway". Likewise the approach spacing of 1.5nm means that the landing is often made with another aircraft still on the runway ("land after"). It is not an airfield for beginners or pilots from 'nations unacquainted with efficient operations'.


Stanstead:
Stanstead could be a major airport, but it needs another 4 runways, and is positioned in the wrong location. Many passengers want to get to the north and west, or to the continent, and that is not easy from Stanstead.



New London Airport:
A new London airport is definitely required, if London is to maintain its position as a world hub and a world business center. The central locations for world business are not enshrined in stone, and London is relying on borrowed time and yesteryear's legacy. Businesses and banks can go anywhere, and if Schiphol is a better hub, they will go there - especially since the Dutch speak better English than the English, and their education is streets ahead of Blair's dumbed-down education system (where a 25% grade is a 'C' pass, and 'speaking a foreign language' includes understanding BBC English - innit).


The plans:

Foster's Thames design:
Unfortunately, Lord Foster's concept for a Thames airport is a non-starter. The runways are too close together, which would greatly impede taxying aircraft and increase the danger of air-ground collisions. The terminal is at the end of the runway, which is both daft and dangerous in equal measure. And the site is next to a potentially highly explosive oil and gas terminal and a WWII wreck containing thousands of tonnes of explosives. And the westerly runways still require all flights to overfly central London (why are they so stupid?).

Clearly, Lord Foster needs fewer planners and lawyers on his team, and a few more pilots and air-traffic controllers.

http://wordlesstech.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Thames-Hub-airport-by-Foster-+-Partners-2-620x396.jpg



Boris' Thames design:
This is a better idea - a new island in the Thames estuary with as many runways as you like (preferably 6), all facing southwest, and with the terminal buildings joined into the UK's new high speed rail network. This proposal takes the noise and danger away from London, allow 24-hour operations, and would reinstate the UK as a world aviation hub (and therefore a world business hub).

But please, Boris, do make sure the cross-rail project links into this new airport, and do make sure that the TGV Channel rail-link and proposed TGV Manchester rail-link also converge here. Some brain-dead planning plonker has already built the TGV Channel link too far to the west of this site, which has wasted £billions, so please do not allow the new Manchester TGV link to be built without a link to the Thames airport.

If Cross-rail will allow high speed trains, then link the Thames airport to Cross-rail, towards the west of London, and then up through the proposed Manchester TGV route. If not, then you will need a N.E. london bypass line, to link up with the Manchester TGV line.


http://i.thisislondon.co.uk/i/pix/2010/03/essex_415x275.jpg



P.S. The idea of two terminals in this plan is a non-starter. People want to come from Europe, from the UK's north, west and south, and arrive at the airport. Guiding all the TGV rail lines and motorways so they pass through two terminal sites on either side of the Thames is just crazy. You need one large airport complex, with the terminal(s) at the center.

Oh, and since I know that planners and architects are generally brain-dead - please add another 3m of height to all your plans and calculations, to allow for the settlement that planners never allow enough for. (Google Kansai Airport).


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[captplaystation]

Off topic, but the link you provided to the STN Korean Air crash is a lovely example of how the Press & eye witnesses get it so completely wrong.

Engine & fuselage debris all over the runway is seldom caused by the failure of the Capt's ADI.

But why let that get in the way of a "sensational" story ?

[Out Of Trim]

In my opinion, the Thames Estuary is a Non-Starter anyway! :confused:

The place would be frequently Fog Bound and Highly Dangerous with the number of Sea Birds that happen to live there; the Bird-strike Risk would be a major concern. :eek:

And the City of London is still at the Western-end of the Estuary! :ugh:

[brakedwell]

If someone could come up with an underground airport it would solve a lot of the problems - but it might cause a few others :O

[777boyo]

Plus ca change, plus le meme chose.

This debate has been going on since the early-60's and the Roskill Commission. Maplin Sands was suggested then as a site for a new London Airport, along with Stansted, Thurleigh,and another site north of London in Bedfordshire, whose name escapes me (possibly Little Staughton?). Politicians were too wet to make a decision then, and we're now paying the price instead of reaping the economic rewards of a bold investment choice. An assortment of tree-huggers, twitchers, frog fans and tadpole lovers (not to mention nimby stockbrokers and retired Colonels) effectively obstructed the project :ugh:

Anyone really think we'll get such a decision now?

Meanwhile, our civil aviation industry gets battered by taxes and over-stretched facilities ( ATC - my hat off to you guys, definitely the worlds best), while AMS,CDG, and,yes, DXB,AUH and DOH benefit from our lack of foresight and action. I'll wager that the debate is still raging in ten years time, shortly after T6 is finished at LHR :rolleyes:.

[Dawdler]

The place would be frequently Fog Bound and Highly Dangerous with the number of Sea Birds that happen to live there; the Bird-strike Risk would be a major concern.
This will rule out any Thames Estuary development. A few years ago, a certain Mr Darling proposed a major new (London) airport at Rugby, my neck of the woods, (prompting a plethora of signs in the area stating "Not now Darling!" It was clearly a red herring as is any proposal to build in/on the Thames. Similar to Rugby, it will be used as a lever to develop one of the existing airports, extra runways, new terminals etc.

Unless of course the powers that be have invented a way of controlling the weather and training the local waterfowl.

[Say again s l o w l y]

At least Boris is trying to sort out the mess and understand how important aviation actually is to the economy of a modern country. The rest of the political system seems to regard aviation as nothing more than a convenient cash cow.

This has been rumbling on for years and there are massive problems to overcome for a Thames Estuary airport, but they are not insurmountable and with LHR maxed out, something needs to happen.

[fireflybob]

The place would be frequently Fog Bound and Highly Dangerous with the number of Sea Birds that happen to live there; the Bird-strike Risk would be a major concern.

With most aircraft having CAT 3 capability and much enhanced systems which be around in ten years time I don't think this would be a major issue - there are times when the current London airports become fogbound which slows down the flow rate - another reason for having more runway capacity in the SE.

Has any informed risk assessment been done on the bird hazard?

[silverstrata]

Out of trim:

In my opinion, the Thames Estuary is a Non-Starter anyway!

The place would be frequently Fog Bound and Highly Dangerous with the number of Sea Birds that happen to live there; the Bird-strike Risk would be a major concern.

And the City of London is still at the Western-end of the Estuary!


Hopefully fog is less of a problem with modern Cat IIIB autoland systems. Fogs are only a problem at LHR because the airport is operating at saturation levels, and cannot cope with the extra spacing required for low-vis opps. But with double the inbound capacity, that should not be a problem at Boris Island - the Thames airport.

Birds like open grassland (airfields), as much as they do the sea, so that is a known and manageable problem.

And if the airport is orientated to the southwest (as it should be, into the prevailing winds), the vast majority of take-offs will miss London entirely - including all the suburbs. The quality of life and quality of air will be improved for millions of people (the prevailing SW winds will take any pollution away from London, instead of over it).


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[silverstrata]

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Has any informed risk assessment been done on the bird hazard?



Dealing with birds is not unique to coastal locations - this is simply an excuse by Greens** and Nimbys to prevent any improvement in UK infrastructure.

This was a regular sight in the autumn over the Mersey Bridge just east of LPL airport (another estuary airport that seems to operate ok) - Skip to 2:00 in:


eakKfY5aHmY&feature=related




If the aircraft at LPL can dodge that lot (starling flocks), I am sure Boris Island will be ok.
Note: Only Ryanair dares fly through a 'starling murmuration', as they are known:


http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f77/PIREP/ryanair-REUTERS_78481a.jpg




** The great goal of the Greens, is to take us back to a 'golden age' located somewhere between the Dark and Middle Ages - a golden age wracked by poverty, famine, disease and an average life expectancy of 40 years.



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[Dawdler]

Birds on a land based airfield can be discouraged by keeping the grass at the rght length. They don't seem to like six inch high grass as they can't see predators arriving. I don't believe the same precautions would be available over wetlands.

Far from being a NIMBY's or "Greens" reason to oppose the development, I would contend that it is a real obstacle, not one invented to scupper the airport. Wetland birds also tend to be bigger and heavier than the main inland varieties. Hit a sparrow, starling etc you will probably get away with it, I wouldn't have the same confidence after hitting a Greylag or Canadian goose.

[silverstrata]

Dawdler:
Birds on a land based airfield can be discouraged by keeping the grass at the rght length. They don't seem to like six inch high grass as they can't see predators arriving. I don't believe the same precautions would be available over wetlands.

Wetland birds also tend to be bigger and heavier than the main inland varieties. Hit a sparrow, starling etc you will probably get away with it, I wouldn't have the same confidence after hitting a Greylag or Canadian goose.



Birds like estuary wetlands, as you say. But this airport will not be a wetland, it will be a concrete slab in the coastal North Sea. There will be no wetlands, no reed beds, no shallow waters - nothing of interest to most sea birds.

Apart from birds migrating from shore to shore, which can be dealt with, there should be no greater bird threat on an isolated island, than at Heathrow. As an aside, the area for this new island is predominantly saline, and most geese (apart from the brent) do not like saline water.


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[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

<<Likewise the approach spacing of 1.5nm>>

Novel, but nonsense.

[Nick Thomas]

Silverstrata you may well be able to fly a plane but since when has that made you an expert on planning, civil engineering and architectural matters. Have you studied Lord Foster's proposals in detail. The newish Hong Kong airport designed by Foster has it's terminal at one end and works well. A terminal in the centre of the airport will as in Heathrow at some point restrict future expansion. As for your comments re settlement I guess you must have a beta version of the yet to be released Microsoft Civil engineering simulator, but what do I know am only a "brain dead Architect"
If you want a meaningful discussion on a new London Airport I suggest you would be wise not to alienate the very people who can contribute something to the debate.

[Uncle Fred]

I wonder if perhaps that this is a problem that has no solution? As a Yank I hedge a bit of admiration for those who are tackling this issue but do the geographical realities of greater London simply prevent a magic bullet solution? One simply might not be able to find enough land (or Estuary) space onto which to plop 4 runways/terminals/access roads & rail etc.

Maybe a stretch with the analogy, but New York and Washington have the same problem. Domestic passangers prefer Laguardia but the international has to be handled out at JFK which, as many readers here know, adds a LOT of transit time to downtown Manhattan.

Washington has Dulles well to the west of downtown and domestic passangers doing business in the city prefer National.

Short of building a runway 18 at LHR through the resevoir what, at this point, can be done?

If I were King for a day I would tax the masses and build an elevated motorway from LHR to downtown. I hate for my memory of life to be sitting in traffic staring at the sign for the Hammersmith flyover...

That all having been said, I would like to see a Boris island solution. Clear out Westminster (no need for the MPs anyway) and pour the runways there.

[Aero Mad]

My solution:

Heathrow - long/medium-haul flights only.
Gatwick - short/medium-haul flights only.
Manston - overflow.

One of the largest runways in the UK, two miles from a high-speed trainline which is 35mins from Central London. 'All you need' is a new terminal. And, before you complain about noise: Heathrow is to Hatton Cross as Manston is to Ramsgate. The latter airport is no closer to conurbations than Heathrow...

My solution would cost less than 10% of Boris Island... but it wouldn't provide a port or a new Thames Barrier. Any thoughts?

It leaves Stansted, Luton and Southend untouched to do whatever the hell they like and we don't even have to tarmac over swathes of the countryside or destroy hundreds of houses! :D

[Say again s l o w l y]

Your solution only allows for point to point travel. All very well, but hardly a solution when you want there to be a proper hub airport in the UK.

All that happens there is that LHR and LGW become purely for Brits and people travelling to Britain. Rather limiting really.

[Aero Mad]

Now you're gonna laugh at me, but this is where my other scheme comes in... do what BAA did in the 1980s and run a regular helicopter shuttle between the three airports. As it turned out, the M25 wasn't the be all and end all for airport transfers but nobody has ever got round to reinstating it.

[Say again s l o w l y]

How realistic a propostion is that really? A nice idea of course, but there are enormous problems with this from cost, to getting this past greenies and then there's the small issue of aircraft and helicopter movements.

I'd love to see it, but I just can't see it working nowadays.

[jabird]

There must be more renderings of 'Norm island' to analyse re: just what is at the end of the runways, and what is between them.

HKG is great engineering, and great architecture, but it came at a massive price, in a city that didn't have other greenfield sites to continue, and that really did have a dangerous approach.

I'm not sure how much 'not now Darling' was relevant re: Cliffe and Rugby, both came from private consultants, and he won't have got a look in - iirc, the report pre-dated his tenure in the transport job anyway, which only seems to be a staging post to other positions these days.

The cost of the Foster proposals has been put at upto £50bn (+where do you go from here), Boris Island not much less. Rugby was far cheaper at c. £6bn, and it too was close to high speed rail lines (forget about TGVs through Crossrail, that really is a non-starter, fast and slow don't mix).

However, when I saw the RUG plans, and the then loyal poodle MPs bark out their cries against them, it was obvious that the government wasn't serious. you only had to ask any airline if they wanted to move from Heathrow to the middle of Warwickshire, and the answer was obvious.

So we're back to making the best of LHR - who says air travel is going to grow anyway, there are plenty of reasons (fuel, tax, CO2, high speed trains) why demand may well stagnate at best, and quite possibly shrink. Let LHR take the transfer pax, and allow limited expansion at STN, LTN, and to a lesser extent (given current usage of single runway) LGW. Oh, and overflow to SEN, then MSE................

London has enough airports!

PS - re: birdstrike, plenty of interesting developments in this field, by time this airport did get off the estuary bed, engine technology should have advanced to being able to cope with this problem.

[Mr Optimistic]

Don't mention Thurleigh and Little Staughton for gawds sake. I live there ! No hope for Luton ?

[FlyingEagle21]

So I assume the new Airport would replace LHR?

I do think the airport would be the wrong side of London and just a bit too far from Central London.

LHR is in the wrong place but at the same time in a great place for business with access to the Thames Valley corridor and West London.

Also what will happen to the 80,000 workers who live this side of London and the thousands more workers in industries that will be affected by the eventual closure of LHR if this goes ahead?

[silverstrata]

Heathrow Director:
<<Likewise the approach spacing of 1.5nm>>
Novel, but nonsense.


Gatwick have special permission from the CAA to run 'reduced wake vortex separation minima' of 2.5nm (and I have heard of less than that).
But certainly in regard to arriving/departing aircraft, that reduces to 1.5nm. Many is the time I have landed while the departing is still on the runway (a 'land after' clearance). Or indeed, the landing aircraft in front is still on the runway.






N Thomas:
Silverstrata you may well be able to fly a plane but since when has that made you an expert on planning, civil engineering and architectural matters. Have you studied Lord Foster's proposals in detail. The newish Hong Kong airport designed by Foster has it's terminal at one end and works well.

If you want a meaningful discussion on a new London Airport I suggest you would be wise not to alienate the very people who can contribute something to the debate.



I see nothing at the end of Lap Kok runways, for overrunning aircraft to run into.

And while being nice to everyone is very New Labour, it gets nothing done. Why do you think that no UK infrastructure was built over the last decade, while China has built 40 cities the size of Birmingham? (Even if some of them remain empty.)
This is a city built for a million people - but no one lives here | Mail Online (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1391868/This-city-built-million-people--lives-here.html)





Aero Mad:
My solution:
Heathrow - long/medium-haul flights only.
Gatwick - short/medium-haul flights only.
Manston - overflow.



Ok.... American businessman in Heathrow, short-haul connection in Gatwick, bags at Manston. Brilliant. With thinking like that, the future of Schiphol is assured.



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[Facelookbovvered]

Why not move it further out and South East, say just to the East of Paris??

LGW ATC best in the world? er no, their good and make good use of single runway ops, but not a patch on Malaga who likewise for a single runway (for now) can really pack them in, no where else in the world can get close to simultaneous approaches on opposite ends of the same runway:eek::eek::eek:

[Capetonian]

Now you're gonna laugh at me, but this is where my other scheme comes in... do what BAA did in the 1980s and run a regular helicopter shuttle between the three airports.

Err, yes! The capacity of even a large helicopter is ..........?

[silverstrata]

Flying eagle:
So I assume the new Airport would replace LHR?

I do think the airport would be the wrong side of London and just a bit too far from Central London. LHR is in the wrong place but at the same time in a great place for business with access to the Thames Valley corridor and West London.

Also what will happen to the 80,000 workers who live this side of London and the thousands more workers in industries that will be affected by the eventual closure of LHR if this goes ahead?



Yes, it would replace LHR.

Passengers from the Thames airport would access the Thames valley corridor by Cross-rail. The M25 is more problematic, because of capacity restrictions. I did tell planners back in the late 1970s that the M25 needed 6 lanes a side, but again they thought they knew better.

The old LHR will become a boom-town, as it is re-designated as the largest industrial park and housing estate in the S.E. So not all the workers will need to relocate, there will be plenty of jobs around Heathrow. The money from this new estate, is what will pay for Boris Island and the Thames airport infrastructure.

Aviation workers will need to relocate, of course, and new-towns will need to be constructed in Kent and Essex to house them - with rapid transit links via the new rail system to the island, from car parks and bus terminals to the north and south. This is a 10 - 15 year project. The most difficult period will be the switchover, but many large corporations have moved their head office without too much difficulty.


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[silverstrata]

Facelook:

Why not move it further out and South East, say just to the East of Paris??



That, my dear Facelook, is the entire problem in a nutshell.
The trouble is, all the businesses, all the jobs, and all the money, relocate to Paris too. Now while New Labour tried to destroy Britain by fancy political footwork like this, it is my desire to preserve the ancestral lands. Because they are worth it....






Facelook:

LGW ATC best in the world? er no, their good and make good use of single runway ops, but not a patch on Malaga who likewise for a single runway (for now) can really pack them in, no where else in the world can get close to simultaneous approaches on opposite ends of the same runway




Err, you do jest, surely. Or are you on medication?

Gatwick movements 2010 - 240,000
Malaga movements 2010 - 105,000

That makes Gatwick nearly 2 1/2 times busier than Malaga. And if you had ever operated from there, you would not question those statistics or the efficiency of the operation.


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[Nick Thomas]

Silverstrata
Why oh why do you think that you have all the answers concerning a new airport. Discussing it with people who have experience in this kind of work is common sense and has nothing to do with New Labour. Comparing China's building programme with our's is a red herring. They are in a completely different development phase to us. Also we have a thing called democracy and large projects rightly are very closely scrutinized. It's one way of ensuring that people who know little about the real issues don't ruin our environment.
Maybe you ought to ring up Norman and tell him where he has gone wrong am sure he will be glad of your help.
Am beginning to think it's you that are brain dead an insult you are quite willing to freely throw about.
I would take your comments more seriously if you could base them on some real evidence. Have you ever been involved in designing and procuring large civil engineering and Architectural projects? I some how doubt it

[Piltdown Man]

There will be no new airport. I'd don't think any financial institution would stump up enough cash to pay for it unless it was 120% or more underwritten by UK taxpayers with guaranteed future returns. Banks will only invest if there is no risk and a return within five years. And as the government doesn't have enough (of my) cash, it won't make these assurances and fortunately the days of Blair are well gone. So it won't be happening. But fortunately the public toilet called Heathrow will continue to soldier on and provide me with a living.

PM

[Ranger 1]

As someone who has been involved with Bird Hazard Control for over 20 years, upon reading this thread my initial thoughts were to launch head long into a lecture on the subject, however it's pleasing to see Birdstrike concerns have been raised quite clearly already.

For the Ornithologists amongst you here is a website of interest :)

http://www.rspb.org.uk/news/details.aspx?id=tcm:9-203710

Ranger 1 :ok:

[Facelookbovvered]

T'was all in jest........and yes i have and do operate into both, LGW ATC are excellent, AGP (controller on the job monitoring) less so!! will be interesting to see how they go on when the 10 or11 runway opens next year!

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

<<Gatwick have special permission from the CAA to run 'reduced wake vortex separation minima' of 2.5nm (and I have heard of less than that).
But certainly in regard to arriving/departing aircraft, that reduces to 1.5nm. >>

Heathrow can also employ 2.5nm spacing. I know - I did it for many years. I have never seen less than 2.5nm and I do not believe that it is authorised anywhere in the UK. I don't know what you mean by the second sentence above..?? The final approach spacing would never intentionally be reduced to 1.5nm or the go-around rate would be enormous. Under normal wind conditions 5-6nm is needed to get departures away in the gaps. In very strong wind this can be reduced slightly..

[silverstrata]

N Thomas:
Comparing China's building programme with our's is a red herring. They are in a completely different development phase to us. Also we have a thing called democracy and large projects rightly are very closely scrutinized.



"China in a Different Development Phase".
Ah yes, I remember this - it was a New Labour buzzphrase for: "we are incapable of making a difficult decision". And with certain ministers it also implied: "we agree with the Greens that we should all go back to the Dark Ages and mud huts".

Just what the hell was the purpose of spending 10 years and £250 million on various public enquiries, when everyone knew Terminal 5 would be built anyway? A classic case of kicking a difficult decision into the long grass - almost on a par with the absurd Bloody Sunday enquiry. So T5 took 13 years to build, while China built a much larger new Beijing terminal in 2 years.

Do you think, in your heart of hearts, that the UK can maintain our standard of living and quality of life, if every tiny infrastructure project takes 13 years to build? To politicians everywhere - Rediscover your b*lls, and make a decision.


Shenzhen by night:
http://undeadastronauts.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/shenzhen.jpg


Dalian by night:
http://www.chinese-in-china.com/uploads/images/dalian_night.jpg


Chongqing by night:
http://mychinaconnection.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/night-view-of-chongqing-xinhua-file-photo.jpg

etc: etc: etc: (x50)


Oh, and Birmingham by night:
http://politicalsciencejuniorfellows.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/birmingham_night_color_web1.jpg


Enough said, I think.




(this) has nothing to do with New Labour.


This has everything to do with New Labour.

Instead of wasting ten years doing nothing and £trillions on social engineering projects, New Labour should have been building projects like this new Thames Airport.

Where is the New Labour high speed rail network?
Where is the New Labour motorway network?
Where are the New Labour sea ports?
Where are the New Labour airports?
Where is the New Labour space agency?
Where are the New Labour nuclear power stations?
Where are any New Labour power stations?
Where is the New Labour electrical distribution network?
Where is the New Labour Thames sewer system (which is urgently needed)?

A nation does not move forward by standing still - it actually goes backwards. This is what destroyed the old USSR, which had not updated its major infrastructure for 50 years, and eventually fell apart.

Now I know that is what New Labour wanted for the UK, to undermine the fabric of the nation for Marxist ideological reasons, but it is not what the people of this country want.





As someone who has been involved with Bird Hazard Control for over 20 years, upon reading this thread my initial thoughts were to launch head long into a lecture on the subject, however it's pleasing to see Birdstrike concerns have been raised quite clearly already.



The airport is not going to be in the 'Thames estuary environment', it is going to be 'in the North Sea environment'.

Give us some details about the number of birds in the 'middle of the North Sea', between Shoeburyness and Sheerness.





Facelook:

T'was all in jest........and yes i have and do operate into both, LGW ATC are excellent, AGP (controller on the job monitoring) less so!!


Then you need to attach a /sarc tag - and I apologise. But honestly, judging by some of the defeatist comment we see here, I did think you were serious.

As an aside - I do wonder what the hell is going on when the controllers are 'on the job'. I always imagine the tower all steamed up and swaying side to side slightly.


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[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

<<Apart from birds migrating from shore to shore, which can be dealt with, there should be no greater bird threat on an isolated island, than at Heathrow. >>

Hmmm.. I was on watch early one morning when we had a record 210 bird strikes in 5 minutes and both runways had to be closed!

[TURIN]

I take it you will be moving to China in the near future then?

I'm sure your quality of life will improve dramatically when your entire village is bulldozed without so much as a 'by-your-leave' to make way for the next big development that no one will use.



Anyway, back to the thread...

Only one runway has been built in the UK since the war, If the highspeed rail link lives up to expectations then MAN will become your overspill for leisure travellers leaving LHR and LGW to cope with the business traveller. As everyone knows there are no businesses in the rest of the country........



Tin hat on. :E

[spekesoftly]

Only one runway has been built in the UK since the war ......
Most of Heathrow's hard surface runways were constructed immediately post WWII.

Gatwick 1950s

East Midlands, Newcastle, Luton and Liverpool 1960s

Edinburgh 1970s

London City 1980s

Sheffield City 1997 (Closed 2008)

Manchester 2001

[fireflybob]

Note: Only Ryanair dares fly through a 'starling murmuration', as they are known:

silverstrata, that statement is a distortion of the facts.

The crew observed a murmuration on short final and elected to GoAround (follow Boeing and Company SOPs at the time) - during this maneuver the aircraft sustained multiple bird strikes and the engines suffered major loss of thrust and the GoAround was abandoned for a crash landing on the runway.

[silverstrata]

Out of trim:

The place would be frequently Fog Bound....



Errrm, you mean like LHR today?

Remember that LHR's fog problem today is due low-vis procedures and its limited capacity (operating at max even on a good day).

If this were the Thames Airport, in similar conditions, it would be able to handle all flights. (Did not see this morning's RVRs at LHR, but BRU was around 250m)


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[silverstrata]

Firefly:

The crew observed a murmuration on short final and elected to GoAround (follow Boeing and Company SOPs at the time) - during this maneuver the aircraft sustained multiple bird strikes and the engines suffered major loss of thrust and the GoAround was abandoned for a crash landing on the runway.



Sorry, did I forget the /sarc tag?




Spekesoftly:

Gatwick 1950s

East Midlands, Newcastle, Luton and Liverpool 1960s

Edinburgh 1970s

London City 1980s

Sheffield City 1997 (Closed 2008)

Manchester 2001



Yep - and you do much the same with new aircraft or new inventions.
As I said previously, going backwards....


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[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

<<Remember that LHR's fog problem today is due low-vis procedures>>

An interesting statement. I'm sure many on here would be glad if you would elaborate, please.

[Skipness One Echo]

Actually LCY is fog bound much more than LHR due to it's surroundings.
I know what you write makes good sense from LA but frankly come live in London for a bit, get to know the politics of the situation and you'll have your eyes opened.

Stansted on Sea has a nice ring to it?

What to do about Heathrow? Close it? Cut West London off from an airport where as South London has Gatwick and the East has City, Stansted and Southend? So from the M4 corridor, it's Crossrail from Reading all the way to the coast and beyond now is it?

Why would BA move? They could stay behind and make LHR what they've always wanted, a tailored monopoly. Let STAR go sailing in the North Sea, BA's clients are in West London alongwith the entire maintenance base.

OK so that won't work, for the strategy to work, you need to shut LHR. Ooops suddenly tens of thousands on the dole in West London. None of our Elite remembered that Cs, Ds and Es don't tend to commute 50+ miles to get to their jobson that kind of salary. Well at least Kensington and Richmond are jolly quiet and our masters can sit outside Starbucks listening to birdsong again.

London isn't short of runway capacity, not with SEN, LTN and STN around. Nor at STN is it short of terminal capacity as there's loads of room to expand into land rather than sea. London is short of politicians willing to tell people painful truths which is why we have the appaling Chris Huhne building windfarms everywhere.

[TURIN]

Fair point speksoftly, I was taken in by the hype at the time it was built.

According to Wiki this is more accurate..

The second runway, initially designated 06R/24L, opened in February 2001[20] at a cost of £172 million,[20] and was the first full-length commercial runway to open in Britain for over 20 years.[

[Out Of Trim]

Silvastrata, I'm no nimby - I work at Gatwick!

I stand by my first comments. The North Sea / Estuary area is extremely prone to fog. Even if CAT3b gets all these aircraft landed, Low Vis procedures would still make taxy to and from stands difficult and slow.

Birds like estuary wetlands, as you say. But this airport will not be a wetland, it will be a concrete slab in the coastal North Sea. There will be no wetlands, no reed beds, no shallow waters - nothing of interest to most sea birds.

The Airport itself would indeed not be a wetland, but the area is surrounded by mudflats and sandbanks which is prime Wildfowl Wetland. They would be constantly crossing the Approach & Departure Runway Climb-out Areas. Even if engines can be made to withstand the odd goose or three; they could still penetrate the Radome and end up in the Flight Deck!

Plus, the wreck of the Montgomery full of unstable explosives would have to be dealt with. Not sure where the money is going to come from.

Much cheaper to build another Runway at LHR and LGW and may be Stansted too! :)

[Peter47]

I agree with Skipness's comments. The only thing likely to cause more outrage in West London than building a third runway (apart possibly from unlimited mixed mode operation) is closing LHR. Looks like you are stuck with a two runway Heathrow. With the new East terminal this could handle 90m pax p.a with an average of just under 200 per atm which is achievable by replacing 319s with 321s & 772s with 773s - nothing drastic really.

If the number of transfer pax remains constant that would equate to a 50% increase in terminal pax which may be 20 years growth. Its not exatly the long term planning you see in France or the Middle East, but it I suspect that we can muddle through for a while yet.

Obviously UK aviation will suffer from loosing transfer traffic - unless someone can develop MAN as a credible hub (perhaps, as suggested on the Virgin thread, it could be VS). Its interesting that the proportion of seating on KLM long haul devoted to premium is just over half that of BA so perhaps the lower business traffic base could be overcome. It would require a high proportion of premium traffic to be transfer though as O&D premium traffic outside London is low. AMS, FRA & ZRH all have environmental constraints whilst CDG is not user friendly. MUC & Berlin are ones to watch. If everywhere is environmentally constrained a "green field" transfer hub combined with more Air Transat style infrequent operations which includes secondary airports may be the way ahead.

The trouble is airline business models are based on high frequency. Championing the free market approach but constraining capacity don't go together.

As a frequent leisure traveller I worry about business traffic squeezing on leisure seats hence an increase in costs but as long as business traffic is peaked airlines will upsize to meet the peak in demand so it may not be a big an issue as I fear.

Current aviation policy - muddling through. Future aviation policy - muddling through. Don't say we don't have the experience of how to get through.

[Winniebago]

All completely mad - third runway at Heathrow, and/or reinstate Upper Heyford with Shanghai-type ultra-high speed monorail linking the lot to London, running beside the M40 which can be enhanced at certain points as well. Your £50 billion would go one hell of a lot further on infrastructure the right side of London. Indeed move HS2 a bit to the west and add a spur through Upper Heyford halfway to Birmingham having touched Heathrow. Heathrow 10 mins from central London, Upper Heyford 25 mins and Birmingham 45 mins.

If 45 million UK citizens need to go all the round or through the middle of London to get to a new Boris/Foster island in the north sea, that does come across as being a bit nuts?

[indie cent]

All completely mad

Thank you Winniebago, at last somebody has spotted that the Emperor is starkers...

I've stared at the map of Britain and tried to work out how/why you would posiibly want to route every single passenger (who's not from east of the A1) around London to travel to a new airport when there is one there. Already. On the West bit. Where everybody lives...!

Yes the prevailing winds are a bit of a bugger and means Richmond and Barnes get the occasional whistle. But I'm completely stumped at our total inability to grasp this dilemma which hands billions in lost business to Paris, Frankfurt and Amsterdam.

How can we, as a nation, be seriously proposing that we can justify cutting swathes across the entire country to build a double hi-speed railway (which is long overdue anyway), but not a short one-mile strip of concrete to alleviate the 20 stacked disaster that is Heathrow.

The irony is that (one of) the arguement (s) preventing the 3rd runway is environmental, yet we'd rather have Heathrow chokka with tons of aviation fuel a day wasted in the holding, circling, taxying, holding nonsense.

Ah, Great Britain. Home of procrastination and inquiries...!:rolleyes:

[silverstrata]

LHR Director:

<<Remember that LHR's fog problem today is due low-vis procedures>>
An interesting statement. I'm sure many on here would be glad if you would elaborate, please.


You are in ATC, I presume?

Low vis procedures require greater inbound spacing, and thus slow down arrivals - they very thing that LHR cannot afford to do. Less arrivals = more cancellations.




Indie Cent:

How can we, as a nation, be seriously proposing that we can justify cutting swathes across the entire country to build a double hi-speed railway, but not (a third runway) at Heathrow.



Because LHR is simply too small. The taxiways are full, the stands are full, the roads are full, the ground transport links are woeful, and there is no room left to swing a cat, let alone another 200,000 movements from another runway.

And where would these extra passengers go to? If no more international flights are possible, why bring in more interlining passengers? Do they just stay there, and make LHR their home? I don't understand.

Plus LHR has a considerable noise problem. It blights the lives of millions, and so has a highly limiting night curfew. A Thames airport would have no such restrictions, and would operate 24hr.





Indie Cent:

I've stared at the map of Britain and tried to work out how/why you would posiibly want to route every single passenger around London to a new airport.


One of the main reasons for a new Thames airport, is so that international passengers can interline more easily. London does not serve England, it serves NW Europe. A larger Thames site (4 international runways and 2 domestic runways), and a 24hr operation, can provide routes to all of Europe - which LHR cannot do at present.

This larger airport will also provide easier links for regional passengers to fly in and interline out to the world. At present you are limited in carriers into LHR, and the last time I tried this, my bags were late and I missed my flight (bags were not even able to be checked through to destination!). LHR is a crappy, crappy airport.

And the eastern location of a Thames airport, will also allow easy TGV routes into Europe.

Anyway, from the M1 and A1, a Thames location is no different to travelling to a LHR location. Only the M3, M4 and M40 would have longer travel times (if they used a car). And why not leave a Cross-rail station and car-park on the old LHR site, to whisk you straight to the Thames terminals?





Peter47

Its not exatly the long term planning ... but it I suspect that we can muddle through for a while yet.


That's the whole problem, Peter, that's the whole problem. That's what New Labour did for 12 years.





Out of trim:

I stand by my first comments. The North Sea / Estuary area is extremely prone to fog. Even if CAT3b gets all these aircraft landed, Low Vis procedures would still make taxy to and from stands difficult and slow.


I think you overstate the matter. You will have to provide some data, to support your position.

In the contrary view, an estuary site may be prone to sea fogs, but it does not get radiation fog - the bane of LHR and LGW. Those airport, sited on the Staines reservoirs and the Mole valley, are notorious for radiation fogs - which the Thames airport will not get. I seem to remember that our primary London diversion airport, in smaller aircraft days, was Southend - because it never had (radiation) fog.

And taxying? A new large airport with LGW's "follow the greens" system would be a doddle.






Skipness:

Why would BA move? They could stay behind and make LHR what they've always wanted, a tailored monopoly. Let STAR go sailing in the North Sea, BA's clients are in West London alongwith the entire maintenance base.


Because they would have to. It is the redesignation and sale of LHR as a industrial and housing estate that would pay for the Thames airport. We need the land-space - another legacy of New Labour policy. And this would provide oodles of jobs in the region.

Besides, travellers want a choice of airlines and destinations, not a monopoly carrier with limited interline destinations, operating from an out-of-date airport.


.

[Winniebago]

I dont get this shutting down Heathrow business in order to justify/finance/build a Thames estuary new four runway megahub? Why not leave Heathrow alone but reduce the throughput a tad whilst still having your four runway euro megahub in the Thames Estuary? If it's mainly for interlining for other international flights, let it focus on that, whilst Heathrow can be left for those wanting to get off and come into blighty. It just seems utterly insane to close down Heathrow - have both. Heathrow may be grim, but why on earth would you just stop using it when it has so much infrastructure that would be extraordinarily difficult to utilise/convert into anything else but an airport - absalutely insane to contemplate it becoming any kind of industrial park - what planet are they on?

In the meantime, although they're scattered about a bit, there still is quite a lot of runway capacity unused all over the southeast - Biggin, Manston, Lydd, Oxford, Cambridge, Farnborough, Southend for starters - several hundred thousand additional unused movements permissable amongst that lot. A bit of Government support and they can all persue their commercial dreams without the bucket load of red tape in the planning system.

Then you have the woefully underutilised RAF Northolt WHICH IS HEATHROW'S THIRD RUNWAY!

Then you have a raft of used and unused military sites such as Brize, Benson, Upper Heyford etc.

[indie cent]

Silver,

I believe we may be in disagreement about timescales only.

Although you can't argue against expansion with the gem:

Because LHR is simply too small

Haha!

Yep to this...
The taxiways are full, the stands are full,

...but the 3rd runway was planned with an additional Terminal and it's own taxiways.

Crossrail can mitigate the road congestion and really is being built in the near to medium term. The regional bus services to T5 are actually rather remarkable.

Notwithstanding all of the above. I believe the offer was to build the extra runway to alleviate congestion for minimal expansion of actual movements. So I don't believe all your analysis is correct.

We have the congestion problems (you rightly mention) now. Here and present in glrious technicolour (or color, if you prefer).

Due to nimbyism, lobby groups, stagnant political thought etc etc etc. We have no plan. None. Nothing. That is why IAG are buying a loss making company. For slots. Meanwhile UK PLC, which desperately needs income is throwing it away.

The island airport is not a completely flawed plan. There's merit in the high speed rail links to N Europe and the 24 hour operation will be a competitive necessity in a future world with Dubai's Al Maktoum International...

But at the moment, last time I looked, at the end of the Thames there is a windfarm and a few blotches of sand.

The estuary project - if it's agreed - will need an unbelievable amount of infrastructure that doesn't even exist. Hasn't been planned, or approved, or costed. The roads to the North of London aren't exactly desolated either. Just to remind you that we're at a population of over 62 Million. I could go on, but you get the picture.

So yup, I hope we do get a new airport. But I don't see the need to crucify ourselves whilst we dither over what to do because we left it all too late! ...Groan!!!

iC ;)

[Skipness One Echo]

If you leave LHR open, then you need to regulate massively.
Otherwise BA would simply stay and help themselves to the current traffic that currently fly with their competitors.

I live in London, I know public transport well. Making the economic driver of the M4 corridor head for the East Coast is a politicians fantasy. So if BA stays in West London, who else is "allowed" to stay? Let the fun begin!

Incidentally makes T2 and T5 all a bit of a waste of time if this was serious.....

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

<<You are in ATC, I presume?

Low vis procedures require greater inbound spacing, and thus slow down arrivals - they very thing that LHR cannot afford to do. Less arrivals = more cancellations.>>

Retired after 31 years dealing with Heathrow traffic. LVPs slow down traffic anywhere, not just Heathrow. There's nothing much one can do about fog, but it doesn't happen every day.

[jabird]

London does not serve England, it serves NW Europe. A larger Thames site (4 international runways and 2 domestic runways), and a 24hr operation, can provide routes to all of Europe - which LHR cannot do at present.

Since when are runways designated according to the traffic they serve - that is a matter for the terminals, or zones within them. To suggest such a use of runways really reveals a complete lack of knowledge of how the industry works. And you keep asking for data on fog?

Also, London already does serve Europe very well, but not every city through LHR as would be ideal, if the space was there. Last time I counted, every country in Europe that had at least one commercial airport had a link to London - except for Bosnia-Hg and Wales (if that counts!).

Some airlines have to make do with LGW or STN, but LHR still has tremendous frequency on many routes.

This larger airport will also provide easier links for regional passengers to fly in and interline out to the world. At present you are limited in carriers into LHR

Not really, most of the major interline players operate through LHR, the other airports take more point to point - alhough yes, there are several players at LGW who would rather be at LHR, and some LGW BA destinations which also might otherwise be at LHR, BUT.....

And the eastern location of a Thames airport, will also allow easy TGV routes into Europe.

Again, I'm getting you on a technicality, but it shows your lack of knowledge. The TGV does not, and cannot operate through the Channel Tunnel, due to voltage issues. CDG is a rail transfer hub because it has fast, direct links to many other cities, but also because it is a stop on routes, such as between Lille and Lyon. For services through the Channel Tunnel to be viable, they have to be able to buy the track paths, and this is easier to pay for when you have 400m long trains, but they would be hard to fill on a spur into this new airport, not to mention that given the current tax regime, flights from Thames Island would be less competitive than CDG or AMS - but by the time it was built, that may change.

And why not leave a Cross-rail station and car-park on the old LHR site, to whisk you straight to the Thames terminals?

Because Crossrail is already likely to be extremely busy by the time it opens. It makes no sense to load so much extra traffic onto London's congested rail network by sending so many people from west to east.

And that, I'm afraid is the biggest problem with the new airport - build this amazing feat of engineering and architecture, if you can get the funding AND the planning approval (I doubt it could get either), but it could only ever work commercially if LHR closed, and the displacement of so many people would not be met by a commensurate upgrade of the surface infrastructure.

Just look at the fantastic Denver Airport, still not due to get its rail link until 2015.

[Groundloop]

The TGV does not, and cannot operate through the Channel Tunnel, due to voltage issues.

But there are versions of the TGV, Thalys, which operate on three or even four different voltages.

For services through the Channel Tunnel to be viable, they have to be able to buy the track paths, and this is easier to pay for when you have 400m long trains,

So why have DB applied for permission to operate trains considerably shorter than 400m through the Tunnel?

I also don't agree with the proposal, but when arguing against it, you need to get your facts right!

[silverstrata]

It looks like the government is swinging its weight behind the new airport.

George Osborne backs 'Boris Island' airport | Mail Online (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2063620/George-Osborne-backs-Boris-Island-airport.html)


The task now, is to make it work properly, instead of it becoming another ill-planned, on-the-cheap, in-the-wrong-place construction (like the M25, the Dartford tunnel, Birmingham airport, Bristol airport, or Luton airport).

Let's do this properly, with proper rail links to Europe and the UK, a terminal double the size required, and a site twice as high above sea-level as the planners recommend.

.

[jabird]

Groundloop,

I am always happy to stand corrected, so you are right in that voltage is no longer a concern, as the LGVs, Chunnel and HS1 all use the same. I was under the impression the voltage was different in the tunnel.

However, there is a previous safety restriction about the trains needing to be able to split in the middle and for one half to exit the tunnel. As I understand it, the new Class 407 ICEs have fireproofing to enable them to meet updated regulations, but the TGV sets used in France & neighbours do not.

D-Bahn want to run a service through the tunnel which will then split / join at Brussels to form shorter sets.

Although it always seems good logic to have surface links to airports, they are not as big a traffic generator as the cities they serve - in other words, as a rail destination, LHR is much smaller than London. Therefore, running services through the tunnel, even to a mega-hub airport, which terminate at the airport, is going to be a commercially weaker proposition than running straight through to St Pancras (I'll leave hs2 for another debate).

Of course, some Eurostar services could be diverted into the new airport, and then could proceed to St Pancras, but that would add to journey time and create a security / immigration challenge. This just isn't such an issue for rail services through AMS, CDG, FRA etc as they are all operating within the Schengen zone.

The current APD regime favours people taking Eurostar or budget flights to airports like CDG or AMS in order to make cheaper long haul onward journeys, but it does not work the other way round. A new airport of this size would not be a low cost facility by any stretch of the imagination, so it would have to charge a hefty PSC, making it less competitive, compared to what we have with the devil we know at LHR.

Therefore, I stand by my point (with slight factual correction) that a new Thames Airport would not be likely to attract significant enough numbers of passengers by rail to make a direct link through the Chunnel viable.

[jabird]

Technically, the Eurostars are derivatives of the TGV, and the term is understood to mean high speed train, being the French acronym for that term. However, the implication of using such could be that that high speed rail is a French invention, which it is not - the first high speed 'proper' trains originated in Japan, and the first dedicated high speed lines in Europe were in Italy.

And WE still have the world steam speed record :)

[silverstrata]

Idie Cent

...but the 3rd runway was planned with an additional Terminal and it's own taxiways.


Yes, but surely the whole point of a third runway at LHR is to bring extra interlining passengers into LHR. They are not visiting London, they are visiting Mumbai or L.A.

In other words, a new runway for short haul will bring extra demand for long haul, which LHR simply cannot deal with. LHR is too small, as I said.





Jabird

Since when are runways designated according to the traffic they serve. To suggest such a use of runways really reveals a complete lack of knowledge of how the industry works.




Err, to say such a thing means you are not an aviator. Never been to CDG, have you !!! Ha, ha, ha. Oh, these threads do bring out the spotters.

For your info, the short runways at CDG are for short-haul aircraft. You could try taking off in a 747, but the results might be interesting. Glad you are not in aviation.


And the reason for having separate long-haul and short haul runways?

a. Its cheaper. Shorter runway = less cost, especially if you have to build the island to contain it.

b. Customs and immigration. It is still advantageous to separate domestic (small aircraft) and international traffic (big aircraft), for immigration reasons.

c. Wake vortex separation. If you mix heavies and lights, half of the aircraft on the approach need greater separation. A small turboprop behind an A380 needs 8 nm, while an A380 behind and A380 needs only 4 nm. It is much more efficient to have two short haul runways (and their terminal) and a separate group of long-haul runways (and their terminal).



It is a shame that idiots like Lord Foster did not ask aviators, before designing his absurd Thames airport proposal. Just how does a Saab 2000 make an approach into an airport like this?? Does the whole airport sit and wait, for ten minutes, doing nothing? Does the Saab get blown over, or its tail knocked off, as it taxies?


http://cdn.archinect.net/images/514x/0j/0jvvcb32qvbhgo0l.jpg



ayCWSm1f9qk







Jabird

Not really, most of the major interline players operate through LHR, the other airports take more point to point - alhough yes, there are several players at LGW who would rather be at LHR, and some LGW BA destinations which also might otherwise be at LHR, BUT.....


You are wrong again.

As far as I am aware, the whole reason for the BA-Iberia marriage, is that BA was desperately short of S American routes. A larger airport could sort out that situation, but LHR is desperately short of slots for new routes - hence the absurd price placed upon a failing operator like BMI.






Jabird

Again, I'm getting you on a technicality, but it shows your lack of knowledge. The TGV does not, and cannot operate through the Channel Tunnel, due to voltage issues.



Oh, please do not be stupid.

The Eurostar trains that go from Paris to London are TGV373000 rolling-stock - and yes, they go through the Channel Tunnel.

Here is a TGV at London St Pancras. How do you think it got there - by boat? by air?


http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/front/eurostar-train-at-st.-pancras-station.jpg





Jabird

Although it always seems good logic to have surface links to airports, they are not as big a traffic generator as the cities they serve - in other words, as a rail destination, LHR is much smaller than London.



Yes, because you cannot catch a train from Manchester to LHR !! This is the stupidity of the UK transport 'system'.

From Manchester, you go to Euston, then walk down the road in the rain to a tube station (the Euston tube is not direct), get the tube to Paddington, then get a train to LHR. You think this is easy, with four bags falling off the trolly and three kids running down the wrong escalator and ending up in Charing Cross??

And please do not expect to make this journey to get to LHR for a 6am departure - IT AINT GOING TO HAPPEN.

Do you wonder why people drive?





.

[Skipness One Echo]

Silverstrata stop calling people you disagree with "stupid". A few of your own opinions are demonstrably wrong.
LHR does not have a lot of domestic, it is overwhelmingly international and this is anything from a Fokker 70 / A318 to an A380, often using the same gates, split Left and Right for the smaller aircraft. There are no "short" runways at CDG, they land on the outer and depart on the inner as per LAX.

IAG runs a two hub strategy, South American focus at MAD, North American at LHR, it's already fixed.

Lord Foster is not an " idiot". Can I ask, what part of aviation are you in and how did you miss the sight of the B744 landing on the outer runways at CDG?

[jabird]

Silver,

I merely repeat your quote from earlier: -

larger Thames site (4 international runways and 2 domestic runways)

That's what you said, NOT short haul and long haul, two entirely different concepts. SVO to VVO is domestic, as is CDG to FDF, but short haul?

CDG is one of the many airports I have been to, but I have also taken a twotter to SAB, and then back SXM-NEV (oh, sorry, that's international too) so I know all about short runways!

The implication in your post was of TGV branded trains, which I have since clarified. So let's get back to the viability of such services which I dispute, as I do the idea of the airport. I also question the benefits of bringing in more transfer passengers - look at ny fares, and the yield is virtually always less on the indirect service, but the costs of two take-off and landing cycles usually higher, especially for SH-SH.

And as for Lord Foster, if you knew anything about the man, you would know that he is a qualified pilot, both of helicopters and jets, aswell as the designer of many of the world's finest buildings.

As it happens, I don't agree with this proposal, nor do I understand the choice of location (surrounding hazards), or what the structures are at the end of the runways. Frankly, even the terminal itself is boxy and bland - Stansted may now be a cramped mall, but the design as originally developed was beautifully symmetrical.

However, it is the job of architects to come up with imaginative schemes, so the engineers, the planners, the politicians and the accountants can work out which ones will get built. It is a shame that this plan is only imaginative because of the price tag and the engineering, for big terminal architecture that impresses, I'll go back to Denver, or on to Beijing.

[silverstrata]

Skipness:

LHR does not have a lot of domestic, it is overwhelmingly international and this is anything from a Fokker 70 / A318 to an A380, often using the same gates, split Left and Right for the smaller aircraft.

There are no "short" runways at CDG, they land on the outer and depart on the inner as per LAX.



Because LHR is so limited in arrivals, it does not have so much domestic - AND IS THEREFORE MISSING OUT ON A GREAT DEAL OF INTERLINING TRAFFIC.

Why do you think that people now fly to AMS or CDG to pick up a State-side flight? Because it is so damn difficult to get a cheap flight into LHR - whereas Easyjet and BMI-B fly direct to CDG and AMS.




And regards the layout of CDG, this was the situation the last time I went there.


http://www.landingshort.com/wp-content/uploads/LPFG-AD-20-9-taxiout-big.jpg



Now sorry, but looking at that Jeppy, I distinctly see long runways and short runways. Is that just my eyes, or are you talking rot again?

And yes, I have also seen a 747 landing on the short - but I did not say that, did I. I said taking off on the short, which would be most interesting.


And the logic still stands. Separating light and heavy traffic speeds up arrivals to an airport. And so anyone who designs a nice new airport with all the runways so close together that there cannot be any separation, is, well, stupid. Foster included.

In addition, Foster's absurd creation appears to have runways so close together, that you could not do simultaneous approaches. Do you think that is a good idea? Do you think Foster should get a plastic medal for creating an airport that may actually end up as a complete White Elephant??







Skipness:

Silverstrata stop calling people you disagree with "stupid".



I am not calling people who disagree with me 'stupid'. I am calling people who present wholly incorrect or even deceitful information 'stupid'.

Plus Lord Foster, who appears to have used lawyers and media consultants to advise on the construction of a new airport - instead of pilots, controllers and airport managers. Now THAT is 'stupid'.



.

[silverstrata]

Jabird

That's what you said, NOT short haul and long haul, two entirely different concepts. SVO to VVO is domestic, as is CDG to FDF, but short haul?


Europe is both 'short haul' and 'domestic'. Or did you forget the EU?





Heathrow Director:

LVPs slow down traffic anywhere, not just Heathrow. There's nothing much one can do about fog, but it doesn't happen every day.



But it does not slow down traffic if you have sufficient capacity. If you have another runway you can open for Low Vis procedures, of if your average spacing is 10 nm anyway, then Low Vis procedures make no difference and there are no delays and cancellations because of fog.

And since people are trying to make a 'problem' out of this imaginary Thames fog, this is an issue that needs addressing.



.

[jabird]

Silver,

Which EU are you talking about? The one I know of is not a single homogenous region - you have countries that are in and out of the Eurozone, and you have countries in and out of Schengen, and also countries in EFTA and Schengen but not the EU, like Norway and Switzerland.

[Goprdon]

Silverstrata gives his age as 43.
I have just reread this thread, sad I know , but then I am a fan of the concept of some form of Thames Airport.
At Post 26 Silverstrata says: "I did tell planners back in the late 1970s that the M25 needs 6 lanes a side".
Perhaps the planners ignored you because they thought you were just a precocious ten year old. But now you are older.

[Skipness One Echo]

For your info, the short runways at CDG are for short-haul aircraft. You could try taking off in a 747, but the results might be interesting. Glad you are not in aviation.

silverstrata, this is what you said. The outer runways are NOT for short haul aircraft, they are for landing aircraft as I said. You could take off a B744 from the short runway depending how far it was going. There is no absolute distinction in the runways between short and long haul aircraft though they use mixed mode as well.

Your rant about domestic access to Heathrow rather ignores the fact that English domestic flying into London almost ceased overnight when the East and West coast rail lines were upgraded. Indeed VLM's very profitable LCY-MAN and LCY-LPL ended abruptly soon after. STN-PIK has closed as has GLA-LHR on BD, which carried the codeshare of 14 STAR partners. Perhaps not a goldmine? BA's LHR-MAN is long haul feeder by any other name these days, whereas GLA and EDI have a good point to point and feeder mix.
BD's MME and LBA-LHR services also closed as the P2P traffic went to the railways where the hassle factor was much less.

Is that just my eyes, or are you talking rot again?
OK, please re-read what I have said above and stop insulting me, play the ball and not the man.

And yes, I have also seen a 747 landing on the short - but I did not say that, did I. I said taking off on the short, which would be most interesting.
It seems the "short" runway is 2700m long. Are you really a B767 pilot? The reason I ask is that, for the East Coast US, that would do? We have the B747-400 going as far as GLA-MCO off 2665m every week, including cargo. Believe me sir, it doesn't lift off on the piano keys either so I am baffled why a real professional pilot wouldn't know that. *cough*


Because LHR is so limited in arrivals, it does not have so much domestic - AND IS THEREFORE MISSING OUT ON A GREAT DEAL OF INTERLINING TRAFFIC.

Why do you think that people now fly to AMS or CDG to pick up a State-side flight? Because it is so damn difficult to get a cheap flight into LHR - whereas Easyjet and BMI-B fly direct to CDG and AMS.
No one would want to fly GLA-LHR-CDG if they could fly GLA-CDG direct, which they can. The market does not behave like this anymore and trying to expand based on cheap flights from Europe to the regions is not commercially viable. Against Ryanair and easyJet? Are you serious? If you are suggesting people connect via AMS and CDG to fly to the US, they use KLM or AF, not the locos you quoted, so what you're saying is dislocated and not accurate as BMI baby and easyJet are in no way relevant to flying to the US, you cannot connect on either airline.


And since people are trying to make a 'problem' out of this imaginary Thames fog, this is an issue that needs addressing.
It might look imaginary from LA but since I couldn't see the top of 1 Canada Square this morning, and there were a load of go arounds last night when I was at LCY (on the Thames in case you were wondering) I think it might be real...

But it does not slow down traffic if you have sufficient capacity. If you have another runway you can open for Low Vis procedures, of if your average spacing is 10 nm anyway, then Low Vis procedures make no difference and there are no delays and cancellations because of fog.
You are seriously suggesting we have a spare runway, we use maybe one weeka year? Is there any way perhaps that the South East of England is NOT in any way like DFW? Please stop using CAPs as well, being shouty doesn't make you right.

[Aero Mad]

silverstrata, the issue of fog simply isn't imaginery. It's ironic that you're arguing about this now, when much of the south-east has been shrouded in the stuff including Sheppey where you want to plonk this :mad: airport!!

[Prophead]

Its not just about moving Heathrow, there are many businesses around the Thames valley that are there to cater for the airport. The people that work at Heathrow and these other businesses mostly live in and around that area. Closing Heathrow and building this fantasy island would mean moving the whole lot to the other side of London.

Crossrail will take people from Canary Wharf to Heathrow in 30 minutes. There is actually quite a lot of wasteland around Heathrow if you have a look. The third runway proposal seems to me the way to go. Unfortunately this would mean bulldozing a very small village and moving a few people. It is however a much more feasable plan than relocating the huge numbers as above.

I cant help feeling that the whole thames island plan is being proposed in order to show just how ludicrously expensive it will be so that the government can then revert back to the third runway plan and act as though it is saving money.

[fmgc]

The task now, is to make it work properly, instead of it becoming another ill-planned, on-the-cheap, in-the-wrong-place construction (like the M25, the Dartford tunnel, Birmingham airport, Bristol airport, or Luton airport).

Your understanding of history is wanting I am afraid.

There was no great design years ago that has led to this structure.

These airports weren't suddenly built to the size and capacity they are at now, they grew over many many years from being old wartime or aircraft manufacturing airfields.

If you could start all over again that would be great and your end result would't look like it does now, but you can't.

[silverstrata]

Aeromad

silverstrata, the issue of fog simply isn't imaginery. It's ironic that you're arguing about this now, when much of the south-east has been shrouded in the stuff including Sheppey where you want to plonk this airport!!



And including LHR, which cancelled hundreds of flights.

The point is that a much larger airport, that is not capacity restricted like LHR, would not have to reduce traffic flows during Low Vis opps. Had this recent fog blanketed a much larger Thames airport, there would have been no flight cancellations.

So what is your problem?





Skipness:

Your rant about domestic access to Heathrow rather ignores the fact that English domestic flying into London almost ceased overnight when the East and West coast rail lines were upgraded. Indeed VLM's very profitable LCY-MAN and LCY-LPL ended abruptly soon after.


LCY has nothing to to do with Heathrow. Of course it is quicker by train to London, but it is NOT quicker by train to LHR (because of all the changes, see my earlier post).

The point is that it is now easier to interline via CDG or AMS, because many low cost carriers go there and you can easily pick up your long haul fight. Thus LHR is loosing out big time, because it has no more capacity to take the smaller and lower cost feeder airlines. And if LHR is losing out, then so (eventually) is the City of London and the UK as a whole.

A larger Thames airport would, of course, have the capacity to undercut AMS and CDG.





Skipness:

OK, please re-read what I have said above and stop insulting me, play the ball and not the man.


What you said was:
There are no "short" runways at CDG.

If you don't want to be shot down in flames, then don't overfly the flak batteries.





Skipness:

No one would want to fly GLA-LHR-CDG if they could fly GLA-CDG direct, which they can.


Eh??? Your getting close to the flak batteries again. We are talking international interlining here.





Skipness:

Against Ryanair and easyJet? Are you serious? If you are suggesting people connect via AMS and CDG to fly to the US, they use KLM or AF, not the locos you quoted.


You're way behind the drag-curve on this one, Skippy. One of the big markets now is Lo-Co** flyers jumping into Schippy And Charlie to go Stateside (or elsewhere).

Why do you think that Schiphol went to the trouble of building a special 'terminal' for Lo-Co fliers? Why do you think that a nation of only 15 million has such a large airline? And that is all market share that LHR has lost, because it has no capacity for regional aircraft.

** They are called Lo-Co flyers for obvious reasons. I would not step on one, but then many people simply gravitate to the cheapest routes.





Skippy

(The fog) might look imaginary from LA but since I couldn't see the top of 1 Canada Square this morning, and there were a load of go arounds last night when I was at LCY (on the Thames in case you were wondering) I think it might be real...



Come off it Skippy - you are right overhead the flack batteries with that comment, and I am sorely tempted to open fire.

How the hell do you think you can do a Cat IIIb autoland from a 6 degree glideslope onto an 1100m runway of half width ?!?

Think about it, Skippy, think about it.





Jabird

Which EU are you talking about? The one I know of is not a single homogenous region.


Hey, Jabird, this is a 70-year project. For planning purposes, all of Europe is domestic.




Gordon

Silverstrata gives his age as 43.


Never ask a lady or a pilot their age - you might get an answer you don't like, especially if you are the SLF just settling down to a G&T.





Prophead

I cant help feeling that the whole thames island plan is being proposed in order to show just how ludicrously expensive it will be so that the government can then revert back to the third runway plan and act as though it is saving money.


There are some of that opinion jumping on the bandwagon. But I can assure you that Boris is quite sincere in this proposal.

London does not have an inalienable right to be the financial center of Europe, and if it becomes a nightmare to get there, and to get anywhere else from there, then London will become a financial backwater. And if that happens, then the UK sinks without trace - especially as successive governments have destroyed our once fine manufacturing industries.

As I said before - a nation that stands still, is going backwards. And the UK has been going backwards for a couple of decades now.

Rather than being a 'fantasy island', a central hub that combines air, rail, road, and potentially even sea links, could generate the UK a great deal of money.




.

[jackieofalltrades]

The point is that a much larger airport, that is not capacity restricted like LHR, would not have to reduce traffic flows during Low Vis opps. Had this recent fog blanketed a much larger Thames airport, there would have been no flight cancellations.

That is utter balderdash. Look at, for example, Schiphol: 6 runways operating notably under maximum capacity. Fog there today and recently, lots of significant delays and cancellations.

Toronto Pearson: 5 runways, has to cease use on at least on of them (24L/06R) when they are operating in Low Vis. And consequently flow rates decrease.

Detroit: 6 runways, 4 of which are parallel and able to normally operate simultaneously. It is not yet at saturation like Heathrow, but flow rates drastically drop when in Low Vis.

This is because it's all being well landing an aircraft on the runway, but they have to then taxi from the runway to stand. This isn't easy when the fog is so bad the controller can't see the plane, and the pilots can't see much further than the end of their nose.

[silverstrata]

fgm:

Your understanding of history is wanting I am afraid.

There was no great design years ago that has led to this structure. If you could start all over again that would be great and your end result would't look like it does now, but you can't.


My understanding of history is second to none.

And that is the whole problem, isn't it? There was no planning, there was no thinking, there was no foresight.

>>Even when fine airports like Gaydon or became available, nobody thought of using them. Its no problem, we can hack the cross-winds and the dodgy flightpath directly over the city.
>>When Finningly became available, they still put money into the grotesque amusement arcade known as Leeds (anyone for a roller-coaster landing?? £5 extra, if we bounce more than once.....)
>>When Filton became available, they still used an airfield that had been designed for bad weather practice.
>>When MAN wanted a new terminal, they put it on the wrong side; and when they wanted a new runway, they put it too close to the old runway. So now you have an airport that cannot do parallel approaches, and has absolutely no spare stands (and nowhere to put any new stands) - oh, just wait for 45 minutes, before a stand becomes available. Brilliant.
>>And Luton. Oh, just don't mention Luton. Tell me of any other airport in the world, that has built a terminal without any windows?
>>Liverpool? Lesson number one in how to completely disfigure and destroy a brand new terminal. And you wonder why I question the sanity of architects...


Just because there were (many) mistakes and a distinct lack of foresight in the past, does not mean that we desperately need to bury our heads in the sand now. Tell me what would happen to UK Plc, if LHR became a small regional airport, because all the heavies had moved to AMS and CDG? What would the great City of London become then?

Bold action is required (not something the previous or present governments would know much about).



The Leeds amusement arcade.

Paddy Air, at Leeds. The runway is towards the bottom left, chaps.

http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01374/plane2_1374817a.jpg



This is the Chinese approach at Leeds (Whun-wing Low).

http://www.nsitt.com/jackscafe/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/flybe-landing-bradford.jpg



The dodgems ride, is in the car park (drivers with flat caps, you understand) :)




.

[globetrotter2]

I find most of the arguments on this thread ridiculous.

As FGMC says, "These airports weren't suddenly built to the size and capacity they are at now, they grew over many many years from being old wartime or aircraft manufacturing airfields.

If you could start all over again that would be great and your end result would't look like it does now, but you can't"

The best thing to do IMHO would be to accept that South East England already has enough airports, whatever their problems and limitations, and concentrate simply on first building a proper rail network, integrated into the normal rail ticketing at standard prices, to link all four London airports together. Then runways and development can take place at each of them and passengers can transfer between them for connecting flights or catch trains to a final UK destination. A properly designed rail ring will connect to all main lines east west north and south, benefiting everyone with a journey to make even if not by air.

Heathrow needs to be linked to Clapham Junction and to Gatwick so that long haul passengers can reach it from south and east of London. Also build a spur to Feltham and acquire the Heathrow Express extension from BAA and integrate into the national rail ticketing scheme. Right now connections north, south and south east of Heathrow are pitiful. A properly financed rail network (not one built on the cheap ... the British way) linking all airports to and also preferably through London would provide the infrastructure that the country needs. Yes it's expensive but look at the cost of not doing this.

This idea of a new airport somewhere east of London is just absurd. Build a proper ring of rail connections and it no longer matters where the airports are. Certainly no need to build more.

[jabird]

SS,

And the logic still stands. Separating light and heavy traffic speeds up arrivals to an airport. And so anyone who designs a nice new airport with all the runways so close together that there cannot be any separation, is, well, stupid. Foster included.

As you have correctly pointed out, building an island airport is an expensive operation. Therefore, two sets of parallel wide spaced runways would be far more expensive than two sets of close ones. The terminal should provide sufficient separation to allow simultaneous approaches on each side of it, but all we have for now is a concept sketch, not a detailed plan unless you can give us a link for one?

Its not just about moving Heathrow, there are many businesses around the Thames valley that are there to cater for the airport. The people that work at Heathrow and these other businesses mostly live in and around that area.

Exactly, you are shunting the entire Thames Valley 180deg, and shoving millions of people through London to get to an airport the other side. This isn't just an engineering challenge on the site in question, it presents an enourmous overloading on the surface transport network throughout the SE.

b. Customs and immigration. It is still advantageous to separate domestic (small aircraft) and international traffic (big aircraft), for immigration reasons.

This is surely a matter for the terminal designers - granted, that is more Foster's field, I would be interest to see if Arups have made a public comment on this, I know they have slammed the routing alignments for hs2.

I am still puzzled that you claim to be a 76 jockey. I will admit I am no pilot, but I have never come across the concept of a domestic runway. A runway is a strip of (insert material of choice) - it does not care who is inside the plane, or where it is going. Either the plane can take off or it cannot, based on:

a) The aircraft size / weight.
b) The load, including fuel.
c) Weather conditions.
d) Elevation (obviously not an issue here).
e) Engine configuration.

Now as a general rule, larger aircraft operate longer routes, and international routes are longer than domestic ones, but this is by no means cast in stone. I have done BHX-EWR in a 757, and LHR-FRA in a 767, and let's not even start on Japan!

And I'm sorry, we have to consider a proposal against the politics of now, and even looking ahead, these aren't the EUs best days. Arriving into the UK, you have red, green and the EU blue channels, then you have domestic flights from IOM & Channel Is (not sure about GIB?) subject to customs allowances, not to mention the Canaries, and where do you label Morocco? It all gets very very messy, and that is for the terminal designers to sort out. If there are any specifically designated domestic runways (as opposed to airports restricted to domestic only flights), please do go ahead and name them.

[silverstrata]

Jackie

That is utter balderdash. Look at, for example, Schiphol: 6 runways operating notably under maximum capacity. Fog there today and recently, lots of significant delays and cancellations.



Yes.

a. Mainly because aircraft cannot get out of, or into, other airports.
If an aircraft is having trouble with (say) LGW earlier in the day, it is not going to be at AMS for the evening rotation - or even for the next morning's rotation. And some Lo-Co airlines are renowned for not having any spare crew, when the previous crew go out of hours, and so the next AMS rotation is cancelled - but that has nothing to do with AMS inbounds.

b. Some airlines still insist on buying Boeing short haulers, which cannot land in thick fog (only Cat IIIa). Again, nothing to do with AMS.


The holding patterns are rarely used at AMS, which makes it a bit of a shock when ATC suddenly says 'take up the hold'. The main delays are very strong westerlies at AMS, because it is then down to one landing runway. Luckily that does not happen too often.



Jackie

This is because it's all being well landing an aircraft on the runway, but they have to then taxi from the runway to stand. This isn't easy when the fog is so bad the controller can't see the plane, and the pilots can't see much further than the end of their nose.



LGW have a 'follow the greens to the stand' system. Its a doddle.



.

[jabird]

SS,

Let's not go round dismissing every single airport in the UK, that really just opens this into a rather messy and pointless rant. Or do you want me to start on JFK - I mean, how many terminals? ATL? Enough!

Back to the history of new, out of the way, mega-airports - generally a very messy game, with so much that can go wrong - and that is just the ones that don't sink.

Is it not fair to say that those that work do so because they have not just space to grow, but also because they are not hindered by other airports in their hinterland.

Consider - DEN, HKG, MUC and the new BER - replacing previous airports, shut down, gone.

Good lobbying has held DAL back against DFW.

Then there's good old Mirabel!

Now imagine you are pitching this airport idea in the Dragon's Den - remember, UK Govt Plc would need a serious rights issue to fund this one!

Look at the risks:

-No guarantee demand for air travel will continue to rise - LHR traffic has -barely moved in last 10 years, despite T5.
-UK highest taxation rates for air travel in world - especially long haul
-Oil more likely to go up in cost, not down.
-Concerns over climate change likely to limit growth of aviation market.

Then if you want your SWAT analysis, consider the opposition:

-For GNB Island (George, norm & Boris) to work, how many London areas would be asked, or made to close? None? Welcome to Mirabel 2.0. Just LHR? how about LCY? Or all of them? A political and financial nightmare to put so many separate companies out of business, especially as BAA has been forced to sell LGW and EDI.
-You talk of 'interlining' between loco and long haul at CDG & AMS. I wouldn't call that interlining, people who do this are making two entirely seperate bookings, attemtping to avoid UK long haul APD. But this is often a false economy, as there is no comeback if any one (of at least 4) legs of the overall trip is delayed. Either way, this leakage is down to tax difference rather than infrastructure. Most loco AMS and CDG traffic is PTP, in case you weren't aware, they both happen to be rather attractive cities to visit. Why would investors want to put billions in to a new airport facility to go after this market, when price sensitive travellers would just continue to usee STN, LTN etc.

Now in very crude figures - if, and it is a very big if, you could build this airport for £50bn, and the airport could make a clean PROFIT (not PSC) of £10 out of each one, unless my calculator is having a very bad day, I make that 50 years to pay back at 0% APR.

Do you know any good banks which would support this deal, I will move my mortgage to them!

[Winniebago]

Is APD worth around £2.5 billion a year to the UK? If so, channel all that into the new airport fund along with all the new ETS revenue from aviation, all the fuel duty, tax, all the UK visa revenue, and you could build it in the next decade - all paid for by the aviation industry directly - everybody's happy!

[Aero Mad]

My understanding of history is second to none.

As is your modesty.

[Nick Thomas]

Winniebago. All the money raised on different aviation tax is already accounted for. So spending it on a new airport will result in further cuts elsewhere. Not very likely.
globetrotter2 you idea re rail links is in my view a good one. What is needed is an integrated transport policy that takes account of all the different interests, ie road,rail and aviation.
A project the size of the proposed Thames airport would require consideration of the transport issues, but also socio economic, environmental issues etc. I guess Silvestrata will claim that this is a New Labour philosophy. I disagree, we have a history since the second world war of taking account of these issues. Most of the population don't give a dam about aviation and why should they. So if you wish to spend £50 billion of public funds you will need to produce a very convincing case. Something SS has failed to do especially as his answer to any criticism of his views tends to either insult the poster, or post photos of planes landing. I know that SS will disagree with my views as am an Architect and therefore not only brain dead but also of questionable sanity.
To have any hope of persuading people to back the Thames airport proposal SS you will have to stop insulting people but rather listen to their views, something you have shown little willingness to do so far.

[silverstrata]

Jabird

Now in very crude figures - if, and it is a very big if, you could build this airport for £50bn, and the airport could make a clean PROFIT (not PSC) of £10 out of each one, unless my calculator is having a very bad day, I make that 50 years to pay back at 0% APR.


And what was the pay-back time for the M1?
More importantly, what was the increase in the GNP (and quality of life) that the M1 provided?

These are the questions that need to be answered.





Globetrotter:

The best thing to do IMHO would be to accept that South East England already has enough airports, whatever their problems and limitations, and concentrate simply on first building a proper rail network, integrated into the normal rail ticketing at standard prices, to link all four London airports together.


Taking the price of land-space around London into account, I think you will find that this 'solution' costs three times as much as a new Thames airport. The advantage of Boris Island, is that the freehold on the land is 'free'.





Jabird

The terminal should provide sufficient separation to allow simultaneous approaches on each side of it, but all we have for now is a concept sketch, not a detailed plan unless you can give us a link for one?



Here is the primary proposal.

Thames Estuary Airport (http://thamesestuaryairport.com)

You will have to forgive the website, as a shortage in funds meant that much of it was put together by Shoeburyness Primary School. And many of their crayons were broken. But you will get the idea.

Like every successful British enterprise, the plan was made on the back of an envelope ... I think I still have it, but if not, it will be down the back of the sofa :O

Please forgive the deliberate error of the runways being too close together, and the terminals located at the end of the runways. We were just testing Boris' sense of humour.



.

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

<<LGW have a 'follow the greens to the stand' system. Its a doddle.>>

As does Heathrow...

[jabird]

globetrotter,

When you say 4, I take it you exclude LCY and SEN?

Problem is, the rail network is built around major stations, essentially in and out of central London. There is direct FCC LGW-LTN service, but largely by accident of the Thameslink project, not a specific plan to link them.

There are certain elements of the rail orbital you talk of planned by TfL, but not on the scale you suggest, again the cost would be billions.

Also, most traffic at STN and LTN is point to point, so is a good chunk at LGW - the high value, high yield stuff goes through LHR anyway, so it will always be cheaper to let the others take buses.

As for simple rail improvements at London airports? A spur to LTN? And why oh why was £1.8bn spent on a mile or two tunneling into LHR, but not 'left turn' to the major rail junction of Reading provided?

[Skipness One Echo]

The point is that it is now easier to interline via CDG or AMS, because many low cost carriers go there and you can easily pick up your long haul fight. Thus LHR is loosing out big time, because it has no more capacity to take the smaller and lower cost feeder airlines. And if LHR is losing out, then so (eventually) is the City of London and the UK as a whole.
This is fundametally wrong, and as a commercial analysis it's nonsense. Do you know that locos do not interline with legacy long haul? People are not booking an easyJet flight to fly KLM from AMS, I know this, I work in the commercial side of the industry. Where did you get this idea? As I stated above, only legacies interline and have been doing so for decades, AF, KL and LH etc etc.

If you don't want to be shot down in flames, then don't overfly the flak batteries Feel free, you're supposedly a commercial aviator but expressed concern at a B747 going off the outer runways at CDG. I want you, to explain why the given distance I quoted above is a concern to you but works OK for Virgin, Air Canada, BA et al.
Eh??? Your getting close to the flak batteries again. We are talking international interlining here.
Just to repeat, the locos you quote, do not interline with long haul.
** They are called Lo-Co flyers for obvious reasons. I would not step on one, but then many people simply gravitate to the cheapest routes.
Yet you present yoursef as knowledgable enough to comment on the business but er....haven't flown one?
How the hell do you think you can do a Cat IIIb autoland from a 6 degree glideslope onto an 1100m runway of half width ?!?

Think about it, Skippy, think about it.

Again, please take the time to read what is being said to you. I comment on LCY go arounds to support the presence of fog on the Thames, something you present as "imaginary". It clearly is not and this has been put to you by numerous people.
Hey, Jabird, this is a 70-year project. For planning purposes, all of Europe is domestic.
No, it really isn't, only someone of breathtaking ignorance would think so. Ask the Swiss or the Norwegians if they agree.
I seriously don't understand how you can be a commercial airline pilot if you're worried about a B747 going off those outer runways at CDG giventhe stated length. You also don't understand the traffic pattern yet you claim to have flown through it? Added to the fact you were caught out misrepresenting your age, you don't add up sir. You're becoming more incredible by the minute. Feel free to open the flak batteries.

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

I think he's a Flight Sim driver. Not worth debating with.

[Skipness One Echo]

I agree, one thing about pprune is that they do have debates that teach you lot's about aviation. One mouth, two ears, in that order as my dad once said.....

[Aero Mad]

ss, you imply that you created that website. You said earlier in this thread that airports develop over time... yet you say on this website:

Heathrow is a planning error of the 60s.

Clearly this is utter rubbish, but could you possibly explain the contradiction?

[Winniebago]

Do you think Boris and Norm might look at PRUNE every now and again?

Wouldn't it be great to think that the country's single greatest infrastructure proposal could, in some way be influenced by the loons on this site.

When will all the submissions to the DfTs 'Sustainable Future for Aviation' scoping study consultation be out there in the public domain?

I bet there's one or two that haven't been released to the wider public by the originators yet. Wait for the surprises guys and girls, wait for the surprises.

[silverstrata]

Skippy

This is fundametally wrong, and as a commercial analysis it's nonsense. Do you know that locos do not interline with legacy long haul?


Err, so I now need the the permission of KLM, in triplicate, before I can take an Easy flight to AMS and pick up a flight there?

Where was your last job - North Korea?





Skippy

I comment on LCY go arounds to support the presence of fog on the Thames, something you present as "imaginary". It clearly is not and this has been put to you by numerous people.


Err, you cannot do autolands at LCY.... Is that clear enough for you? A smokey candle will close LCY.





Sippy

I seriously don't understand how you can be a commercial airline pilot if you're worried about a B747 going off those outer runways at CDG given their stated length.


A 747-400 has a TOFL of 3,000m, which is already 300m beyond the run of the outer runways at CDG (not sure of the clearways there).

But if you think any airline is going to allow you to spool up to max thrust, instead of de-rating on the 4,000 m runway just next door, you have another think coming. And if you think that any old pilots (rather than bold pilots) are going to line up on 2,700 m, when there is 4,000 m right next door, you are again very much mistaken.

If you were a pilot (and I know you are not) you would be out of the door in a trice, together with choice comments from the flight safety, engineering and financial departments.





Aero Mad

<<Heathrow is a planning error of the 60s.>>
Clearly this is utter rubbish, but could you possibly explain the contradiction?


I did not write that, but clearly the statement has merit.

In the '60s LHR was a growing airport, that sprang out of an old RAF airfield. Noisy jets were just arriving, and someone could have made a strategic decision to find a better place for a major London airport. This new location would have to allow for 24hr operations, and so....

a. The new jets needed long approaches and takeoffs, which were then over the city. So they should have looked for a location to the north or northwest of London, to prevent overflying the city (both due noise, and due safety).

b. There were no railways at the Stains site, so they could have looked for a major rail route.

c. The prevailing wind is S.W. in the UK, so they could have looked at SIDs and STARSs for southwesterly runways.


Frankly, I would have stuck my finger on a spot just south of Watford. It was open fields at the time; the flight paths to the SW and NE were clear; it was on the Great North Road, as it was then; it is on the main rail line to the north and northwest (via Rugby); and it was very close to London.

Unfortunately, the planners ducked their responsibilities, and kicked the problem into the long grass. We, unfortunately, are in that long grass, and can no longer duck the problem. A N. London site is now out of the question, but a great swathe of absolutely 'free' land in the Thames estuary, is not.



.

[Skipness One Echo]

Err, so I now need the the permission of KLM, in triplicate, before I can take an Easy flight to AMS and pick up a flight there?
Where was your last job - North Korea?
No sir, I mean no one does it as you have to pay two fares instead of one and re-check your bags. That's why no one flies loco to long haul legacy, or very few in comparison with KL, LH and AF's own services. I have explained the commercial reality and passenger behaviour. Do you have evidence that loads of people do this as I have seen little cross my desk?
Again, please stop insulting me, I am trying to explain the commercial position and why the market behaves in such away. Perhaps the view from LA is not entirely up to speed given your admission above you have never even flown on a loco. Perhaps you don't know everything?
Err, you cannot do autolands at LCY.... Is that clear enough for you? A smokey candle will close LCY.
A smokey candle won't close LCY but the fog you claim to be "imaginary" has done so on several nights this week. A real pilot would not be so flippant.
A 747-400 has a TOFL of 3,000m, which is already 300m beyond the run of the outer runways at CDG (not sure of the clearways there).

But if you think any airline is going to allow you to spool up to max thrust, instead of de-rating on the 4,000 m runway just next door, you have another think coming. And if you think that any old pilots (rather than bold pilots) are going to line up on 2,700 m, when there is 4,000 m right next door, you are again very much mistaken.

If you were a pilot (and I know you are not) you would be out of the door in a trice, together with choice comments from the flight safety, engineering and financial departments.
I have at no time claimed to be a pilot, my profile clearly states this. I will ask you again to account for the safe operation of Virgin Atlantic, British Airways. Lufthansa, KLM and Air Canada, all of which I have seen with my own eyes leave Glasgow GLA/EGPF off the main runway of 2665m with space to spare on the B747-400. The VS operation is a twice weekly GLA-MCO operation, and VS are not to my knowledge a cowboy outift in regards to passenger safety.

I really think it is clear you are a simmer wannabe, as these are real life examples of real pilots doing something you say is "interesting" blatantly implying in some way unsafe.

[jabird]

SS,

You really can't compare the financing of a motorway with a new airport almost a century later. They are totally different kettles of fish.

The closest motorway comparison would be the M6 Toll, but even this has a different metric.

So please let me know your own thoughts on:

1) How the business plan would pay (consequential benefits aren't relevant to investors, just hard cash)
2) How this new united Europe will evolve, when everything now looks like disintegrating.
3) Why this plan would be Marvellous, not Mirabel.
4) Which London airports would close, and how they would be compensated?
5) Which airlines, high or low cost, have expressed the slightest interest inthe proposal?

[silverstrata]

Skippy:

A smokey candle won't close LCY but the fog you claim to be "imaginary" has done so on several nights this week. A real pilot would not be so flippant.


But fog will not close an airfield with Cat IIIB autoland systems, which LCY does not have. Fog is NOT the big bogeyman you think it is - especially as a Thames site will not have any radiation fog. Is that clear enough?

And I am only flippant with people who are deliberately obtuse.





Skip:

I will ask you again to account for the safe operation of Virgin Atlantic, British Airways. Lufthansa, KLM and Air Canada, all of which I have seen with my own eyes leave Glasgow GLA/EGPF off the main runway of 2665m with space to spare on the B747-400.



Sorry Skip, but this is a pilot's forum, not the kindergarten. If you don't understand, then just lurk and see if you can learn something.

If you are at GLA with a shorter runway, then you have to accept the reduced length, and possibly shed some passengers and cargo too - especially on a hot day. I'm sure a 747 might even get airborne at Aberdeen, if you tried hard enough, but it would not be carrying much.

But if there is a perfectly serviceable 4,000m runway right next door, it would be almost criminal not to use it. And I would hope you might expect (being SLF yourself), that the guys up front are taking the safest and most professional options.



.

[jabird]

SS,

All I have seen is that SoE said he isn't a pilot. There are an awful lot of people on here who's main business at airports is neither as pilots nor SLF.

Can we please get back to debating the pros and cons of this airport, I'm switching off for the night, but there are 5 points for you to answer as homework :mad:

Night all.

[jackieofalltrades]

Silverstrata LGW have a 'follow the greens to the stand' system. Its a doddle.

It's only a doddle if the lighting panel operator can actually see the taxiways. If they can't due to fog, then Low Vis procedures become operational, and thus the flow rate decreases.

Heathrow (like HD commented above) also has the follow greens. If it's such a doddle, how come Heathrow and Gatwick have reduced flow rates in fog? Aircraft can land CAT III and they can follow the greens! By your logic and argument there should be no difference to CAVOK.

If, like you say you are, a B767 pilot, I would suggest you get someone in the know at your airline to contact NATS and arrange a visit to the control tower. You might learn a thing or two how ATC actually works.

[Cyrano]

OK, I've caught up on several pages of posts. Seems to me that either Tibetan monks have just identified the reincarnation of 411A, or some dodgy Stateside mail-order pharmacy recently sent out a dud batch of thorazine. :hmm:

[timzsta]

I teach at Southend. There is one thing wrong with that picture. The Southend Pier extends about four times further out into the estuary! Looking at the picture I can't see how shipping would be able to get up the Thames.

Second problem - from where the picture was taken, is a massive wind farm, that would cause major interference to ATC radar.

Third problem is that there is insufficient numbers with regard to the local population in North Kent to support a major international airport.

Anyone who watched the Commons Select Committee enquiry into the idea of an estuary airport a couple of years ago would realise this idea is a nonsense.

Finally how is it going to be paid for?

Once Mr Johnson is no longer Mayor of London, this ridiculous idea will die a death.

[controlx]

Where do we want to take the money from to finance this £50 billion dream over the several years it will take to build? Take your pick:


(£ billions)
2009-10
2010-11

Benefits and Pensions
195.5
202.6
Health
99.9
104
Education
66.4
69.2
Debt interest
27.2
42.9
Defence
38.7
36.7
Local government
30.1
30.8
Scotland
25.4
26.1
Law and Order
19.6
19.6
Wales
13.6
14
Northern Ireland
9.6
9.9
EU contributions
5.6
7.9
Transport
6.4
6.4
International aid
5.5
6.2
Other departments
127.9
125.4
Total government spending
671.4
701.7


'Benefits and Pensions' might be a start? Put something into the UK economy instead of throwing it away on lard-ass layabouts - or is that a bit too politically contentious?

[silverstrata]

Jackie

It's only a doddle if the lighting panel operator can actually see the taxiways. If they can't due to fog, then Low Vis procedures become operational, and thus the flow rate decreases.

Heathrow (like HD commented above) also has the follow greens. If it's such a doddle, how come Heathrow and Gatwick have reduced flow rates in fog? Aircraft can land CAT III and they can follow the greens! By your logic and argument there should be no difference to CAVOK.

If, like you say you are, a B767 pilot, I would suggest you get someone in the know at your airline to contact NATS and arrange a visit to the control tower. You might learn a thing or two how ATC actually works.



As you say, in the old days, the 'follow the greens' system was visual. But with the advent of milimetric ground radar, I see no technical problem to doing it in fog. Any reason why not?

And regards taxying, I have not experienced any problems anyway. The delay is always sitting in the hold trying to get down, not the taxy to stand. I cannot say I have ever been delayed in the taxy, apart from taking it slow and steady - but what does that add to a taxy, 3 minutes? (Or 45 minutes at AMS ;) )

Been to the tower many times, and seen how it works, but not for a few years due this absurd security issue. Equally, I have not seen a controller on the flight deck for decades, again due to this security issue (last company would not allow it whatsoever). Does your DofT realise they are making aviation LESS safe?






Turin

Where do we want to take the money from to finance this £50 billion dream over the several years it will take to build? Take your pick:


From the sale of Heathrow for industry and housing.

For Sale: huge new plot to the west of London:
A large new estate is now on the market, with convenient connections to motorway and easy connections to London via dedicated rail and tube lines. This west London estate has fine views over Windsor, and a number of existing building that can be utilised as high quality office space. Easy parking, with bespoke access to the M4 via an underpass. Early viewings are advisable, as this is a very desirable plot of land with planning permission.

Asking price, £60bn

New airport, £50bn


Profit? Loadsamoney....





Timsta

Third problem is that there is insufficient numbers with regard to the local population in North Kent to support a major international airport.


Undoubtedly new towns would have to be built on the north and south shores. But the government has already said it needs to create more housing in the SE (because a sudden New Labour generated rise in population), and so that is already counted for.

The site would be a bit further east than the Lord Foster abortion - directly between Shoeburyness and Sheerness.





Jabird

5) Which airlines, high or low cost, have expressed the slightest interest inthe proposal?


The major airlines would be advised to plan ahead, by advising them that LHR will be closing. The Lo-Co airlines will gravitate to where there are cheap facilities and lots of passengers. If Lo-Cos can go to CDG and AMS, it is not beyond the whit of architects to to add an old shed on one end of the airport for the Lo-Cos.

This is another reason for having two separate short haul runways and a separate short/domestic terminal (with a nice terminal at one end, and an old hangar they found on a farm in Essex at the other end, for the Lo-co fliers).


.

[silverstrata]

Turin:

A hot day? At Glasgow!!!!
Shurley shome mishtake!


I shtand corrected. "On a day when the temperature in Glasgow is above zero....."


.

[TURIN]

If you are at GLA with a shorter runway, then you have to accept the reduced length, and possibly shed some passengers and cargo too - especially on a hot day.

A hot day? At Glasgow!!!!:E

Shurley shome mishtake!

[jabird]

SS,

You have only answered one out of 5 questions on your homework assignment. To suggest low cost airlines would pay for this fantasy, when they have so many other London airports to choose from, built on cheaper terra firma, is madness

You score 0%

Asking price, £60bn New airport, £50bn Profit? Loadsamoney....

You mean lunacy, not loadsamoney. LHR is a tiny site, relative to its global importance. Terminal buildings are not cheap to adapt into office buildings, most airport sites that get re-used keep little of the original structures unless they have special historic value.

[Nick Thomas]

Silvastrata to paraphrase John McEnroe "you can't be serious" £60 billion for Heathrow. No chance not with land elsewhere at a far cheaper price. At say £2 million an acre you could buy 30,000 acres; one hell of a lot of land. Please also tell me how you propose to get a change of use from an airport to that of say offices or housing or industrial, and that would only result in outline planning permission. What about all the on costs of removing all the air bridges, runways and more expensively all the fuel tanks and pipes. I could go on and on but I have made my point

[Skipness One Echo]

So how many peeps on the dole in West London then? You've just closed Heathrow, stick to flying, your commercial awareness is zero.

[silverstrata]

Nick,

Silvastrata to paraphrase John McEnroe "you can't be serious" £60 billion for Heathrow. At say £2 million an acre you could buy 30,000 acres; one hell of a lot of land.

Please also tell me how you propose to get a change of use from an airport to that of say offices or housing or industrial, and that would only result in outline planning permission.

What about all the on costs of removing all the air bridges, runways and more expensively all the fuel tanks and pipes.



Dear me, your cup is really half empty.



Windsor Views - 3,000 acres of prime real-estate, the largest development site in Europe, immediately adjacent to Europe's largest capital city. And as a responsible landlord and custodian, we are not simply selling the land, but developing it.

Change of land usage, you ask? Never you mind sir, the government is short of cash and will be signing tomorrow. No questions asked, just you wait and see.

Airbridges? That's, errm, legacy infrastructure, sir. We advertised them for £6,000 each on Ebay, and they will be gone tomorrow. Buyer collects. Yorkshire Airways want them, apparently.

Runways? What runways? Sir, sir, sir, the site already has much of its infrastructure already installed, including all of the roadways. Jump in the car, and I will show you around the estate layout. And all the roadways have center-lane and edge lighting too, as you can see. Nice, isn't it?
Err, yes, sir, the colours are quite novel, and the lampposts are quite short, but we will be changing them to the standard design soon - there was some trouble with the suppliers you know, they were from Albania.

Fuel pipes? What fuel pipes? Oh, I see what you mean. Sir, all the business premises will be oil fired, and all of the pipework has already been installed, for your convenience. Same with the electrical systems. Just plug in, and go.

We even have a security center, for your protection. That large tower thingy over there - 24hr protection, because we know that is important for your business. Don't worry, sir, we have thought of everything....

Jeeezzz, where is Lord Sugar, when you need him??





Skippy

So how many peeps on the dole in West London then? You've just closed Heathrow, stick to flying, your commercial awareness is zero.


See above.

LHR has the lowest employment per acre of anywhere in London. A new Windsor Views business park would be the biggest boon ever to the area. Google for what happened to Covent Garden, when the market there closed down.



.
.

[Skipness One Echo]

While terminals 1,2 & 3 are a national disgrace.
You should be able to count to three if they really let you on the flightdeck.....
You really have no conception of LHR if you think the above is true in the last two years.

[Prophead]

As I have said before there is more to Heathrow than just the airport. They will not need to redevelop the terminals into offices as there will be many office buildings standing empty in the thames valley that once housed aviation related companies supporting Heathrow.

They would also not be able to sell the land for anywhere near the amount you say to build houses as so many people in the area will have been made redundant, or had to move to the thames estuary area.

I really think you are underestimating the affect that closing LHR will have on that whole area.

There is a lot of construction going on at Heathrow at the moment. The airport is being transfomed into a world class facility and although people will, being british complain. It is in my opinion where people want to fly to/from and with the transport links currently being built, should be allowed to continue to grow. If it means the loss of one small village so be it. I doubt that many of the people that are against the third runway would actually want to see the airport close completely.

[jabird]

SS,

So you have answered 1 out of the 5 points set in your homework task, with a ludicrous suggestion that low costs airlines would want to use such a high cost airport.

You get 0%

As as for sellling off LHR, there really isn't that much space to sell, considering how compact the site is for such an important global facility. To suggest it employs such a low number of people per acre is ridiculous.

Just to clarify - who actually owns the land LHR is built on - is that owned by ADI, or UK govt? Either way, any land around the airport which is used for airport related activities is still private.

[Nick Thomas]

Silverstrata
In the spirit of cooperation may I point out that I think that Heathrow covers an area of nearer to 6,400 acres and not 3,000. Let's assume the site is 4 miles long (generous but based on 12,000ft long runways) and 2.5 miles wide ie 10 sq miles @ 640 acres per sq mile. Using your reasonable valuation of the site of £60 billion and an area of 3,000 acres, I make that £20,000,000 per acre. So lets multiply that by 6,400 and we arrive at a very reasonable valuation of £128 billion. Spend £50 billion on the new airport and we are left with a profit of £78 billion.
You have convinced me; of what I leave for you to work out.

[Aero Mad]

... which will, of course, be lost in week 1's dole money...

[jackieofalltrades]

SilverstrataAs you say, in the old days, the 'follow the greens' system was visual. But with the advent of milimetric ground radar, I see no technical problem to doing it in fog. Any reason why not?
As good as radar may be, there is too much interference from hangar buildings, passenger terminals, food trucks etc to be highly accurate enough for controlling aircraft taxiing. Despite what you may believe, nothing beats physically looking out the window and seeing the planes when you're controlling their movement around the airfield. It's all very well to see a radar return as a dot on your screen, but that doesn't tell you exactly where the aeroplane's tail or wingtips are.

Been to the tower many times, and seen how it works, but not for a few years due this absurd security issue. Equally, I have not seen a controller on the flight deck for decades, again due to this security issue (last company would not allow it whatsoever). Does your DofT realise they are making aviation LESS safe?
You seem to be familiar with Gatwick judging by your earlier posts. So I presume you fly into there often? If so, like I said before, ask the person in the know with your airline to contact NATS and arrange a tower visit. Although I work in the en-route control centre, I know the tower folks are equally as welcoming for pilots to come visit and see what goes on in the control room. With an appropriate request from the right channel it can be arranged.

I've been on the flight deck many times. Famil flights are still fairly common, although not as much as I would like. I see a number of new trainees coming through that have never seen a cockpit, which makes me wonder how much of an appreciation of the pilot's role and tasks they fully have. I would glady welcome going on more famil flights.

[silverstrata]

Jackie

As good as radar may be, there is too much interference from hangar buildings, passenger terminals, food trucks etc to be highly accurate enough for controlling aircraft taxiing.


Then what, may I ask, is the point of ground radar? It must be good enough, otherwise airports would not invest £million in it.




Jackie

I see a number of new trainees coming through that have never seen a cockpit, which makes me wonder how much of an appreciation of the pilot's role and tasks they fully have. I would glady welcome going on more famil flights.


And therein lies a great problem that your DofT seems incapable of addressing. They think they are making aviation safer, when nothing could be further from the truth.



Aeromad

... which will, of course, be lost in week 1's dole money...


And there is another problem that nobody will grasp. The unemployment budget would pay for one new Heathrow (or the equivalent) EVERY YEAR for the next 'n' years. The UK could revise the entire transport infrastructure of the nation in just one decade, if they 'induced' the parasites to work.



.

[silverstrata]

Jackie

It aides the controller in identifying the aircraft he can see out the window. Imagine looking at 8 or so A319s or B737s all painted in the same company livery. A quick glance at the ground radar will remind him the order they are on the taxiway.



In 100 m of fog, the ground surface radar is no longer an 'aid', it is the only tool the ATC have, apart from pilot reporting. And since most airports don't utilise the 'taxiway block' system of LHR, one presumes it works.


This is the AMS system - showing primary imagery, secondary information, track trail and speed. What more does a controller need?

http://i41.tinypic.com/s64u4k.jpg


And as I said before - low vis delays are not in the taxying, but in the landing.




Jackie

(ATC familiarity flights) nothing at all to do with the DfT. Air Traffic Controllers, including trainees are still permitted to be in the cockpit on famil flights. It's more that company budgets restrict the access and availability. It's been a couple of years since my last famil flight.


Wrong.

It is the DofT that has banned jumpseat rides in the UK, and most of the airlines have interpreted that restriction as a blanket ban - including ATC familiarity flights.

This is fundamentally a DofT problem.





Flightman

I'm enjoying this, keep it up chaps, the noise issue in particular. How far do you think the noise of a 744 will travel across open water. Boris Island is not the great answer to noise people think it is.


Since the majority of approach and take-off noise is propagated from an airborne source, I fail to see that the surface water will make much difference. Unless you have data otherwise (that Hong Kong data had no maps and no comparisons).

And I don't know how you could suggest that approaches and departures over the Thames estuary can be anything like as bad as those same flights being over the center of London.

As far as surface radiated noise goes, which can be a nuisance with an aircraft on full thrust especially on high pressure days, noise deflectors along the runways (at a suitable distance) could greatly assist.

They are extensively used on European motorways, and are remarkably effective. Quite often, you don't even know that there is a busy motorway running right next to the town. Shame the English and American motorways do not have the same protection.

Obviously for aviation purposes, someone would have to calculate the optimum distance/height and frangibility of such fences, proportionate to flight safety.


http://i39.tinypic.com/2s16m93.jpg






.

[silverstrata]

Jabird

now you suggest (auto) engineering could apply to noise reduction. Let's stick with the engineering challenge this airport poses in its own right.


As you have seen, every false objection possible is being thrown at the project, and sometimes it is necessary to deflect these peripheral diversions.

However, one of the more immediate concerns, is to stop Cross-rail finishing at Abbey Wood. Before the government throws away the TBMs and waste a valuable opportunity to link our transport network. Some additional funding is urgently required to push Cross-rail east towards Boris Island.


.

[jackieofalltrades]

Then what, may I ask, is the point of ground radar? It must be good enough, otherwise airports would not invest £million in it.
It aides the controller in identifying the aircraft he can see out the window. Imagine looking at 8 or so A319s or B737s all painted in the same company livery. A quick glance at the ground radar will remind him the order they are on the taxiway.

And therein lies a great problem that your DofT seems incapable of addressing. They think they are making aviation safer, when nothing could be further from the truth.

Has nothing at all to do with the DfT. Air Traffic Controllers, including trainees are still permitted to be in the cockpit on famil flights. It's more that company budgets restrict the access and availability. It's been a couple of years since my last famil flight.

[Flightman]

How far do you think the noise of a 744 will travel across open water. Boris Island is not the great answer to noise people think it is. :=

Look at that other 'floating' airport, Chep Lap Kok.

Aircraft Noise (http://www.cad.gov.hk/english/ac_noise.html)


PS DfT not DofT.

Carry on. :ok:

[Gonzo]

Airports with modern A-SMGCS and selectable taxiway lights are not limited by taxiway guidance in low visibility, but protecting the LLZ for the ILS.

Yes, down the road at some point we'll have GBAS CATIII, work is already being done on reducing the LSA for certain aircraft types. Lessons learnt from the increased LSA required if an A380 is taxying next to the runway are being applied to other aircraft.

That still doesn't mean that an airport in the Thames Estuary would be free of the capacity issues every single other large airport has in fog.

[jabird]

SS,

First you try to apply motorway budgeting to a new airport, now you suggest the same engineering could apply to noise reduction. Let's stick with the engineering challenge this airport poses in its own right, and solve with devices which are relevant to aviation.

BHX has huge grass berms which provide some shielding to houses between the airport terminal complex and Martson Green.

Although I don't agree with this airport, it should be fairly obvious that it provides a massive net reduction in noise footprint, compared to Heathrow.

However, noise reduction alone does not create a business case for a new airport, nor is it remotely fesible to suggest welfare budgets can be slashed to pay for it - then you are just moving a problem of individual 'scroungers' to corporate welfaree 'scrounging' - of course the problem isn't s simple as that either, but that is one for Jetblast.

So, I repeat - £50bn investment, how do you propose an ROI on commercial terms, given the risks?

[jolihokistix]

How about doing something clever like linking it all together into a new Thames Barrier, road/rail bridge, and airport? Three or four budgets into one...? :ok:

[bigdaviet]

As I have said before there is more to Heathrow
It is in my opinion where people want to fly to/from and with the transport links currently being built, should be allowed to continue to grow. If it means the loss of one small village so be it. I doubt that many of the people that are against the third runway would actually want to see the airport close completely.

Possibly where people going to/from London want to fly from. Anyone else that needs to use it as a transit hub will avoid it like the plague, often paying more simply to do so. Even fancy new terminals like number 5 cannot solve Heathrow's problems. Namely that it is running far too close to capacity and all the problems you can associate with that. As Boris has already said even a third runway cannot solve this problem, particularly in the medium/long term.

[Prophead]

So building new runways, terminals, baggage transfer tunnels etc. wont solve the problem of an airport running at capacity?Not sure I understand the logic there.

The whole plan for the redevelopment of LHR is based on making the transfer of passengers and baggage easier and more streamlined. This will make it more viable as a hub. Crossrail will make it more easy to get to/from London for passengers using it as a starting/ending point. It is next to both the M25 and the M4 so easily accessible by road. The airport provides jobs to a large area of west London & the Thames valley.

What it really needs is a rail connection from the north, south and west that doesn't involve going into London and back out.

[silverstrata]

Jollisticks

How about doing something clever like linking it all together into a new Thames Barrier, road/rail bridge, and airport? Three or four budgets into one...?



That is exactly what has been proposed.

London needs a new Thames barrier anyway, costing about £20 billion, and the current Dartford crossing is just a mess, so throw all of these into the same melting-pot.

If you divide it up, you get:

Thames barrier £20 bn
Thames hydro project £5 bn
Road crossing £5 bn
Rail crossing £5 bn
Thames port facility £5 bn
Thames Airport £10 bn
Expenditure £50 bn
less sale of LHR £40 bn
Total expenditure £10 bn


Airport (saving) £40 bn
Sale of LHR £40 bn
Total savings £80 bn


But the last thing we need is for Boris to kick it all into the long grass, once more. Where would Paris be, if everything was still crunched up into Orly?




Prophead:

So building new runways, terminals, baggage transfer tunnels etc. wont solve the problem of an airport running at capacity?Not sure I understand the logic there.


Heathrow still has a lack of taxi space, stands, and decent terminals. Plus, it is still limited in arrivals/departures (even on a good day) and it has a long night curfew.

Even another commuter/domestic runway and terminal will not help, as that will simply add to the number of passengers interlining onto international flights - which the main airport and runways simply cannot cope with.

Heathrow needs two new international runways, plus a couple of domestic/commuter runways, to cope with its true potential. And even if you could do some radical bulldozing to the south, to put another runway there, there are no stands available - and there would still be a night curfew, and the west of London would still be blighted by the noise and emissions.



.


.

[Skipness One Echo]

It's all froth. "Look at the shiny dream voters, here's what you could have one day" (I'll Be long gone by then but vote for me in the meantime)

London needs Runway 3 at LHR ASAP. The CBI is putting the thumbscrews on the Tory party, many of whom are not as "eco mental" as "call me dave". Anyhoo we'll have T2 in two years, T5 is working well now T5C is up and running and connectivity is being improved if BD folds into BA.

No airlines believe this Fantasy Island will realistically happen. BAA doesn't even believe it, if they did, they'd be trying to run it. Now Boris famously does NOT do detail, he's broad brush and lazy. (I do love him though!)
Incidentally, there is no actual policy as yet, that's why we don't know whether this proposal depends on a closed LHR.
Incidentally I know CDG has all that space, but it's not really that much better as an airport experience, it's just spread out more. I think Silverstrata's view of LHR is about five years out of date. The complaint about T2 being a poor experience, present tense shows that much.

[Gonzo]

Hang on.......You say it will cost £10bn to create this new airport, and yet you expect to get £40bn from the sale of LHR?

[Nick Thomas]

On post 95 SS claimed an asking price of £60 billion for Heathrow and now he says £40 billion. Both are far too high. As Gonzo correctly points out there is a huge difference between £10 billion for a new airport and £40 billion for Heathrow. If SS was right Heathrow's current owners would be determined to move to Boris Island.
All the costs mentioned by SS are pie in the sky, and he has no idea of all the on costs of redeveloping Heathrow. In an earlier post 105 I explained why his estimates for selling Heathrow were so far out. Maybe thats why he reduced the expected yield from Heathrow.

[Honeybuzzard]

No new airport will be built in the UK. Too expensive, no room, we will soon need every available bit of land to grow food, and what will the aircraft be powered by in say 2020? not Jet A1, as oil production will have peaked. Combined Airships/Aircraft may be ready by then, and will not need runways.

[Barling Magna]

I agree that no new airport will be built in the UK, certainly not in the Thames Estuary, but otherwise you're wide of the mark. Aircraft will be using Jet A1 in 2020 and for a considerable time thereafter. Peak oil makes assumptions about likely new oil reserves. I remember sitting in a lecture in 1972 being told that oil production would peak in 1985 and run out by 1995..... In the same year The Club of Rome predicted a complete collapse of fuels and commodities by the year 2000. These things have not happened, nor will they. Human ingenuity is such that every crisis will be overcome - necessity is the mother of invention. Great strides are being made in fuel-efficient engines and in alternative fuels, so that some time in the future oil won't be used by jet airliners, but it will certainly be more than nine years before that happens. As for commercial airships, well they've been predicted for decades too......

[FlyingEagle21]

If a new Estuary Airport is built. It would need full industry backing.
For it to become a hub, Heathrow would have to close. The transition would need to be well thought out. The transportation links to the new hub would need to be world class and no less. If it's going to be done, it has to be done properly.

[MAN777]

New airport won't happen.

Too much invested at LHR for it to close.

Too expensive to build.

Too damaging to the environment to build.

No workforce living near.

Wont be liked by all the HQs that are in the west of London.


Yes Heathrow is full and potentially loosing out to European airports but so much more could be done here in the UK before we start covering our small country with yet more South East centric concrete.

Why can't London airways be encouraged to show an interest in the regions again with mini hubs being set up again (as LH does in Germany) at Birmingham and Manchester.

If BA needs new slots to expand into emerging markets why not offload some of the overcapacity (US flights for example) to the regions and release those slots for those new flights.

Another big problem that an earlier poster touched on was "What will all these aircraft at this new airport use as fuel in the future ?" Can we really risk such vast sums of money on a project and industry that may not exist soon ?

I for one am going to live in a cottage next to the sea, live on fish and home grown vegetables, use a wind turbine and batteries for power, old chippy oil in my LR Defender and shoes made out of recycled tyres !!

I don't really give a toss what you do:rolleyes::rolleyes:

[silverstrata]

Gonzo

Hang on.......You say it will cost £10bn to create this new airport, and yet you expect to get £40bn from the sale of LHR?


If the cost of the Thames barrier, island and the road and rail links are placed in their true bugetry pidgeonholes, then the cost of a terminal and a slightly larger island for the runways could easily be accomodated within £10bn.

London is going to need a new Thames barrier, in the next 10 years anyway, before it becomes the new Thailand, and sinks gracefully under the sea. And the new roads go without saying .... as they say in the People's Judaean Front.



Man7

Yes Heathrow is full and potentially loosing out to European airports but so much more could be done here in the UK before we start covering our small country with yet more South East centric concrete.


That's the whole advantage with a Thames airport - nearly nothing gets covered in concrete, except a silty estruary. And don't blame aviation for destroying the UK's open space and wildlife, blame the guys who allowed the UK to be invaded. Strange as it may have seemed to the brain-dead politicians, but all these new people wanted somewhere to live and somewhere to drive. Strange that...




Man7

Another big problem that an earlier poster touched on was "What will all these aircraft at this new airport use as fuel in the future ?"



An easy problem to solve, if we did not choose brain-dead idiots for politicians.

Aviation is one of the few energy users that cannot be easily changed - not until someone does something radical to battery design. So fuel should be hoarded for aviation use.

As to (nearly) everything else, the nation can go electric. Not with those renewable fantasies, promoted by Dave "where-did-my-roof-turbine-go-to" Cameron, and his Watermelon chums, but by Thorium power. There is some 10,000 years of Thorium power, easily available - it is one of the commonest of the nuclear power sources, and inherently safe (the decay elements are short life, and you cannot turn it into a bomb).

Heating will be electric thermic pumps (a fridge backwards), which are clever designs that can deliver up to four times the input energy. Vehicles can also be electric - we are not there yet, with battery energy density, but getting there. Its a shame that, since this is the major technology gap mankind has, not one brain-dead politician has launched a major initiative to discover better energy stores.

Oh, and Thorium has no CO2 emissions, which may be a problem. CO2 is plant food, and the greatest determinor of crop yields, and so we may need CO2 generators to keep our populations fed. (Don't believe the warming cr*p that the Watermelons keep telling you about, that is simply a political gambit aimed at creating a One World Government. With the PDO turning negative and the Sunspot cycle in a funk, we are likely in for a cooling period of 30 years.)


Keep smiling - we may one day insist that politicians are picked from the brightest, and have actually done some real work before they are elected. But then one day pigs may fly and Lo-cos may put safety first......


.

[PAXboy]

It has been fun to read this thread ... before asking a couple of points let's say together: "Calm down, dear, it's only a political PR exercise to make it look like they have the vision thing."

I state: NO NEW AIRPORTS IN THE UK IN THE NEXT 50 YEARS!! The reasons are all clear:

The Thames/M4 corridor is only there BECAUSE of LHR. If they thought that they COULD ditch LHR, who would pay BAAplc for T5 and the revamped T2, which would be costed over a (minimum) 20 year life span? Even converting them to other use would cost a bomb.

The airline biz in the UK has already been changed in the past 20 years by:


Deregulation of Europe and elsewhere
LoCos
Privatisation of airports and carriers
The 2007 financial crash and recession - which has another 20 years to run
The emergence of Emirates and the other mid east carriers
The Euro hubs of FRA, CDG + AMS have already taken most of the hub traffic and it ain't gonna come back no more, no more
Carriers are able to use direct, long thin routes, in a way that was not open before.
Just how much are all the carriers going to have to pay to support operations at this field? In order to do so, they would HAVE to leave one of the others (STN/LGW) and how much spare cash have the carriers got to invest in starting up, and moving to, another major field in the South East of this tiny country?

And so it goes on. There will always be a need for a 2nd runway at LGW (which will not be built) and a 3rd at LHR (which will not be built). They will not be built for the same reason that this will not be built. No UK govt has the money or the b@lls to make it happen.

silverstrata
Now I know that is what New Labour wanted for the UK, to undermine the fabric of the nation for Marxist ideological reasons, but it is not what the people of this country want.Eeer, NO. New labour was nothing to do with Maxist ideology! It was to be the new govt in power and then turn the New Labour people into part of the establishment in a dazzling move of upward social mobility and money.

SS also stated:
The point is that a much larger airport, that is not capacity restricted like LHR, would not have to reduce traffic flows during Low Vis opps. Had this recent fog blanketed a much larger Thames airport, there would have been no flight cancellations.So - what makes you think that they would not do the same as EGLL?? That is, over sell the landing slots beyond the capacity of the field, so as to make more money? If the UK govt limited EGLL's slots, then they could handle the days with problems more easily - but that ain't gonna happen!

indie cent
How can we, as a nation, be seriously proposing that we can justify cutting swathes across the entire country to build a double hi-speed railway (which is long overdue anyway), but not a short one-mile strip of concrete to alleviate the 20 stacked disaster that is Heathrow.Well said! But this sketch of a non-existant airport is not being proposed by 'the nation' You are forgetting that politicians need to have a result visible in the press for a week and the polls for a maximum of four years. Modern politicians have no interest in the future.

[jabird]

Why can't London airways be encouraged to show an interest in the regions again with mini hubs being set up again (as LH does in Germany) at Birmingham and Manchester.

Essentially down to hypotrophia (although I can currently only find reference to that term in medical use, I am sure it equally applies to geography ) - basically London and Paris are enlarged significantly above their next nearest cities, both in terms of population, and their status as transport hubs. Why do people want to live in London? Because everyone else wants to live in London, because many sectors of the economy are centrered on London, therefore more people move to London, and so on.

This simply does not apply to the structure of Germany, where there are 5 or 6 major cities, each performing well in certain sectors.

When it comes to aviation hubs, the tendency of hubs to suck in more traffic, and in turn to create more demand for routes means that airlines want to be at Heathrow, if they can get the slots, and after that, they will settle for another London airport. The power of the network has a squared relationship with the number of routes offered - therefore, whilst non-UK airlines will often open new routes from BHX, MAN, GLA etc in to their own respective hubs, none of these airports has significant appeal for a hub and spoke operation (as opposed to the low cost bases they can sustain quite happily)

SS,

If you had a little more knowledge about the airline industry (low costs airlines being dangerous), I'd consider debating your AGW conspiracies, in the mean time, I'm still trying to work out how LHR can be sold for more than the cost of building a new airport.

[Bagso]

FACT

There is not enough airspace above the South East to build a new airport, we can pontificate about doing all manner of things and factors but at the end of the day there are too many conflicting app/dep routes into the South East that will restrict ultimate capacity.

Close down Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton, London City, Northolt, Biggin , Farnborough etc build a new airport , 8 runways with "uniformed procedures" and there "might" be a chance, otherwise forget it......!

...And when you have a single daily MAN-ORD service making more money than the multiple combined daily LHR-ORD services, something is seriously screwed !!! :ugh:

[sellbydate]

So then, lets get this right, when Heathrow closes to allow for the use of the new Thames Estuary super-hub, the next airports up the road serving the north/west of London and the tens of millions who want to be that side of the capital would be......Wycombe/Booker International, White Waltham Metropolitan, errrr, aha, got it - London Oxford Airport!!!

It's a conspiracy, Dave wants to move an English Parliament to Oxford, just like Charles 1st and Hilter thought that was a rather good idea.

[silverstrata]

.

The Thames Airport is back in the news this morning (Tuesday) with a big article in The Times. This is a link to the front page, but this will change after today:

The Times | UK News, World News and Opinion (http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/)

Unfortunately the full article is behind a paywall, but hopefully the other papers will pick up the story tomorrow.


.

[sellbydate]

and (ironically) Lord Foster appears to have been in Oxford last night giving a lecture on his grand vision for London - see link below

Lord Foster Reveals Further Developments for the Proposed Thames Hub (http://www.dexigner.com/news/24263)

[silverstrata]

Paxboy

Eeer, NO. New labour was nothing to do with Maxist ideology! It was to be the new govt in power and then turn the New Labour people into part of the establishment in a dazzling move of upward social mobility and money.



Errr, No.

How on earth do you promote social mobility, by destroying grammar schools? They were the only institution in the country that would take any bright student, no matter what their economic background, and propel them into top positions and into government (like Thatcher and Major and many of the Labour Cabinet).

Clearly the destruction of the grammar schools, was designed to deliberately lower social mobility - and make people more 'equal' (but more equally ignorant, rather than more equally educated. An ill-educated population are easier to control).

And the ignorant masses are easier still to control, if they are all sucking on the Government teat - this is why welfare payments were increased so massively (to almost all income brackets), and why the civil service expanded by over a million.

.


And the reason for doing this?

John Reid was a former Marxist.
Charles Clarke was a Marxist, spending time in Cuba.
Alistair Darling was a Marxist.
Alan Johnson was a Communist who liked to think he was a Marxist.
Perter Mandelson was a Young Communist.
And more worryingly, the two Milliband brothers are sons of Ralph Miliband, who was a very prominent 1950s - 80s Marxist.
The Defence Secretary and the International Marxist Group - Mail Online - Peter Hitchens blog (http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2009/07/the-defence-secretary-and-the-international-marxist-group/comments/page/2/)




This is partly why the Labour government jumped on the Global Warming bandwagon. When Communism collapsed in the late 80s, there was widespread despondency that the goal of world Socialist/Communist domination had ended.

However, a number of Marxists jumped onto the Green bandwagon and took it over, which is why the Greens are now looking towards a world government (to look after the planet, of course), that is distinctly Communist (the rich nations must give to the poor nations; wealth in terms of energy usage must be heavily taxed; and we must all live in mud huts).


This is why the Greens are called watermelons - Green on the outside, and Red on the inside.


Why does this matter to a new London Airport??


Because a key goal of these Marxo-Greens is to set up a world government, and make all nations and people equal (Communist). This means the West must regress back to the economic and educational standards of India and Africa. As a part of that regression process, New Labour did not build any:

roads, railways, docks, power stations, nuclear power stations, power distribution lines, cities, factories, spaceports, research institutions, national projects, new designs of aircraft of technologies, industries - and, of course, no new airports.


But there was a huge drive to flood the nation with immigrants, because a divided nation can never be a strong nation that can resist Marxist subjugation (the standard political philosophy of Divide and Rule). So there, in a nutshell, is why we have such atrocious airports in the UK.


.

[MAN777]

Why this "we must compete" with CDG, FRA, AMS mentality. What is wrong with Londoners having to hub for a change, it is after all what everyone else in the UK has been having to do for years.

I don't believe this headlong rush towards more and more runways is sustainable and as a UK tax contributor I certainly don't want tax spending on this hub domination madness.

[TSR2]

One of the options to reduce the carbon footprint of aviation in a new DfT report, is to delay building any new runways beyond 2050. This is based on a 25% downward revision of expected growth in passenger numbers between now and 2030 based on several factors including the recent decision not to build new runways at Heathrow, Gatwick or Stansted. The report suggests that the revised growth figures are achievable using existing runway capacity.

Source : Airliner World - December 2011.

[stormin norman]

If we cannot build a extra mile of tarmac at heathrow or Gatwick what chance of a new airport anywhere?

It took 10 years of planning meetings before building commenced to get a terminal built at Heathrow so i cannot see any new airport being built in the lifetime of anyone presently breathing in the uk.

[Skipness One Echo]

I don't believe this headlong rush towards more and more runways is sustainable and as a UK tax contributor I certainly don't want tax spending on this hub domination madness.

The value of inbound tourism spending taking advantage of the larger number of direct flights available is the key driver, along with the obvious fact that London has a much greater proportion of people flying on business who need the critical mass and frequency of a hub.

Wasn't building runway 3 at LHR a privately financed project?

[Nick Thomas]

SS
Now we know your reason for being so keen on a new airport: It's so you can post your anti New Labour rhetoric. In case you haven't noticed in LA, New Labour have been out of power for 18 months. Also any self respecting Marxist is (like you) anti New Labour.
What ever your views; producing a flawed business case for this development is not helping your argument.

[commit aviation]

Having just listened to the Chancellors Autumn Statement he did make brief mention of aviation & that everything would be considered apart from a third runway at LHR.

"And we will explore all the options for maintaining the UK’s aviation hub status, with the exception of a third runway at Heathrow."

Cue more reports, hot air & little or no progress then....

[LGS6753]

...but the National Infrastructure Plan he referred to mentions specific road improvements around Birmingham, Luton and Manchester Airports.

[Gonzo]

SS,

If the cost of the Thames barrier, island and the road and rail links are placed in their true bugetry pidgeonholes, then the cost of a terminal and a slightly larger island for the runways could easily be accomodated within £10bn.

And who are you going to find to buy LHR for £40bn? And foot the bill for the 75,000 direct unemployed, and who knows how many indirect unemployed, in the West London, M40-M3 corridor?

[sellbydate]

Arrange in order of viability/logic or cost:

1. Third Runway at Heathrow + first leg of HS2 line via LHR

2. 2nd Runway at Gatwick (post 2019)

3. Another runway at Stansted

4. Heathrow integrated with RAF Northolt instead of 3rd Runway with underground/surface links

5. High speed rail spurs/links to Manston and/or Lydd and let them evolve/extend/expand

6. Encourage (4) plus development of Oxford, Cambridge and Farnborough as commercial airports

7. Allow limited commercial activity at Biggin Hill plus other options here

8. Adapt Brize Norton for commercial use (+ requisite high speed rail) + M40/M4/A34 link

9. As (6) but with RAF Benson, Odiham

10. Reinstate Upper Heyford with HS2 diversion/spur-already just 1m from M40

11. Accelerate HS2 rail program via LHR and BHX with longer runway at BHX

12. Build new Thames Estuary hub keeping Heathrow open but with cap on movements

13. Build Thames Estuary hub closing down London City, Southend and Heathrow in one go

14. Forget all the above and limit any further growth in UK, South East aviation

15. (very) High speed rail link joining today’s London airports together in a ring

16. Shanghai-type monorail from London to Charles de Gaulle/Frankfurt or Amsterdam – 250mph+ - ideally 300mph

17. Any combination of the above
Pros and cons please – before the politicians go and make the most stupid decisions which we’ll be regretting for generations to come

[jabird]

Why this "we must compete" with CDG, FRA, AMS mentality. What is wrong with Londoners having to hub for a change, it is after all what everyone else in the UK has been having to do for years.

I don't believe this headlong rush towards more and more runways is sustainable and as a UK tax contributor I certainly don't want tax spending on this hub domination madness.

Because whether you fly to CDG, AMS or anywhere else for a connecting flight, or fly direct to where you actually want to go, you are still taking up a seat on an aircraft on a runway which has capacity constraints.

Infact, a short hop to another European airport for a longer hop somewhere else means more use of smaller aircraft, therefore more slots needed to get the same job done. And as for sustainability, doing nothing might mean more stacks and more wasteful taxiing.

So even though I don't think a Thames airport is the answer, it isn't always the greener option to do nothing.

[MAN777]

Jabird

Yes I understand that, but my point is that its quite OK for everyone north of Watford to have to hub to get where they want or drive down the M1 to LHR.

But when the idea of Londoners having to be inconvenienced by hubbing or driving north, all hell breaks out and we get cries of we need a mega airport.

There is huge spare capacity all over the UK which could be used to a degree with encouragement and investment. Its not ideal I know but spending such huge sums on what could be a very large white elephant is in my mind not an option.

And I say again why can't BA use MAN and BHX as mini hubs again, it won't fully address the issue but it could provide breathing space. Lufthansa have extensive hubs running at Frankfurt and Munich and they are only 240 miles apart (not a great deal more than MAN to LHR)

Effective Hubs with loads of runways already exist lets use them first.

[jabird]

MAN,

Because of the hypertrophia (unless someone has a better word) as mentioned above. BA have exited BHX & MAN, they aren't coming back.

Germany, like the US - several large cities. Totally different geography, nothing to do with politics, the French, Greeks, Danes etc can all have the same whinge.

[MAN777]

Jabird

Errrm the last time I stepped outside I think I lived in a pretty large conurbation.

M62 Corridor which is more or less a broad band of human population covering Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Bradford combined population 7 million.

Greater London 8 million

So I would say we have very clearly defined several large cities and thats not including the Midlands conurbations.

Yes, Yes I know the north doesn't have the multi nationals HQs and core business base as London does but there is a significant population up here that do wish to travel, ask Emirates about the number of Business and first class passengers they are creaming away from London everyday.

[jabird]

MAN777,

Simply not the case. In the aviation world, the importance of a city is measured by the propensity of its citizens to fly, and of its tourist attractions to attract inbound. So I'm afraid the multinational HQs, The City, creative industries, political institutions, you name it, the focus is on London.

You are casting a very wide net, which MAN Airport marketing would no doubt use in their marketing as a 'people within 2 hour drive / train journey' stat. This net for the whole SE would come closer to 20 million.

I could air the same gripe living in Coventry, but I don't - I am glad to be close to London when I need to be. And when it comes to air route, we have everything to whinge about @CVT, and plenty to whinge about in BHX.

In that respect, MAN punches well above its weight - and yes, EK suck plenty of passengers out of BHX too, but that does not create a case of either BHX or MAN to be developed as network hub (as opposed to loco base and hub feeder) airports.

[ZOOKER]

Hmm, I don't know which way the 'creaming' is going, but I haven't noticed an upsurge in individuals sporting Arab head-dress in the Lancashire/Cheshire area of late.

[MAN777]

OK then why does Munich (population 1.35 million) do so well with its hub operation.

Answer - Because Lufthansa and Munich have made a huge investment in facilities and route structure.

As a result Europeans have another alternative hub to route through and LH suck more passengers from European countries without overloading Frankfurt (only 240 miles away) and another region of Germany gets a decent network.

Actual population and wealth of host city is only part of the story.

BA is now suffering along with all the other airlines that decided to concentrate on LHR, they have created an incredible monster operation that has little or no flexibility that falls at the first sign of trouble.

Oh and we do have some Arabs floating about now and again, they bought Man city :rolleyes:

Wonder how long LHR will take to become gridlocked tomorrow when the strike kicks in ?

Anyway apologies for the thread creep, I don't want it to become a North v South debate.

[Skipness One Echo]

Answer - Because Lufthansa and Munich have made a huge investment in facilities and route structure.

Because the market is there for the service they supply. It's not at Manchester as there's not enough point to point high value traffic to make setting up a hub for transfer traffic worthwhile.

Be honest, if tomorrow, BA launched MAN-AMS/CDG/FRA, they would get crucified as KLM, AF and LHR have a competitive advantage that BA do not. They are feeding a long haul hub whereas BA are only on point to point. Going up against someone with a major competitve advantage is a surefire way to lose money.Am I missing something here? How do you expect to make money on these routes? Please tell with reference to the above examples. BA will have a tricky few days at LHR, but it's not credible to suggest that this is a reason to concentrate on MAN, there's no link in your argument. You can't serve the London market from MAN.

Remember France is also a bigger country and has one city hub in Paris, Spain has one in Madrid, the Netherlands one in Amsterdam and so on. Germany is exceptional.

Anyone know how things are looking on the ground at LHR today?

[MAN777]

Here we go again.

I am trying to offer ideas that will take away some of the strain LHR is suffering. This is not all about Manchester, its about the huge amount of people who are forced to make the journey south every time they fly, I don't have the numbers but I bet its a considerable figure. LHR was protected by restrictive licensing agreements for years and cosy arrangements between codeshare airlines ensuring as much traffic is sucked into this airport as possible. The result is you now have a congested artificially distorted hub, the location driven by Airline politics and economics, yes passenger demand is there but there is a significant portion of the UK population that didn't demand it to be there.

No Manchester on its own doesn't have enough point to point traffic to support a hub, neither does Munich, Amsterdam, Doha, Dubai, Helsinki, etc etc.
All of these cities have built major hubs even though their population is relatively small, its been achieved by investing resources at strategic points on the globe.

So discounting Manchester on the grounds of there is not enough demand is very short sighted, some demand is there, Emirates, Qatar, Etihad, LH, AF, have all found it, so this coupled with investment in new routes could be the basis for a mini hub. Which could in theory draw passengers north to travel rather than south.

I am not suggesting for one minute that MAN can rival LHR what I would like to see is the 2nd runway at MAN used to its full potential and that some of the distortion in the market be corrected, before building a new airport.

To prove I am not totally pro MAN, I would also like to see Stansted and Birmingham used fully with the runway extension completed at Brum ASAP.

[Skipness One Echo]

If STN can't grow as a London airport at the expense of LHR, then why should any other airfield? LHR has a critical mass of connectivity that is not even begun to be matched by any other airfield. A fine airport like LGW doesn't begin to compete.

LHR is special because of that, this is the key reason that the new Thames airport will not work with Heathrow remaining open. It's far from ideal I grant you.
So discounting Manchester on the grounds of there is not enough demand is very short sighted, some demand is there, Emirates, Qatar, 'Etihad, LH, AF, have all found it,
They are all spoke to hub operations serving the area well. No serious commentator suggests there is no demand, the key question is how best to serve that market. We have one hub airport at LHR, Dubai has one at DXB, as do AF, KL, LX, EY and QR. LH as I explained above has an exceptional geography, like a mini version of the US.

http://cdn-www.airliners.net/aviation-photos/photos/9/6/9/2019969.jpg
I like this photo, it reminds me that LHR does have room to expand given political will.

[controlx]

sellbydate

Your last post had some good ideas there, half of which are not 'on the table' in this whole debate on the long term future of aviation in the UK nas in particular the SE UK - why not? Why isn't there a dialogue on all these other options? I know none represent a single 4 runway mega hub, but collectively, a number of these solutions spread the load so to speak. High speed rail links to any established and future runway capacity, wherever it may be, is the absalutely critical element to any solution and that, no doubt will have the greatest challenges politically with the need to plough 'rails through people's back gardens' to achieve any of this. Increased capacity/capability north and west of London though is surely the way to go - however that can be achieved? The Thames estuary dream is wonderful big idea stuff, but ITS IN THE WRONG PLACE unless one has extraordinaryly rapid rail/monorail access via the north and west side of London - I'm talking hyperfast, like that Shanghai airport one. If it's poddling along at the UK's average of 50-60mph, just forget it.

[delta154]

Whilst I appriciate this is slightly Off topic, I would like to add my 2 cents.

We have one hub airport at LHR, Dubai has one at DXB, as do AF, KL, LX, EY and QR. LH as I explained above has an exceptional geography, like a mini version of the US

Not strictly true. Some of the 'legacy' carriers are staging a fight back. Whilst not long haul (yet) AF is starting hubs at TLS/MRS and also has smaller hubs in LYS/NCE.
LX also operates New York (and probably others) from GVA as well as having a smaller base at BSL, whilst it has its largest base at ZRH.
KL/AF uses Citijet to operate a small selection of routes from Antwerp, Germany (LH) has already been covered, IB operates MAD and BCN and there probably are other examples.

Yes, not huge 'mega hubs', but we are not arguing that this is what should be adopted at MAN/BHX/wherever, and shows it can be done. Im sure the 'mixed fleet' strategy could help bases such as a possible MAN be more viable.

To simply brush off the other routes into MAN as 'serving hubs' is only half the story. Every passenger is going somewhere, and as a few airlines such as EK/LH/EY are stating strong J/F demand from MAN, if a growing number of people are willing to pay a premium to fly J/F, then they are more than likely to pay a premium to fly direct.
Without a breakdown of where the PAX's final destination is, it would be hard to identify just what the routes are, but, there could well be 5-10 destinations MAN could support. 2-3 J/F class pax on each flight from EK/QR/EY/LH/LX/SQ/BA and so on soon adds up.

After all, BA knows first hand there is some O&D higher yield demand, even if the info does come via a subsidiary, as they have just had to increase their BLL-MAN by 3 rotations this winter. No large hub at either end of that route.....

[INKJET]

I'm warming to the idea of Boris Island

If at the planning stage you go for an integrated transport system including dual 6 lane motorway, ultra high speed railway linking BHX EMA MAN LBA city centres, London and on to BII (Boris Island International) with links M20 and HS1 to the chunnel.

Birds and Money may be an issue (newts if Red Ken get back in) as well as airspace issues for LCY & AMS

I can see no reason why LHR can not continue,in a smaller scale and it would probably be unrestricted slot wise allowing LoCo airlines to restore links with the rest of the UK if needed

BII could probably open with two runways to start with but build the layout from the start around a 4 runway layout 22/04 23/05 24/06 orientation with a runway plan like CDG with outer pair used for simultaneous landing and inner pair for take off.

Of course it would require BA one-world to be there from the off, STAR could continue to use LHR and a reduced cap would give the people of west London a quieter lifestyle, LHR could become a major cargo hub.

Lots to work out, but as John Prescott said when transport sec in 1997 " doing nothing is not an option" on S/E airport capacity

[Skipness One Echo]

After all, BA knows first hand there is some O&D higher yield demand, even if the info does come via a subsidiary, as they have just had to increase their BLL-MAN by 3 rotations this winter. No large hub at either end of that route.....
I agree, does Sun Air have the BA accounting rules and cost base that made the profitable British Regional Jetsteam 41 fleet a loss maker the day it was bought by BA? Now BA CityFlyer I could see as they have a good point to point operation at LCY. You make some good points, however I see Swiss at Geneva as still more of a base, the hub is ZRH, they have a single A330 per day.

[STN Ramp Rat]

A new Airport to the east of London is a great Idea if coupled with the closure of Heathrow. It could be linked to the heavily underutilised HS1 with train directly into Europe as well as to Kings Cross and possibly Cross Rail. There needs to be ways for road traffic to access Kent as well as Essex because the Dartford Crossing will never cope. Further afield the M11 & A14 would need to be upgraded to allow access to the North. The A14 is already being looked at as an infrastructure project as the main access between the Midlands and the port of Felixstowe. There also needs to be a quick access into central London on a new build road.

Heathrow is an overloaded hub which is now beginning to fail due to capacity issues; The Airlines are unable to think long term and are fixated by Heathrow like Moths round a light. If Heathrow is allowed to remain open then some or possibly all of the airlines will stay put.... Just look at what happened after the new terminal at Stansted and the legal battles over Mirabel and Malpensa. What will become of Heathrow? Well there is a shortage of affordable housing in London; Heathrow offers a fantastic site for a new town with some great transport connections into London.

Potential difficulties come with the fact that the Government would effectively be closing down the major asset of a privately owned company, Heathrow. London City, Stansted and Southend Airports may become unviable and have to close. There is a lack of a workforce to the east of London and the housing infrastructure would also have to be constructed for the workforce. This is not impossible Hong Kong Managed to do this.

In my own personal view the biggest obstacle to overcome is the UK Government, as a country we have a very poor record of managing infrastructure projects and the lifetime of a parliament and therefore a government decision is no more than 5 years. The Country is already getting close to a serious crisis in power generation because of Government inaction 203: analysis of urgency of need for energy in the UK | Bircham Dyson Bell (http://www.bdb-law.co.uk/blog/anguswalker/203-analysis-urgency-need-energy-uk) I really can’t see this getting off the ground before the next election.

[Winniebago]

Why is nobody talking about an intergrated Heathrow plus Northolt? There's loads of undeveloped agricultural land on the boundaries of Northolt with a great rail depot site (or is it underground/overground?) just to the north. Plenty of space to the west to reorientate the runway and extend. Immediately adjacent to the M40. Massively underutilised by the MOD, pure luxury for the RAF and her Maj - anyway, 32 Squadron could happily stay put and share with the civilian world. A few miles of underground rail and the two are linked together in minutes.

[delta154]

I agree, does Sun Air have the BA accounting rules and cost base that made the profitable British Regional Jetsteam 41 fleet a loss maker the day it was bought by BA?

Agreed. I think its safe to say that the issue at MAN is costing. Its not that there are no opportunities at MAN, as technically every loco route out of MAN (or any other airport for that matter) is an O&D route, but, its making the books balance.
It also depends on how far you want to express the term 'O&D'. Whilst BLL-MAN is the best example, it could be argued that all the Virgin routes are O&D (yes bolstered by the holiday company, but, the passenger is leaving MAN on a scheduled flight and arriving direct at their destination airport).
Also, Air Transat, SAS Bergen, and PIA could all be classed as O&D, as they are not there to serve hub interline connections.

The challenge for BA has always been high costs. Technically, and in the grand scheme of things, their MAN-JFK did take in the money, its just a high proportion of that was being paid back out. As I have stated, they seem to be reigning this in with ideas such as mixed fleet which possibly could make flights out of MAN more viable after all the concept behind mixed fleet was to make margin routes more viable such as LHR-SAN/HND/ATL.

You make some good points, however I see Swiss at Geneva as still more of a base, the hub is ZRH, they have a single A330 per day

I think I was trying to touch on that MAN could be a base, rather than a hub, and the examples I gave are where airlines have made good this strategy, or, in the case of AF at TLS/MRS, fighting back against the ebbing away of profits to the Low cost operators.
The over capacity of the south could be eased by the passengers north of Birmingham having their own air services.
As I have said before, it would be a lengthy and time consuming process to see which routes could work, but, with LH/EK/EY all reporting high J/F class uptake out of MAN, it will be interesting to see where these passengers are heading. There are a LOT of J class seats being filled out of MAN these days, and especially in these times, and Id bet a bottom dollar that there are 2-3 destinations seeing a higher uptake than the rest, so, could be a good place to start.

[Flightman]

Quote;
Lots to work out, but as John Prescott said when transport sec in 1997 " doing nothing is not an option" on S/E airport capacity


NL then spent 13 years doing exactly that. :ugh:

[jabird]

MAN777,

I'll stand by my point with the geography - when you have a country with one city much larger than #2 - 4x or more, and that city is already the home to the national flag carrier, is the political and commercial capital, and that city has a significant tourist infrastructure, it almost always follows that aviation activity will gravitate to that city. Whether you want to call it moths to the light, or a self-fulfilling prophecy, this will be the major hub, just as night follows day.

This situation is especially prevalent in the UK and France, but also I would say the same scenario applies in each of the Nordic countries, and in Ireland. I would also say it applies to Mexico, South Korea and Taiwan.

It is not a universal phenomenon, nor does it seem to have any impact on the overall success of a country - as it clearly does not apply to the USA, China, Italy, Spain, India, Canada, Germany (as discussed) or Brazil.

Wherever you have one dominant city, residents in the others will complain about it - but even in countries with several major cities of similar size and importance, you still have regional disparities and rural-urban tensions, it is a fact of life.


Now with respect to Swizterland and the Netherlands, you have two special cases. Zurich isn't the political capital, but the Swiss cantonal system is highly devolved anyway, and Zurich is a major financial centre, aswell as the hub of the national rail network. However, Geneva is both key to the UN (hence NYC being a viable destination), and a major centre for low cost flights serving skiiers. Therefore, ZRH will always be the hub, but there is viability for Geneva in its own way too.

The main population centres of the Netherlands are concentrated in the Ranstad region, which includes AMS, The Hague and Rotterdam, which is just 26 mins away from AMS by fast train. Therefore, AMS is a natural hub for the whole country, not just the (relatively small) population of Amsterdam itself.

If you don't have the conditions above for one city to dominate, then it is anybody's game to become the major hub - hence the evolution of cities in the USA where the airport is indeed built, and they do come.

[silverstrata]

Thomas

Now we know your reason for being so keen on a new airport: It's so you can post your anti New Labour rhetoric. In case you haven't noticed in LA, New Labour have been out of power for 18 months.


Nonsense. Like many I would have backed New Labour if they had done something for the infrastructure and the economy, but they did nothing except social engineering for Marxist wealth distribution purposes (redistributing from the wealthy West to poverty-stricken tyrannical dictators who will buy more arms and population suppression materials).

Name me any great infrastructure project undertaken by New Labour during their tenure.




Flightman

John Prescott said when transport sec in 1997 " doing nothing is not an option" on S/E airport capacity. Then spent 13 years doing exactly that.


Exactly. See my comments above on New Labour. They were the most useless administration in the nation's history. And either incompetent or traitorous too - while they managed to build absolutely nothing, they simultaneously banckrupted the nation. Now that takes some doing !!

You will note that Spain also bankrupted itself - but at least they ended up with 5,000 miles of new motorways, 2,000 miles of highspeed rail, plus another 2 million houses and a whole host of new airports. We ended up with ....... errrrmm ........ the Birmingham toll road?





Man 7

But when the idea of Londoners having to be inconvenienced by hubbing or driving north, all hell breaks out and we get cries of we need a mega airport.


The Thames Airport is not about increasing local traffic, it is about capturing the huge increase in world traffic interlining into Europe. There are many locations in Europe that do not have easy direct flights, and there is huge demand for hubbing flights (as I do quite often). But with LHR so overcrowded and so susceptible to delays, it is much easier to go via AMS or CDG - and that is a big problem for the economy of London, and thus the economy of the UK.





Winebago

Why is nobody talking about an intergrated Heathrow plus Northolt?


Because you will end up with a mini-Heathrow situation. Northholt is slap ban in the middle of NW London, and the noise demonstrations will be huge and the night ban will be from 20:00 to 08:00. And if anyone does a BA 38 (777) on short finals, they will end up landing in the suburbs with vast loss of life. Northholt is a non-starter.

This is why we need an airport that is free from the sprawling conurbation that is the newly immigrant-inflated South East.




Inkjet

Birds and Money may be an issue (newts if Red Ken get back in) as well as airspace issues for LCY & AMS


LCY would have to close. But if Boris Island (B.I.) was big enough to take regional/commuter aircraft, and was connected to Cross-Rail (and thus directly to London Docklands, London Central, and London Windsor Views), there would no longer be a need to have a city airport.

Likewise, if B.I. was orientated NE - SW, I see no conflict with AMS traffic. Anyone from ATC with a view on this?





Inkjet

Of course it would require BA one-world to be there from the off, STAR could continue to use LHR and a reduced cap would give the people of west London a quieter lifestyle, LHR could become a major cargo hub.


No, LHR would have to close. It is the development and sale of LHR, as the largest and best-connected development site in Europe, that would pay for Boris Island.




So discounting Manchester, on the grounds of there is not enough demand, is very short sighted, some demand is there - Emirates, Qatar, 'Etihad, LH, AF, have all found it,


But if you had a decent hub, like B.I., with five flights a day to MAN and eight TGV trains a day to MAN - would there still be that demand? Is not MAN living off the back of the capacity constraints at LHR?

Do passengers want to go to MAN at all? Or do they really want to go to Birmingham, Gloucester and Leeds, but find LHR too tiresome and the train connections so poor (you have to go via London and a separate tube journey).




Sellbydate

Lord Foster appears to have been in Oxford last night giving a lecture on his grand vision for London - see link below

Lord Foster Reveals Further Developments for the Proposed Thames Hub
(http://www.dexigner.com/news/24263)



I think we can disregard anything Lummox Foster says. This study is all about 'wildlife habitats' and 'nature reserves' - the buzzwords for any project in the New Labour era. I'm surprised his proposal does not include the huge benefits his folly will give to sustainability, equality, multiculturalism and community relations.

Meanwhile, back on the Ranch of Rationality, Foster's Folly still has runways that will not allow simultaneous approaches, or unrestrained taxying, and his flightpath still goes right across the center of London.

So not only will Foster's Folly have huge night restrictions due noise, it will also be mighty dangerous. Had that 747 that crashed out of Stanstead been taking off from Foster's Folly, it would have impacted right around the Westminster area. Are the Westminster Wallies listening to this?






Gonzo

And who are you going to find to buy LHR for £40bn? And foot the bill for the 75,000 direct unemployed, and who knows how many indirect unemployed, in the West London, M40-M3 corridor?


Develop the site and sell the individual elements. If Docklands can be worth around £40 billion, I am sure LHR will be more so (Its right next to all those Thames corridor commuters, who would love to relocate their offices to London Windsor Views, rather than grinding their way into London Central each day.)

And there will be no unemployment around London Windsor Views - instead this will become the biggest development site in Europe, with jobs galore.

In fact, it is London Central that needs to worry. London Docklands will be right next to Europe's biggest airport, and have plenty of trade. London Windsor Views will be next to the wealthy lands of the Thames corridor, and so will have any number of private company offices relocating there. Meanwhile, London Central will be the sprawling dirty and overcrowded abortion that it has been for some time, served by a 19th century metro system that nobody has touched in five decades.

Where would you rather have your offices - London Windsor Views, London Central, or London Docklands?

P.S. Lets get rid of that London Docklands appellation, it hardly does the area justice. How about London Thames Views, or London Sunrise City??





.

[silverstrata]

.

Just one other thought.

If the UK cancelled its £12 bn overseas aid budget, you could pay for Boris Island in four years. Yes, you could pay for a new airport, plus a new TGV rail system all over the country, plus new roads and port facilities, all within 10 years. (£120 bn worth of infrastructure projects.)

But NO - prime minister Ca-Moron wants to give this money to despotic tyrants instead, so they can buy more weapons and oppress their people (and purchase more amfo trucks and semtex vests to be exported back to the West, as a small token of their thanks).


.

[Barling Magna]

Well, I'm no apologist for the New Labour government which, despite two landslide election victories, failed to achieve very much at all apart from kow-towing to the USA and its crazy president. It depends on your definition of infrastructure I suppose, but I have to admit that the Labour governments did have some positive achievements including the largest hospital building programme ever with over 100 new hospitals opened, and over 4000 schools were rebuilt or refurbished. Both infrastructural improvements were greatly needed and had been avoided by preceding Tory governments.

I'm struggling to find much else though. They failed to support the Severn Tidal Barrage which would provide renewable energy for decades to come. I suppose Labour's White Paper on airport development from 2003 expressed support for runway extensions and terminal developments at several airports including Bristol, Stansted and Teesside - but then, as far as I'm aware, no finance was provided to support any of these developments. Hopeless.

[silverstrata]

Barling:

It depends on your definition of infrastructure I suppose, but I have to admit that the Labour governments did have some positive achievements including the largest hospital building programme ever with over 100 new hospitals opened, and over 4000 schools were rebuilt or refurbished.


Financed by PFI. So the Labour government did not actually pay for these improvements - we are paying for them now, and our children will paying for some time in the future. Admit it, the majority of all that enormous Brownite borrowing (borrowing during the good times!!) went on social engineering - and they never had the guts or decency to ask anyone at the polls if this is what they wanted.





They failed to support the Severn Tidal Barrage which would provide renewable energy for decades to come.


I would not place much hope on the Severn Barrage - this is another Greeny pipe-dream that will be as hopeless as all those wind turbines.

Tidal barrages stop working either 4 times a day or 2 times a day, depending on how you operate them. Plus they generate next to nothing during neap tides (twice a month). And when peak tidal flow coincides with midnight and midday, the energy produced is unwanted and useless.

Thus every barrage needs a new fossil fuelled power station next door - burning and turning 24 hrs a day, and ready to take up the slack when the barrage quits generating 4 times a day. Thus you double the infrastructure and maintenance costs, and save bugger all in fuel costs and CO2 output. Barrages are Green window dressing, to salve the troubled consciences of Grauniad readers.





I suppose Labour's White Paper on airport development from 2003 expressed support for runway extensions and terminal developments at several airports including Bristol, Stansted and Teesside - but then, as far as I'm aware, no finance was provided to support any of these developments. Hopeless.


But who needs to extend Bristol airport's runway (if that is possible), when you have Bristol Filton next door - with a runway long enough to take a Brabazon ?!!

And why would you need to extend Birmingham, when you have Gaydon down the road?
And why would you need to extend Leeds, when you have Finningly next door?

This was a failure in political decision making, not finance.


.

[Barling Magna]

Mention of Filton reminds me that BAe Systems are closing it. Not content with having closed down our independent commercial airliner and business jet industries, they are now reducing our airport network:





Following discussions with the main airfield user and the local authorities, BAE Systems has announced today that Filton airfield will close on 31 December 2012.


Andrew Cheesman, Director, BAE Systems (Aviation Services) Ltd said: “This decision has been taken following a long review of the airfield’s commercial and economic viability. We regret the impact that this will have on our 19 employees and we will work with them to explore employment opportunities.

“We recognise the importance of Filton airfield to the local residential and business community and understand the concerns its closure may have."

[Ringwayman]

Is not MAN living off the back of the capacity constraints at LHR?


Which airlines have explicitly said that as they can't expand LHR ops, they are "forced" to use MAN? Can MAN get Cathay Pacific back with the known large demand - no, they'll find ways to get a 4th LHR daily service up and running before satisfying the seemingly obvious choice of MAN to help relieve the constraints of limited frequency restricting passenger mumber .

There's been a few airlines who have stated that they are going to LGW as they can't expand LHR schedules. Some of those would be ones that MAN would like. We have some airlines stating that they are unable to serve Britain due to lack of access to LHR but it's the myopic view that London is everything in the UK that needs to be eradicated.

Do passengers want to go to MAN at all? Or do they really want to go to Birmingham, Gloucester and Leeds, but find LHR too tiresome and the train connections so poor (you have to go via London and a separate tube journey).

That's quite right. No airline in the right mind would want to go to a regional airport as there isn't the demand. So when EK surprise everyone by getting an A380 to MAN a bit ahead of schedule by suggesting enormous untapped demand and that customer feedback indicated that they would be able to sell F class then we have to accept this as uninformed airline logic? That there's a solid amount of premium demand collectively carried by around a dozen other airlines would suggest demand is there unless all those airlines are equally uninformed about passenger demand like EK?

If you want to go to Birmingham or Gloucester then you would not want to use MAN; AA's problem when they were serving BHX is that the premium passengers were using LHR. From the West Midlands southwards you will find only a small portion using MAN. Look at CO who stopped serving Bristol. There's a route that southwest England had to service America but it didn't last. That premium passengers perferred using LHR should tell you that there was barely any flow of passengers northwards and the idea that the displaced BRS aircraft miraculously helped to add frequency at LHR for them reinforces that view.


As for Leeds, yes there's a lot of passengers coming from the "wrong" side of the Pennines to use MAN, but there's more passengers outside southeast England using LHR - do all those passengers want to go to LHR (or Boris Island)? I doubt it. The view that MAN is only allowed to have passengers going through its terminals whose journey ends or begins in Greater Manchester and is not able to have passengers from adjacent metropolitan areas is, frankly, laughable.

[Nick Thomas]

Am going to give you another opportunity to rant against New Labour by noting that you spent two paragraphs doing just that in post 164, whilst claiming that my earlier post was nonsense.

Repeating your nonsense about Heathrow being worth £40 billion will not make it worth that. If you had any knowledge of the development world you would have long ago stopped making that claim.

As far as Lord Foster is concerned, have you designed anything let alone an airport. Foster has an international track record and being abusive will not change that.

I expect you will now repeat your allegations that all Architects are brain dead.

Finally I fail to see how stating " that is the newly immigrant-inflated South East." adds anything to the debate. To many people that comment could be seen to be racist.

[Gonzo]

SS,

Develop the site and sell the individual elements. If Docklands can be worth around £40 billion, I am sure LHR will be more so (Its right next to all those Thames corridor commuters, who would love to relocate their offices to London Windsor Views, rather than grinding their way into London Central each day.)

And there will be no unemployment around London Windsor Views - instead this will become the biggest development site in Europe, with jobs galore.

In fact, it is London Central that needs to worry. London Docklands will be right next to Europe's biggest airport, and have plenty of trade. London Windsor Views will be next to the wealthy lands of the Thames corridor, and so will have any number of private company offices relocating there. Meanwhile, London Central will be the sprawling dirty and overcrowded abortion that it has been for some time, served by a 19th century metro system that nobody has touched in five decades.

Where would you rather have your offices - London Windsor Views, London Central, or London Docklands?

....However, in your grand vision, the Thames corridor will become a ghetto of formerly occupied company HQs and service industry centres, as the main reason for them being in the Thames corridor was LHR!!!!!!!

So this new development of LHR with all this prime, high end financial/service companies will provide jobs for those formerly employed as security guards, aircraft cleaners, airline ground staff, baggage handlers, catering staff, lorry drivers?

LHR is the economic engine of West London and the Thames corridor. Just have a drive along the M25/M3/M4/M40 or their corresponding A roads and associated industrial/business parks one day, and see how many lorries have some connection with air freight or LHR, observe how many company premises you pass that have a connection to the same.

All those employees are suddenly going to be employed by the new companies who will clamour to occupy the site of a former airport which has very little else going for it, attractiveness-wise?

Also, just a thought, but if you refrain from using language such as 'Lummox Foster' and 'Ca-Moron' you might have a more engaged debate.

[silverstrata]

thomas:

Lord Foster has an international track record and being abusive will not change that. I expect you will now repeat your allegations that all Architects are brain dead.



Any architect who proposes a new airport that:

Points out of the prevailing wind,
Points directly across the center of a capital city,
Is bound to have nights restrictions attached, due to the above orientation,
Cannot do simultaneous approaches because the runways are too close together,
Is forced to delay outbounds (on the inners), to wait for inbounds (on the outers) to cross the runway,
Will be severely limited during low-vis procedures,**
Has no taxiways - can you see any taxiways?,***
Has a terminal building at the end of the runway, which is inherently dangerous,
Is built next to an oil and gas terminal, which is inherently dangerous,
Is built on a cache of unexploded bombs, which is inherently dangerous,


Such an architect is either brain-dead, or very badly advised. Perhaps Lummox Foster could tell us how many pilots, controllers and airport managers were on his design team. I can predict the answer - none. And only a brain-dead architect would do such a thing.

Its a bit like reading newspaper articles about aviation, which are generally written with an infant's knowledge of aviation. But this is more important, as Fosters Folly could end up as a huge, expensive and very embarrassing waste of your money. Politicians, easily dazzled as they are by celebrity, will probably be similarly dazzled by Foster's Folly, and give it the go-ahead. Foster needs a dose of reality, before he wastes a golden opportunity to build a first-class transport facility (on Boris Island, further out in the estuary).



** With runways that close together, departing aircraft lining up on the inner runway will be within the ILS protected area for the aircraft on a CAT III approach to the outer runway. Thus no low-vis departures can be made from this airport, while aircraft are approaching, or vice versa. Is that mad, or what?

*** One presumes the aircraft stands are between the two runways. But how do you get from the runways, to the stands, if there are no taxiways?




http://wordlesstech.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Thames-Hub-airport-by-Foster-+-Partners-2-620x396.jpg






P.S.
If you look at the size of CDG, it is obvious that Boris Island needs to be 5 x 5 km in area. This is a substantial lump of real estate in the estuary (draw it on a Google Earth image), and so it needs to be further eastwards than Foster's Folly. The south-western edge of this large reclaimed square of land, should lie on a line joining Shoeburyness and Eastchurch (on Sheppey), giving an orientation of about 245 degrees true. The NW apex of the island being 1km from Shoeburyness point (closer to Shoeburyness than Sheppey). The coastline at Shoeburyness point may have to be reinforced, due the invigorated tidal flows.

This would allow all SW departures from Boris Island to overfly the Isle of Grain and the Kingsnorth Inlet, and thus reduce noise nuisance in the area to an absolute minimum (the area is sparsely populated). Departures would then either:

a. Carry straight on between Gillingham and Gravesend.
b. Turn left 180 at 5nm and pass between Sittingbourne and Gillingham.
b. Turn right 270 at 5nm, and track to East tilbury, before turning north up the Basildon Brentwood gap.

Likewise, on NE landings, all the approaches would be just west of the Rochester gap, with no further conurbations inside this habited zone. Rochester would be at the 10nm / 3,000 ft zone, and having lived at this distance from a major airport, I can vouch that the noise nuisance is minimal.

Of course in the NE direction, there is only sea for the approaches and departures, and so this airport would be very noise-friendly. (And any CO2 emissions would end up in AMS - sorry, Cloggies).





.

[silverstrata]

.

And here it is. Instead of Fosters Folly, we now have Silver's Superhub.


Note the two commuter runways to the north have a separate terminal, to speed the flow of domestic/shengen traffic from the smaller aircraft - so large aircraft do not have to mix with smaller on the same approach. An underground metro would connect the two.

I see no reason for not doing triple simultaneous approaches, as long as the middle stream joins the furthest out, maximising the inbound traffic. Thus, on the commuter runways, the outer runway would be used for arrivals to allow simultaneous approaches, with the inner being for departures.

Note that all the departures (red lines) are over unpopulated areas, to the north, west and south. The blue arrow near Gillingham is the 10nm / 3,000 ft point for arrivals during N.E. landings. This altitude would cause minimal noise nuisance for the Rochester/Gillingham locale.



http://i44.tinypic.com/2yyz2gw.jpg




As to the rail links, the Chunnel line currently goes through Ebbsfleet, just west of Gravesend. A spur would be needed to link to the Silver Superhub Airport, or better still a whole new 'eastern route' that skirts the NE of London to connect to the north.

Links to the west would be via Crossrail. In a fit of planning stupidity, Crossrail ends at Abbey Wood, which is just 12 km short of the Chunnel line at Ebbsfleet. Why??? That is like ending the M6 a couple of miles short of the M1 !! The planners should be introduced to a long rope and a high lamppost. Linking these two lines together, and thence to the TGV spur from Ebbsfleet to the Silver Superhub Airport, would give instant access to the west.



.

[Nick Thomas]

Well your Architectural skills are so much better than Lord Foster I think you are wasted in aviation.

A quick sketch produced on your laptop is not a design for an airport it's just a pathetic attempt to belittle one of Britain's many great Architects . Yes I do know what am talking about as I spent seven years of my life gaining two Architectural degrees and membership of the RIBA. When you have done that I may take your proposals seriously. Until then my money is on Lord Foster's scheme.

I visit this site as I find the design and manufacture of aviation products interesting and also a good source of inspiration for my Architectural practise. So thank you to the vast majority of you for your well considered and interesting posts.

[Gonzo]

SS,

** With runways that close together, departing aircraft lining up on the inner runway will be within the ILS protected area for the aircraft on a CAT III approach to the outer runway. Thus no low-vis departures can be made from this airport, while aircraft are approaching, or vice versa. Is that mad, or what?Sorry? Assuming we take that the artist's impression as a fixed blueprint (??), the LSA for CAT III ILS only has to be protected for landing clearance when the landing clearance is given, normally at 2nm, exceptionally at 1nm, so that''s not true. If you get confirmation that the departure is not using LLZ guidance, then you don't have to protect the LSA at all for departures.

You also claim:
Is forced to delay outbounds (on the inners), to wait for inbounds (on the outers) to cross the runway,Ever heard of wake turbulence separation? 2 minutes?

But then in your masterplan;
Departures would then either:

a. Carry straight on between Gillingham and Gravesend.
b. Turn left 180 at 5nm and pass between Sittingbourne and Gillingham.
b. Turn right 270 at 5nm, and track to East tilbury, before turning north up the Basildon Brentwood gap.So if all departures go straight ahead to 5nm, then every single departure would be a minimum of 2 minutes separation behind the last. As I'm sure you know, the ICAO regulations in SOIR DOC9643 say that simultaneous departures from parallel runways should diverge immediately after take off. Also, good luck on trying to make sure that the southbound aircraft from the 'commuter runway' don't get in the way of the west and northbound aircraft from the other two runways! At the end of the day, I don't think looking at that you'd have any more capacity from your plan than we do in theory from LHR! With two extra runways! What a waste of money!

[Geffen]

To fit all that in with 9643 and various other docs would be quite a challenge. I especially like the south bounds of the northern!

Heck if they had spent 30 secs thinking about this ARETS would have been a must, okay would add to the size but, hey money no object right?

[silverstrata]

Thomas:

A quick sketch produced on your laptop is not a design for an airport it's just a pathetic attempt to belittle one of Britain's many great Architects . Yes I do know what am talking about as I spent seven years of my life gaining two Architectural degrees and membership of the RIBA. When you have done that I may take your proposals seriously. Until then my money is on Lord Foster's scheme.



Until you have a specific criticism of the plan don't waste your breath on ad hominems, it makes you sound like a playground bully.



Now if you had any architectural/town planning skills you might well have argued that the airport is too far east, and that a site on the villages of St Mary Hoo and Stoke would be better for transport links. I might agree with such a notion, but point out that Gravesend and Gillingham would then have noise nuisance, and these estuary lands are populated by the three toed double-crested newt, and the lesser-spotted fibonacci snail.

But you didn't - you went straight for the ad hominem instead, in which case your opinions are void.





Giffen:

To fit all that in with 9643 and various other docs would be quite a challenge. I especially like the south bounds of the northern!

Heck if they had spent 30 secs thinking about this ARETS would have been a must, okay would add to the size but, hey money no object right?



You will have to enlighten us on what exactly ICAO 9643 says about simultaneous approaches. I was just using Heathrow as an example. The runways there are 1,500m apart and can sustain simultaneous approaches, so an island 5 km wide should easily be able to accommodate 3 simultaneous approaches.

I presume by ARETS you mean over-run areas. You would have to calculate whether an extended run-off area is cheaper than arrester cables. I would presume the latter would be cheaper and more effective.


.

[silverstrata]

Gonzo:

Sorry? Assuming we take that the artist's impression as a fixed blueprint (??)


One would hope that Foster does not issue flights of fancy to the press and the public, and had thought about the project for more than 2 minutes. What will be his next project, a skyscraper leaning at a 45 degree angle? ( "Yes, well, it was only an artist's impression...." )





Gonzo:

the LSA for CAT III ILS only has to be protected for landing clearance when the landing clearance is given, normally at 2nm, exceptionally at 1nm.


If you give me a CAT IIIb landing clearance at just 1nm/300ft, and declare the Sensitive Area to be cleared just at that time, I'll be knocking at your door.





Gonzo:

Ever heard of wake turbulence separation? (on departure) 2 minutes?

So if all departures go straight ahead to 5nm, then every single departure would be a minimum of 2 minutes separation behind the last.


Errr, you like to give the impression you are in Heathrow ATC. Are you really?

There is no time separation between similar weight types, which is why I attempted to separate small aircraft from larger in this runway layout. Thus, as any real controller would know, there is no 2 minute separation for departures. (But there is a distance separation of 5nm, if I remember correctly.)

Take a look at 2.7 in the following CAA AIC.
http://www.skybrary.aero/bookshelf/books/1166.pdf

The only exception to this is the A380. But I think this was a political move by Boeing, to decrease the appeal of the A380 by giving it extra time separations for approach and departure.





Gonzo:

So if all departures go straight ahead to 5nm, then every single departure would be a minimum of 2 minutes separation behind the last. As I'm sure you know, the ICAO regulations in SOIR DOC9643 say that simultaneous departures from parallel runways should diverge immediately after take off.


And they do diverge - at 5nm (the 2 minutes is a red herring). Ok, so if you want to increase departure rates, then you diverge a bit earlier - by the recommended 15 degrees. Which gives the following departure routes. The only real restriction here is waiting until the Left departure turns (at 3nm), before the Center departure rolls.

The 'domestic' departure tracks crossing the heavies, to fly south is more of a problem, I agree, so I have included a circling departure. Not so efficient for the operator, but may be necessary during peak flow times (but not at other times).



http://i39.tinypic.com/24ct6s3.jpg


.

[VC10man]

Silver, I took my wife to Heathrow last week from Derby, it took about 2 hours.
However long would it take me to get to Silverland? Presumably I would have to get a car ferry to the island?

Maybe it would be easier to build the new airport in northern France.

[Gonzo]

Yes, I work in Heathrow ATC. I have done so for nearly 13 years, and I now work in the ATC Operations department.

What experience in this sort of thing do you have?

2min separation is required for a/c departing on the same routes, depending upon the relative speeds. In the UK, at certain airports, and with CAA approval, you may use 5nm instead providing that the routes diverge. If they diverge by more than 45 degrees, and speeds are comparable, then you can get the 1 minute separation.

[Nick Thomas]

Why should I waste my time criticising an obviously flawed plan. Especially as I doubt that you would accept criticism from a brain dead Architect
It's interesting that you consider my views void as they are "ad hominem"
as a large part of your argument is just that. I shall quote some of them.
"Foster's Folly"
"Brain dead Architects"
"Ca-moron"

Whilst I can see the funny side of the above three quotes I must add that your comment:
"The planners should be introduced to a long rope and a high lamppost." is also in extremely bad taste as well.
So if am a "playground bully" what does that make you?

[MAN777]

This is a really interesting thread that is being spoilt by rude & sarcastic oneupmanship, can we please get back to discussing this in an intelligent professional manner without reference to people hanging and other completely irrelevant comments.

[Geffen]

Ok, Heathrow's runways are 1415m(ish) apart. Does not allow for simultaneous independent approaches in IMC therefore they are dependent on each other, unless VMC. 9643 and other ICAO docs stipulate you need at least 1500m for independent arrival streams, so in theory 5km airport would allow this for 3 runways.

CATIIIC approaches would still get you a landing clearance at 1nm if approved by the CAA and you are warned. Nothing wrong with that.

As to time based departures look at CAP493 Section 1 Chapter 3 Page 9. Certainly has 2 min separation there and more.

ARETS= Around The End Taxiways, best way of reducing runway crossings.

Gonzo is usually on the mark with this stuff. ;)

[Nick Thomas]

I agree with you MAN777. I only repeated SS quotes to
1. Refute his "ad hominem" statement
2. To point out that this forum is no place for tasteless remarks.

I am more than happy to discuss this in a professional manner. but see little point in doing so with SS; for the reasons I have given in my earlier posts.

Finally I have no wish to enter into a one-upmanship contest with SS.

[Gonzo]

SS,

Not sure now if you're deliberately mixing my points up.

2 min wake turbulence separation applies on departure (assuming all full length departures) between:
J followed by H,
H followed by M/S/L
M/S followed by L;
3 minutes applies between;
J followed by M/S/L

Completely separate from that;

Route separation on departure (assuming same wake category) applies as follows at LHR
1 min: Routes diverge by 45 degrees or more
2 min: Similar/same route. For those that diverge, but less than 45 degrees, with the approval of the CAA and because we are qualified for advanced use of the ATM, we can reduce that to 5nm spacing.

The above are modified depending upon relative speeds.

Therefore, I was making the point that with all your SIDs going straight ahead to 5nm, all departures would be subject to 2 minute separation. Perhaps a more stringent MDI would apply to some routes due to their interaction with other London airports or LACC/French/Belgian/Dutch sectors (as it is at LHR with DVR followed by DVR) which might be 3 minutes. Perhaps we could argue that some combinations of routes may be reduced to 5nm, but that's best case. With all SIDs going straight ahead to 5nm, you will never get 1 minute separations.

Regarding CAT IIIb approach landing clearances at 1nm, that's a regular feature at LHR. With 6nm spacing on a dedicated landing runway, in 'normal' CATIII conditions, the one ahead of you will only be vacating the LSA (137m from the runway centreline) when you pass 2nm. If they are slower than usual for any reason, the 1nm point is the cut off. What is your decision height on a CATIIIb approach? Are you getting mixed up with the ILS sensitive areas and the ILS critical areas? We give landing clearance in CATIII conditions as soon as the sensitive areas are clear, which as I said can be as late as 1nm from touchdown.

Geffen,

Thanks.......:ok: Maybe we should put this down as Project Y??? :}

[jabird]

Any architect who proposes a new airport that:

Points directly across the center of a capital city,

Your own diagram shows flight paths deviating rapidly from the centre-line, so what makes you think this airport (or any other) would be different?

Also, your reference to the KE STN incident 'occuring over Westminster' is a total red herring, as this occured within 3 miles of the airport, as indeed most incidents do.

Has no taxiways - can you see any taxiways?,***

I wouldn't expect it to, it is an early concept sketch. Look at many maps which feature airports - some just have a plane symbol, some have runways, it is rare to find maps with taxiways, even those generate by the airport itself (for usage by passengers). Taxiways are a detail which are relevant to the aviators, something for later.

Has a terminal building at the end of the runway, which is inherently dangerous.

I contacted Foster + Partners for more details, and would like to get their explanation of this. However, it is a cargo terminal, not for passengers. There are buildings within a very short distance of the runways at many airports - although I don't know why they have been placed there in what is obviously a new scheme. However, my concern is more that we have terminal + cargo, little evidence of parking structures, or of plans to include revenue generators like airport hotels and offices. However, these are still details further down the line - given that much of this facility is going to be on reclaimed land, the cost will be high, so maybe that is why they aren't features, or maybe the 'airport / cargo city' will include some commercial (non-cargo) facilities.

Is built next to an oil and gas terminal, which is inherently dangerous,

Which is perpendicular to the runways. Are there any documented cases of aircraft even going into terminals, let alone buildings behind them, or separated by a concrete barrier? Maybe a Q400 in HKT? DFW microburst - but tanks still much more vulnerable there than on this site / doppler radar prevents microbursts from being issue today???

(SS, before you get on your horse, I will play my hand - like Nick Thomas, I trained as an architect, but went into the field of websites, seeking 'Ryanair' turnarounds! I run two transport related websites, so my interest is in the impact the new airport will have on route networks, and naturally in the design of the building itself and its surface access. I therefoe comment on operational matters as an outsider)


Is built on a cache of unexploded bombs, which is inherently dangerous

And which can be exploded! Why hasn't this been done before? Costs too much. Why would this be done BEFORE laying a new airport on top of it? Costs too much not to!

Such an architect is either brain-dead, or very badly advised. Perhaps Lummox Foster could tell us how many pilots, controllers and airport managers were on his design team. I can predict the answer - none. And only a brain-dead architect would do such a thing.

I wouldn't mind you having a go at architects and planners if you were either a) amusing or b) accurate. The reality is actually that the mindset to practice in either professions is very similar, especially as both rely on extensive usage of maps and other geographical data, and both are frequently hassled by the beancounters to get the maximum output from their machines.

Now when it comes to Foster, you really have picked the wrong fight! Not only has he designed THREE world class airport terminals (Stansted pre-mall, HKG & BJS3), but as it happens, he IS both an architect AND a pilot of jets and helicopters! This is all openly documented fact - you can debate the architectural or operational merits of any of his buildings, but they are all there to see. You on the other hand have taken a Google map (which anyone who knows anything about cartography will tell you are some of the most dumbed down maps going, most speficically because they lack contours), and drawn a box on it with 6 lines for runways. Have you considered what going so far east does for surface access? Depth of the sea? And presumably, your fantasy island is so far east that it enters Dutch waters, and therefore IS part of the Schengen zone which you keep on saying the UK is part of!

[controlx]

Silver & Co

This is indeed a very interesting thread but could someone do another plan of the estuary region showing the original proposed positions of ALL the past estuary-based airport options over the last couple of decades - four options at least have been tabled. This needs to include the runway alignment, no. of runways and throw in Southend for clarity in terms of its current proximity. That might make the debate a little easier to comprehend as I can't pinpoint where Foster, Boris or any of the older proposals were supposed to be - reclaimed land or otherwise. Armed with that, a tour of the flightpaths using Google Earth would be infinately more insightful. Very soon indeed, this is going to be on the nations agenda with a myriad of clueless politicians having their say being led by hugely overpiad consultants thinkin gthis could be the world's biggest gravy train for the next decade. If the simpletons of PPRUNE land have a better clue about what's what than westminster, that is a rather frightening prospect.

Dab hand with PowerPoint anyone?

[silverstrata]

Gozo:
What experience in this sort of thing do you have?
2min separation is required for a/c departing on the same routes, depending upon the relative speeds.

Geffen:
As to time based departures look at CAP493 Section 1 Chapter 3 Page 9. Certainly has 2 min separation there and more.


You said 'wake turbulence separation'. Check CAP 493 Part I 9.6.2 - there is no wake separation on departure between same weight types.

And as I said before - most heavies will go from the longer international runways, while the mediums will go from the domestic/European terminal. In this case, there is little need to mix aircraft types, and thus incur wake turbulence separation delays.

And Geffen, you are looking at CAP 493 Part I 8.6, which has nothing to do with wake. Since I had the tracks diverging at 5nm, the following aircraft could be released in approx 1.6 mins. But with the new, revised departure tracks on the new map diverging at 1nm, they can now depart with very little separation - 30 seconds or so.

http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/33/CAP493Part1corr.pdf




Geffen:

Route separation on departure (assuming same wake category) applies as follows at LHR. 1 min: Routes diverge by 45 degrees or more


AN-Conf/11-IP/3 3.2.1 Manual on Simultaneous Operations:

Independent IFR departures may be conducted from parallel runways provided:

b) the departure tracks diverge by at least 15 degrees immediately after take-off.
c) suitable surveillance radar capable of identification of the aircraft within 2 km from the end of the runway is available.

http://www.icao.int/icao/en/anb/meetings/anconf11/documentation/ANConf11_ip003_app_en.pdf




VC10 (aaahhhhh VC10 !!)

However long would it take me to get to Silverland? Presumably I would have to get a car ferry to the island?


There is supposed to be a Thames barrier that runs from shore to shore, with a large motorway on top. London desperately need a new Thames barrier, before it becomes the new Bangkok (flooded).

I will draw it on the diagram.





Geffen

CATIIIC approaches would still get you a landing clearance at 1nm (on a CAT III approach) if approved by the CAA and you are warned. Nothing wrong with that.


There is a hell of a lot wrong with that.

I am at 300ft and fast approaching a point where I will have 1.25 seconds to make a land/go-around decision, and the last thing any captain wants is the aircraft swaying all over the place on an unstable ILS (Sensitive Area still compromised) and ATC wittering on about landing clearances and winds.

I have never had a CAT III landing clearance inside 4-5 miles, and I would consider it wholly unacceptable and highly irresponsible to do so.





Jabird

(Oil Terminal) Which is perpendicular to the runways. Are there any documented cases of aircraft even going into terminals,


From FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL, 18-24 July, 1990

BA REPORT REVEALS LHR 747 OVERSHOOT FROM 75ft.

"A British Airways Boeing 747, involved in a low offset overshoot
incident at Heathrow last November, came as low as 75ft, a
confidental letter to BA 747 aircrew from the airline's chief 747
pilot has revealed. The aircraft almost landed outside the airfield
boundary."

(Over the hotels to the north of the airfield)





Jabird:

(Bombs) Which can be exploded! Why hasn't this been done before? Costs too much. Why would this be done BEFORE laying a new airport on top of it? Costs too much not to!


Too much of it. A whole ship-full.

Look at the problem they had in Koblenz last week. They evacuated a whole town for 2 tonnes of explosives - the SS Richard Montgomery has 1,400 tonnes !

Are you going to light the blue touch-paper? Are you going to insure the oil companies, for damage and secondary explosions to the Isle of Grain refinery?

SS Richard Montgomery - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Richard_Montgomery)

This was the John Burke, also an ammo ship, exploding:


http://www.ww2incolor.com/d/623101-1/burke6





Thomas:

It's interesting that you consider my views void as they are "ad hominem"
as a large part of your argument is just that. I shall quote some of them.
"Foster's Folly"
"Brain dead Architects"
"Ca-moron"


You misunderstand what an ad hominem is - it is a blatant device to negate the argument by attacking the person, and not the argument. However, it does not prevent someone being called 'stupid'.

A cat walks in front of us and someone says: "that is a horse".
If I reply: "you are an idiot" - that is an ad hominem, for I have not addressed the error.
If I reply: "a horse has one toe, not four or five, therefore you are completely wrong and an idiot" - that is not an ad hominem. I have given sufficient explanation to negate the person's assessment of the situation and prove them grossly incorrect - thus an idiot.

Your previous reply, to which I made the ad hominem comment, made no objective criticism of the airport plan.





Jabird:

You on the other hand have taken a Google map (which anyone who knows anything about cartography will tell you are some of the most dumbed down maps going, most speficically because they lack contours), and drawn a box on it with 6 lines for runways.


You seem to forget that I am not paid £gazillions to come up with a viable plan for a new London airport (which everyone in the UK will have to contribute towards, and everyone will have to use for the next 60 years). In contrast, I just have 40 minutes spare every other day for perusal of such interests. You would have thought that an architect/pilot who is paid £gazillions to create architectural plans would have known about the Richard Montgomery and the prevailing winds in the UK.

You also seem to forget that the Thames Estuary has no contours.



.

[Gonzo]

You said 'wake turbulence separation'. Check CAP 493 Part I 9.6.2 - there is no wake separation on departure between same weight types.
And as I said before - most heavies will go from the longer international runways, while the mediums will go from the domestic/European terminal. In this case, there is little need to mix aircraft types, and thus incur wake turbulence separation delays.



Yes, I did say 'wake turbulence separation'. Look back. That was in response to your comment that departures would have to be delayed for crossing inbound traffic. My comment was that, sometimes, departures are delayed anyway due to wake turbulence separation. LHR's traffic mix is about 30% Heavy. So if you restrict Heavies to the long runways in your plan, and all Mediums to the small runways, then you'll either have realtively low demand for departures off the two long runways, in which case there is no delay due crossing traffic, or you'll have Mediums in the mix there as well, in which case you'll have WTS gaps to get the inbounds across.


And Geffen, you are looking at CAP 493 Part I 8.6, which has nothing to do with wake. Since I had the tracks diverging at 5nm, the following aircraft could be released in approx 1.6 mins. But with the new, revised departure tracks on the new map diverging at 1nm, they can now depart with very little separation - 30 seconds or so.



You know most Heavies take 45-50 seconds to get airborne? With 30 seconds separation then you'll be clearing an aircraft for take off with the one ahead still on the runway.



Route separation on departure (assuming same wake category) applies as follows at LHR. 1 min: Routes diverge by 45 degrees or more

Route separation on departure (assuming same wake category) applies as follows at LHR. 1 min: Routes diverge by 45 degrees or more
AN-Conf/11-IP/3 (http://AN-Conf/11-IP/3) 3.2.1 Manual on Simultaneous Operations:

Independent IFR departures may be conducted from parallel runways provided:

b) the departure tracks diverge by at least 15 degrees immediately after take-off.
c) suitable surveillance radar capable of identification of the aircraft within 2 km from the end of the runway is available.

http://www.icao.int/icao/en/anb/meet...003_app_en.pdf (http://www.icao.int/icao/en/anb/meetings/anconf11/documentation/ANConf11_ip003_app_en.pdf)




You missunderstand me. I am talking about departures from the same runway, not parallels! If the routes of successive departures from the same runway do not diverge 45 degrees then you must leave 2 minutes between them. From the same runway.


There is a hell of a lot wrong with that.

I am at 300ft and fast approaching a point where I will have 1.25 seconds to make a land/go-around decision, and the last thing any captain wants is the aircraft swaying all over the place on an unstable ILS (Sensitive Area still compromised) and ATC wittering on about landing clearances and winds.

I have never had a CAT III landing clearance inside 4-5 miles, and I would consider it wholly unacceptable and highly irresponsible to do so.



Then I suggest you should never fly into a capacity constrained airport in CATIII. To give you a landing clearance at 4nm, then we'd have to apply spacing of 8-9nm between lanbdings, not 6nm, in CATIII. LHR's CATIII capacity would go down even more.


From FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL, 18-24 July, 1990

BA REPORT REVEALS LHR 747 OVERSHOOT FROM 75ft.


And I'm sure you are aware of all the mitigations in place to ensure that doesn't happen again.....

[Nick Thomas]

As I don't accept your comments as being objective or reasonable it follows that your argument is "ad hominem".
I have better things to do than carry on this pointless dialogue with you so I shall leave this thread to you.

[silverstrata]

Controix:

This is indeed a very interesting thread but could someone do another plan of the estuary region showing the original proposed positions of ALL the past estuary-based airport options over the last couple of decades - four options at least have been tabled.




Good idea. This is a rough image of where the last four proposals have been sited.


http://i39.tinypic.com/e0okd0.jpg





And for those who are fans of Foster's Folly, this is what it would look like if it was turned into wind, to allow all approaches to be over the countryside, instead of over central London.

This arrangement has considerable merits, including not being near the oil refinery and the unexploded ammunition ship. It is also much closer to established transport links, like the Channel tunnel link and Cross-rail, and would join easier onto the motorway network.

Having said that, I really don't think the Greens will let anyone build on the habitat of the three-toed double crested newt and the lesser-spotted fibonacci snail. The Greens have a great desire to destroy the nation, and they know exactly how to achieve their nefarious goals - pulling every emotional string in their arsenal.

The residents of Gravesend might not be too pleased either. Perhaps they could be bought off with cash. I am not sure how many houses there are in Gravesend, but at £20,000 a household, you would only be talking £40 million or so.



http://i39.tinypic.com/b3o9xg.jpg


.

[MAN777]

Something to consider that I dont think has been mentioned yet is where is all the rock and cement going to come from to create the island ?

All the various options look considerably bigger than anything that has gone before, Hong Kong had the luxury of a mountain on site to re-profile. Any Thames based project is going to need Millions of tons of rock to create a platform to replace the mud of the estuary.

Very interesting report here which includes a short history of all the past proposals

http://http://www.smithschool.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/SSEE_Article-Thames_airport.pdf

[Fairdealfrank]

A Thames estuary airport makes no sense:

(1) There are already FOUR airports east of London: London (LCY), Manston, Southend, and Stansted. Why do we need a fifth? What would be the implications for air traffic control with five airports so close to each other?

(2) The proposed airport is too far away from London AND other centres of population in the UK. Heathrow is the nation's major hub airport not just London's, so many passengers (perhaps a majority) are not travelling to/from the centre of London. For them to have to cross congested and crowded London to access the Thames Estuary airport is really not a good idea.

(3) If an airport so far away from London is really acceptable, it's better to use Farnborough, Hurn (Bournemouth) or Manston. These airports already have runways capable of taking the largest jets.

Alternatively neighbouring Northolt might be a suitable Heathrow “overflow” in the short term to allow for the return of “thin” domestic routes (but only with fast surface access between the two, otherwise forget it).

The recently floated “Heathwick” idea is a non-starter, and smacks of desperation: Gatwick is almost as full as Heathrow! If it was a serious idea, why would Ferrovial be forced to sell Gatwick? It is a classic example of a lack of joined up thinking! With airports under different ownership, who would pay for the proposed fast link between the two? What about the security implications of passengers in transit making a forty mile journey between flights? or would they have to go through border control, collect their bags and check in again at the other airport? Why would they bother when changing at Amsterdam is an option?

(4) An island in the Thames would be an environmental nightmare, expensive to build, and ecologically unsound, it cannot be justified. The area is haven for livestock especially birds, so a birdstrike problem in that area is a major likelihood, presenting more safety implications.

(5) There is always a threat of serious flooding and surge tides in the area, this is why the Woolwich barrier had to built. Hydrologists will be able to advise on the effect of an artificial island on tidal flows in the estuary, chances are that it is probably more significant than is admitted.

(6) the “green” arguments against Heathrow runway expansion are bogus: how is it “green” to have aircraft burning fuel circling while waiting to land, and to have aircraft burning fuel idling while queuing up to take off? Bear in mind also that Frankfurt Rhein-Main got approval for two more runways WHILE THE GERMAN GREEN PARTY WAS IN GOVERNMENT.

(7) UK airports are privately owned, not franchised like the railways, not contracted out to the private sector, and not leased out or on any PFI deal. Thatcher sold off the publicly owned airports in the 1980s, and they are wholly owned by, and the assets of private companies. So all talk of of Heathrow “closing” is not realistic, why would it‘s owner, Ferrovial, kill off a “good earner“?

Who would pay for the Thames airport and how long would it take for the investment to pay off? It really does not sound like a brilliant commercial proposition. Why would the airlines leave one of the world‘s busiest hub airports in order to use a deserted backwater? The deserted backwater would have no decent surface links until years after it opened, it is the same at all new airports. On the other hand, more runways at Heathrow are a good business proposition and, unlike high speed railways, would be built using no taxpayers‘ money.

(8) Rail, high speed or otherwise, is not an alternative to aviation, the two complement each other and will continue to do so as the roads get more congested. Unfortunately two of the three proposed high speed rail destinations (Birmingham and Leeds) no longer have air links to Heathrow, so no choice there. More runways at Heathrow can be built much quicker than either high speed railways or the Thames Estuary Airport.

Countries with high speed railways also have very large domestic networks out of their hub airports. There are large number of flights on offer between Madrid and Barcelona; Paris and Marseille, Rome and Milan, and Tokyo and Osaka, for example, all city pairs with high speed rail connections. The reason is obvious: not every passenger is travelling city centre to city centre and people want choice.

(9) For all the alleged complaints about Heathrow, it is where the airlines want to be, and that is because it is where their passengers want to be. Airlines are falling over themselves to gain access to Heathrow, as demonstrated by the EU-US openskies arrangements, and are prepared to pay millions to acquire slots, this will not change.

(10) It is not a case of "build it and they will come", as well illustrated by the Montreal-Mirabel experience, and that airport was much nearer the city centre! In a country with publicly owned airports, airlines were directed by the government to use Mirabel rather than Dorval and they STILL could not make it work!

　
The facts are simple: Heathrow needs two more runways, and it needs them yesterday, there is no getting way from it, and it will happen, probably later rather than sooner regretably. Live with it.

Hope this helps.

[jabird]

MAN777,

Yes, good point. SS had obviously been listening to the Shamen's 'Move any Mountain' - yet he denies there are any mountains, or any kind of contours in the Thames Estuary!

The other problem with this is that articifial islands are subject to sinking (Kansai). I can just about get my head round a £20bn airport generating a return for investors - although this seems wildly optimistic as the land based Rugby option was pencilled at £6bn in 2003. When costs start to rise, do the investors chip in more, or do they get a government bailout? Even Kansai is still blighted commercially as ITM remains both open and busier.

SS,

Are there any documented cases of aircraft even going into terminals

To the best of my knowledge, there are no documented cases of aircraft leaving the runway out of control and then impacting either a terminal or other structure nearby, hence the oil and gas terminal adjacent to the runways should not be a problem if there is a suitable barrier. Yet your relocated 'Foster's Folly' might involve aircraft overflying the facility, and therefore it would be a risk.

It is also much closer to established transport links, like the Channel tunnel link and Cross-rail, and would join easier onto the motorway network.

Exactly the comparison I made yesterday between Foster's Island and Silver Island!

The residents of Gravesend might not be too pleased either. Perhaps they could be bought off with cash. I am not sure how many houses there are in Gravesend, but at £20,000 a household, you would only be talking £40 million or so.

Why don't you do a little research before proposing such a ridiculous figure!

The population of Gravesend is around 50,000 - so if you wanted to move houses and commercial premises, I suggest a figure of £100k per head, or £5bn would be closer.

Now did you also suggest £40bn for LCY? This is an extremely thin wafer of land, so, like LHR, its usage as an airport in terms of revenue generated per acre is actually very efficient. Has it not occured to you that, just maybe all those sharks working in the city would have long since stripped it out by now if they thought the land was better off as offices? Consider that such a move might also involve a consortium of Docklands land owners who would then have less restrictions on building heights - and that a 2% shareholding to Tower Hamlets residents' associations might assure a smooth run through the planning process? City types might like their fast access to the ski slopes of Davos via ZRH, but if one of them had smelled the cash, they would have pounced by now!

[jabird]

SS,

Looking at your island, you are also doubling the width to get these 'domestic' runways, yet wouldn't one of the aims of such a new airport be to consolidate all passengers under one very large roof - or a series of linked terminals?

[jackieofalltrades]

Fairdealfrank you have eloquently put across some very valid arguments and points of note. The most notable of all being:
The facts are simple: Heathrow needs two more runways, and it needs them yesterday, there is no getting way from it, and it will happen, probably later rather than sooner regretably.

I couldn't agree more with this last comment. Heathrow is in dire need of two more runways, and it's about time the powers that be did what is required. I, too, fear it will be later than sooner, but one can only hope that the new runways at Heathrow and Stansted will be built in the near future.

[jabird]

FDF,

I would agree with many of your points, some of which echo what I have said earlier on this thread.

Where you talk of HSR complementing domestic flights, in some cases the choice you mention is a desire to connect onward from those hubs, although CDG does offer that option direct from numerous other cities in France. As for MXP - two high speed trains a day isn't quite cutting it yet, whereas MAD-BCN has seen massive cuts in flights since the AVE link opened, but AVE frequency is still some way off VT BHM or MAN - EUS.

I would question this though:

(6) the “green” arguments against Heathrow runway expansion are bogus: how is it “green” to have aircraft burning fuel circling while waiting to land, and to have aircraft burning fuel idling while queuing up to take off? Bear in mind also that Frankfurt Rhein-Main got approval for two more runways WHILE THE GERMAN GREEN PARTY WAS IN GOVERNMENT.

a) Were the Greens not in coalition, and b) would that decision not have been taken locally, and still subject to many German equivalents of a Section 106 agreement?

[Gulfstreamaviator]

Would a major project, such as the "east london" airport, be a worthwhile project, to provide work for many many unemployed workers.

At the same time, relocation of many environmently sensitive factory developments.

A new HI HI speed train system, linking the major urban areas, thus providing a more friendly heavy good transportation system.

The land that LHR occupies is prime residental land for London, and as such would have a positive cash flow to this project.

Perhaps also relocate LGW as well, with a HI HI speed rail, looping from Brighton via the Gatwick area.....

Unless GB PLC acts soon, all the profitable by product of the major hub UK has provided till now will be lost FOR EVER.....

Relocate the capital there too........ Cambera (east).....

Build the New Thames Barrier, let the land side silt up, have a cosmetic River Thames, and gain all the usable land.

glf

[JSCL]

I still fail to see why the gvmt can't plop money in to Stobart for Southend to grow. These ideas are all looking stupid. I even prefer Heathstedwick or Heathwick than all these.

[silverstrata]

Gonzo:

If the routes of successive departuresfrom the same runway do not diverge 45 degrees then you must leave 2 minutes between them. From the same runway.


And dolphins swim....

This would happen to any airfield anywhere, and is not a specific problem to a Thames airport.





Gozo:

Then I suggest you should never fly into a capacity constrained airport in CATIII. To give you a landing clearance at 4nm, then we'd have to apply spacing of 8-9nm between lanbdings, not 6nm, in CATIII. LHR's CATIII capacity would go down even more.


And a better explanation for why LHR should be closed down would be harder to find.

Just because capacity restraints have influenced a legal administrator to write a paragraph declaring a 1nm clearance to land on a Cat III approach to be 'legal', does not make it 'right' nor 'safe'. Likewise with LGW clearing you to land an allowing you to land with another aircraft sitting on the runway.

These are merely signs and warnings that we should be designing a new airport with much greater capacity, and now.





Man7:

Something to consider that I dont think has been mentioned yet is where is all the rock and cement going to come from to create the island ?

Jabird:
Yes, good point. SS had obviously been listening to the Shamen's 'Move any Mountain' - yet he denies there are any mountains, or any kind of contours in the Thames Estuary!


They would use sand, of which there is plenty in the region. The Dutch use sand to build new land, as they are doing around Amsterdam right now. The only problem being that the sand takes 10 years to settle (using water wicks), and so you need to build the island NOW, if you want construction to start in early 2020. I think the vibrational method is quicker, but the water wick is certainly the cheapest.

Actually, this is not a good point, Jabird. Sand is one of the strongest and most stable foundations you can have, if you compact it and stabilise it well enough. Just in case you are unaware, this thing is built upon sand - yes, sand:


http://www.dubai-forever.com/images/burj-dubai-tower-distance.jpg





Fairdeal:

(1) There are already FOUR airports east of London: London (LCY), Manston, Southend, and Stansted. Why do we need a fifth? What would be the implications for air traffic control with five airports so close to each other?

(3) If an airport so far away from London is really acceptable, it's better to use Farnborough, Hurn (Bournemouth) or Manston. These airports already have runways capable of taking the largest jets.


Please read the thread, before jumping in, most of your points have already been answered.

Expansion of other small airports is not what is needed. LHR expansion is about capturing the international traffic and funnelling them efficiently into London or onto interlining flights and TGV trains to the rest of Europe. Only a large and well-connected airport can do that, and not an enlarged Bournemouth.

I can just imagine the South American passenger stuck in Bournemouth looking for his connection to Denmark, the Baltics, or even Scotland - via a 19th century train line to Gatwick or Manston. Yep, that will reeaaly bring in the dollars to UK PLC.





Fairfrank:

The facts are simple: Heathrow needs two more runways, and it needs them yesterday, there is no getting way from it, and it will happen, probably later rather than sooner regretably.


Quite.

In other words you agree with me that we need a new Thames airport. There is absolutely no room for another two runways at LHR; and even if you destroyed much of W London to squeeze them in, you would still have the same old LHR problems. ie:

All inbounds over central London (noise, safety)
All outbounds over central London (noise, safety)
Long night curfew
Poor rail links to the rest of the country
Road congestion in the whole area
Cramped taxiway space.




Jabird:

(Silver-Foster Isle of Grain - is also much closer to established transport links).
Exactly the comparison I made yesterday between Foster's Island and Silver Island!

The population of Gravesend is around 50,000 - so if you wanted to move houses and commercial premises, I suggest a figure of £100k per head, or £5bn would be closer.


I have nothing against the Silver-Foster airport (on the Isle of Grain) being chosen in preference to the Silver-Boris Island proposal (in the estuary) - as long as it is pointing into wind; away from an over-London approach; and with sufficient runways and taxiways to accommodate the vast multitude of aircraft that will eventually use it.

But such a proposal does not come without compromises - and noise being one of them, both for Gravesend and also Southend (along with those darn newts and snails).

Ok, so Gravesend has about 12,000 homes. At £20k per household compensation, this equates to £240 million. (Your £5 bn figure is from the days of New Labour, when they thought money grew on trees. I think £20k compensation would satisfy most residents).

And please bear in mind, this is only for the revised Silver-Foster location (to keep the Foster supporters happy). The Silver-Boris Island estuary location would incur no such additional costs.






Jabird:

Looking at your island, you are also doubling the width to get these 'domestic' runways, yet wouldn't one of the aims of such a new airport be to consolidate all passengers under one very large roof - or a series of linked terminals?


If you can think of a better way, then propose it.

The problem is that aircraft taxying across runways is both time-consuming and dangerous. Thus three runways either side of a large terminal is not the optimum solution - two separate terminals linked by a rapid transit subway is more efficient.

This is doubly so, when you take customs and immigration into account. If you can separate off all the domestic/shengen traffic from the international passengers, the passenger handling is much more efficient. Likewise, if you can keep all the international transit passengers 'offshore' in one terminal, the immigration checks are again reduced.





Finally:
For the Silver-Foster concept to work, the airfield would need to be moved slightly further NW - to miss the Halstow Ridge, which conveniently runs to the SW in the same line as the take-off and approach path. But this revised location does mean even more noise nuisance for Gravesend.



http://i41.tinypic.com/24v8gap.jpg


.

[Gonzo]

This would happen to any airfield anywhere, and is not a specific problem to a Thames airport.



True, if they had everything straight ahead to 5nm before turning. However, LHR SIDs split earlier, so we can get 1 minute departure separations. So we can theoretically get 60 departures airborne in 1 hour from one runway, assuming the same wake category. Therefore, you're getting the same theoretical maximum departure rate off your two runways on a £XXbn man-made island than we currently have from LHR.

And a better explanation for why LHR should be closed down would be harder to find.


And yet you seem to be the only pilot who's complaining!!!!! We've done it that way for years. So have other airports. Where are the reports of airliners flying into the ground due to infringed ILS sensitive areas outside of 2nm from touchdown?

So you'd spend £XXbn for an airport that would not actually deliver any capacity increase. You're just moving the same amount of traffic to the east of London.

[MAN777]

SS

Yes you are correct the Burj tower in Dubai is built on sand with the help of the below !!!

"Over 45,000 m3 (58,900 cu yd) of concrete, weighing more than 110,000 tonnes were used to construct the concrete and steel foundation, which features 192 piles buried more than 50 m (164 ft) deep.


Stabilising the mud of the thames estuary will be like plaiting fog !

Having spent many an hour wandering the shoreline of the thames at low tide I can assure you that this stuff won't hold anything heavier than a seagull !!

[jabird]

Silver,

My figure was based on buying the town out entirely for airport / related usage. I'm not sure that you could just 'bribe' people with a payment for noise, although airports do have insulation grant schemes. Either way, that would be a large group of antis to placate, it is always easier to keep noise disturbances in their current place than to move them elsewhere, even if you are proposing a net reduction in noise footprint, the politics doesn't work that way.

And can you please stop referring to these flights as being domestic / Schengen - the UK isn't part of that agreement, and is unlikely to be.

If you are suggesting that a flight transfer between two Schengen countries - e.g ARN-SSI-MAD, then fair enough, but you are still talking about splitting the airport into different zones. The Foster proposal has a lot more in common with HKG - essentially part reclaimed land, part terra firma, and from what I have seen of his diagrams much more of the latter. HKG has two runways, as does KIX, to have a 2 + 2 configuration with central terminal area, enabling sim. approaches should enable the kind of capacity such a project would need (100-150m pax pa), extending to 6 runwas and two terminal areas would nearly double the cost, not to mention the huge extra costs of building in that location.

Sadly, your two other examples are not relevant - Burj Khalifa is a tower, deep piles for a huge superstructure, airports need stable runways over a vast area. The Dutch reclaim land behind dykes, the Thames Barrier 2 would remain open most of the time.

[Fairdealfrank]

Jabird,

yes the German Greens were in coalition, and ask any Conservative how easily a junior coalition partner can scupper government policies! The German Greens would have had the same opportunities, rightly, it was not stopped.


Silverstrata,

Think the whole tenor of my comment implies complete opposition to a new Thames airport!!

Unfortunately, all advocates for the Thames airport consistently fail to explain (1) who will pay for it, and (2) why the airlines would leave one of the world's largest hubs (Heathrow) for a deserted backwater.

Without addressing these two basic issues, this "pie in the sky" will remain just that: "pie in the sky".

Good point about Bournemouth, it reinforces the point about the importance of hub airports for transferring passengers and therefore the neccessity expanding Heathrow.

[silverstrata]

Gonzo:

True, if they had everything straight ahead to 5nm before turning. However, LHR SIDs split earlier, so we can get 1 minute departure separations. So we can theoretically get 60 departures airborne in 1 hour.



In which case, Silver Island can do likewise. Not everyone will be going straight ahead, just as they don't all go straight ahead from LHR.

The only difference is the addition of the extra domestic-shengen runways. But if they do a circling departure (as you have to do from many airports, especially if terrain is a factor), then there is little or no departure conflict here.

So Silver Island would theoretically be able to get 60 flights airborne per hour from the right runway, 60 from the left, and 30 from the center.


And as an side, I have not noticed many departures from LHR doing split-arse 45 degree turns at 300 ft after take off (the one minute point). Perhaps you could explain this dichotomy. Do you have some example SIDs for us?






Gonzo:

And yet you seem to be the only pilot who's complaining!!!!! We've done it that way for years. So have other airports. Where are the reports of airliners flying into the ground due to infringed ILS sensitive areas outside of 2nm from touchdown?

So you'd spend £XXbn for an airport that would not actually deliver any capacity increase.


I have never been given a Cat III landing clearance inside 3nm. And that includes some very busy airports. And if you cannot get the landing clearance in by 3nm, when the Cat III approach spacing is about 5-6 nm, then something is wrong.

And on the contrary, Heathrow DOES have capacity constraints and flight cancellations, especially when low-viz procedures are in force (when 3nm spacings suddenly become 5-6nm spacings). The whole point about the 3-runway layout, is that the approach and landing capacity is sufficiently high, so there would be no difference between normal and low-viz procedures - you could always have 5-6 nm approach spacing.

And remember, Silver Island can have 24 hour operations, and that represents another 25 - 30% capacity over Heathrow.





Man7

Yes you are correct the Burj tower in Dubai is built on sand with the help of the below !!!

"Over 45,000 m3 (58,900 cu yd) of concrete, weighing more than 110,000 tonnes were used to construct the concrete and steel foundation, which features 192 piles buried more than 50 m (164 ft) deep.


We are building a 3-story terminal, not a 1000 ft high skyscraper.

And you may not know this, but Dutch roads are built straight on top of the sand, without any elaborate foundations. As I said before, sand is a very good foundation, if you can keep it contained and stabilised.





Man7

Having spent many an hour wandering the shoreline of the thames at low tide I can assure you that this stuff won't hold anything heavier than a seagull !!


Construction is not really your subject, is it?

What you are describing is Thames silt and mud, not sand. For building purposes, you go out into the estuary and dredge nice clean sand, just like the Dutch do. And there is plenty of it around, which is why you have locations called 'sands' all over the estuary.





Jabird:

My figure was based on buying the town out entirely for airport / related usage. I'm not sure that you could just 'bribe' people with a payment for noise, although airports do have insulation grant schemes. Either way, that would be a large group of antis to placate.


It was not my idea to use the Isle of Grain, that was the Foster suggestion. As I said, the location has some merits, but also some problems. But check out the new departure layouts that could negate some of the problem. Nothing you can do about N.E. inbounds though.





Jabird:

And can you please stop referring to these flights as being domestic / Schengen - the UK isn't part of that agreement, and is unlikely to be.


So says your crystal ball?

Anyway, as you well know, both customs and immigration are far easier for European inbounds than the rest of the world. Most European passport holders can sail though immigration without much of a second glance. So the same argument pretty much applies - a separate domestic/shengen terminal is the easier solution, rather than mixing passengers in one terminal.







Jabird:

The Dutch reclaim land behind dykes, the Thames Barrier 2 would remain open most of the time.


Yes, but we are not going to allow the tides to flood over Silver Island !! This will be reclaimed land, the same as any reclaimed land in Holland.

And Yes - all of the runways at Schiphol are built on reclaimed land in exactly the same fashion as they will be at Silver Island, and they seem pretty stable to me. (I'll give you a clue, all of Schiphol is about 12 feet below sea level. )





Fairdeal:

Unfortunately, all advocates for the Thames airport consistently fail to explain (1) who will pay for it, and (2) why the airlines would leave one of the world's largest hubs (Heathrow) for a deserted backwater.


1. The sale of LHR, plus the construction costs already earmarked for the new Thames crossing and the new Thames barrier.

2. Well, with LHR shut, they could either choose a brand new hub with all facilities, or use Manston.





Silver-Boris Island, with new departure tracks and sea defenses:


http://i42.tinypic.com/ams6xz.jpg



Silver-Foster, with new departure tracks and sea defenses:


http://i40.tinypic.com/n9r89.jpg



.

[MAN777]

SS

Construction is not really your subject, is it?


Why can't you debate this subject without making smart-arse patronising remarks. Its a real shame because you are obviously a highly intelligent individual with a huge amount to contribute.

I really feel like having a go back, but I won't because I am a gentleman that doesn't have a "superior, I know better than you all" attitude towards anyone that answers back.

However -

No I am not an engineer but I have spent the last 6 years specialising in construction photography, currently working on an several very large coastal defence projects, documenting engineering techniques used to stabilise sand and estuary mud !! Have you actually ever got your feet wet in the mud of numerous UK estuaries and bays ?? I have, as recently as this afternoon in fact.

[Fairdealfrank]

Quote:
Fairdeal:

Unfortunately, all advocates for the Thames airport consistently fail to explain (1) who will pay for it, and (2) why the airlines would leave one of the world's largest hubs (Heathrow) for a deserted backwater.
1. The sale of LHR, plus the construction costs already earmarked for the new Thames crossing and the new Thames barrier.

2. Well, with LHR shut, they could either choose a brand new hub with all facilities, or use Manston.


Silverstrata, and Ferrovial will sell LHR because.......

[PAXboy]

At the risk of sounding like a broken record: No new airport will be built in the South Easth of England in the next 25 years. Island/mainland/reclaim land, makes no never mind, as it will not be built. Reasons have been detailed several times in this thread already. Now, back to the debate. :ooh:

[Gonzo]

SS,

And as an side, I have not noticed many departures from LHR doing split-arse 45 degree turns at 300 ft after take off (the one minute point). Perhaps you could explain this dichotomy. Do you have some example SIDs for us?

You are misunderstanding again.

The 1 minute or 2 minute departure separation refers to the time between take-offs, not the time after take off when the aircraft turns.

I have never been given a Cat III landing clearance inside 3nm. And that includes some very busy airports. And if you cannot get the landing clearance in by 3nm, when the Cat III approach spacing is about 5-6 nm, then something is wrong.

Ok, let me be clear on this.

You are saying that in CATIII conditions, with an arrival-arrival separation of 5-6nm you believe there's something wrong if you don't get landing clearance by the time no.2 is at 3nm?

Serious question.....do you know how long it takes to vacate a runway and be clear of the LSA in CATIII?

That is leaving arriving aircraft the same length of time as they take just to vacate the runway in normal ops!!!!

And on the contrary, Heathrow DOES have capacity constraints and flight cancellations, especially when low-viz procedures are in force (when 3nm spacings suddenly become 5-6nm spacings). The whole point about the 3-runway layout, is that the approach and landing capacity is sufficiently high, so there would be no difference between normal and low-viz procedures - you could always have 5-6 nm approach spacing.

Ok, now I think you aren't really reading my posts. I never suggested at any point that LHR does not have capacity constraints. I think, having worked with them every day for 13 years, I probably have a better idea of them than most.

However, do you really want to limit the traffic to enable zero delay if we go into CATIII?

You seriously want the whole airport to constrain itself dramatically the vast majority of the time to ensure that on the rare (averaged over the year) CATIII days you get no delay?

No airport operator in the world is going to want to operate your new airport!

[jabird]

Silver,

It really is not the same thing to compare Dutch reclamation methods, which involve reclaiming land behind dykes, but otherwise surrounded by more land, with the construction of a completely new island in water some meters deep.

Now I don't have a Thames Estuary contour map to hand, but I put it to you that your island would be several times deeper than Foster's only partially offshore proposal at its deepest point. I still question the merits of combining Thames Barrier and crossing in same structure, as optimal points for either are not necessarily in the same place, but Foster's idea is at least much closer to the mark than yours, which could be at least twice as long as his, plus the extra cost of building at such depth, and having more depth changes in the sea bed - not so easy if the crossing goes below the barrage (as Foster's would). There is also the question of how the various Thames ports would operate if Silver barrage was closed? Locks in such a structure would be prohibitively expensive.


Now as to the runway separation - indeed I don't have a crystal ball, but I do have a reasonable knowledge of European politics, as do most contributors on this thread. So UK domestic and Schengen would still be separate zones. And the runway still doesn't care about the nationality of the pax using it, just a question of whether takeoff / landing can be achieved, yes or no. Yes, I agree, you could build shorter runways to serve the local traffic, but better to use the island terminal + 2 runways each side widely used elsewhere, and proposed by Foster. And even if you are going to use 4L + 2S, surely your island needs to spin the other way round - most of the local traffic would cross the LH otherwise.

[jabird]

Now so much of this thread has been about LHR v Boris / George / Norm / Silver Island (Silver, I hope you feel honoured in such company, but you did start the thread:8).

There has been little mention of the much more obvious option of a massive expansion of LGW.

Now, please don't get me wrong - I am not talking about the pointless Heathwick suggestion, which would burn £5bn of cash, without adding any extra capacity.

Currently, around 30-40% of LHR traffic is transfer, but out of that, a very large percentage must surely be BA-BA, or at least within Oneworld? Taking bmi out of the equation removes the case for Star having a signficant hub operation at LHR, just a number of disparate connections between their European, Asian and North American members.

The whole model of killing one airport and moving to a megahub has been tested elsewhere, and we know it is fraught with risk, especially in a city with so many airports. Therefore, we have to ask where the dual hub model works.

Surely, if there is one city London wants to compete with in the world stage, forget about lesser European rivals, forget about chaotic Asian upstarts with none of the history, surely it is still New York?

Now New York might be a long way off from being the perfect city in terms of transport, but it does have TWO intercontintal hub airports, sprawling JFK with its separate terminals initially planned for each airline and the much better organised EWR, a major hub for Continental (/United).

Now is JFK really the New York airport in terms of snob value? Maybe we should think of the appropriate British character, and rename Gatwick after him or her? Suggestions please?

What else would it take to bribe the non-Oneworld airlines from LHR to LGW? A truly iconic terminal (Foster has had his turn, how about Calatrava, or even Gehry for anything non-functional - maybe a hotel / office complex adjacent to the terminal). Instead of a link between LHR-LGW, taking what would be relatively small numbers of transfer pax if traffic between the two was split between the airline alliances, why not concentrate on improving surface links between LGW and London? Crossrail improves E-W links, whereas Crossrail2 seems more like a regional service - considering all the tunneling done for HS1, why not continue HS2 through London and terminate at LGW? (I could elaborate on my critique of HS2, and go into other options on this, but appreciate this is an aviation forum, so I'll simply say that £5bn on surface access from LGW into London, NOT to LHR would go a very long way).

Consider LGW v LHR or B / G / N / S Island:

1) Substantially cheaper to build
2) Much lower noise footprint than LHR
3) Already plugs in to extensive road and rail network
4) Reasonably close to high income populations

[Skipness One Echo]

If you think LHR is politically tricky, LGW is worse. The Tory mutiny over HS2 is the prelude to the firestorm for concreting the Home Counties if they tried to double LGW ! Can't see it ever happening.

[jabird]

Skipless,

I beg to differ. Look at the area around LGW - significantly less populated than LHR, fewer people to object. Of course that doesn't mean it would get an easy ride, every airport has its anti-groups, and there is the wider green lobby to deal with.

Also, being purely cynical on the politics, the seats around LHR are more marginal, therefore MPs can see gain if they oppose its development. Much more blue around LGW. Now when it comes to HS2, yes there will be backlash from MPs on route (or not on route as case is here in Coventry), but it has cross party support. Therefore, if HS2 falls down, it will be due to its exorbitant cost per mile, and treasury re-evaluating case for it. If LGW is expanded using private funds, this is not an issue.

What is your solution to the problem? (Please don't say do nothing, there is an argument to be had saying the industry faces numerous challenges, but that is perhaps for another thread. For the purposes of this debate, we are assuming some level of growth, at least from Far East, so please include at least one new runway in your proposals).

[Skipness One Echo]

What is your solution to the problem?
Runway 3 at LHR demolishing Sipson allowing the most bang for your buck in investment terms. It's a built up area anyway and the houses round LHR have been aware of the airport since 1947 and runway 3 won't markedly change that perception, there will just be no half day break from the noise.

LGW is almost but not quite green field, with lots of nice areas nearby and lots of rich, powerful and influential people who would go all NIMBY as this would be a significant impact of noise on areas thus far unaffected. I think this is pretty unfair, the same goes for Stansted.

[Fairdealfrank]

Paxboy is correct, no new airport will be built in the south east in the forseeable.

Jabird's idea to expand LGW is probably the only alternative to expanding LHR although it is fraught with difficulty. It is reminiscent of the "second force" policy of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s when it was government policy to build up LGW while criminally neglecting to sufficiently expand LHR, and putting us in the position we find ourselves in today.

Successive privately owned airlines were set up at LGW to take on state- owned BOAC and BEA, and despite being handed routes on a plate including those taken away from BOAC/BEA, were still unable to make a success of it. Everything was regulated and "bi-lateral" at the time so governments decided which carriers were on each route. British United, British Caledonian, Laker and Virgin atlantic were all intended as the "second force", LGW-based British carriers.

All failed except VS, and that was because VS saw the writing on the wall and got access to LHR as soon as it could. BD was always LHR-based and was a success for a long time, giving BA a run for it's money on shorthaul.
Even today LGW has relatively little transfer traffic, despite being a base for some very large airlines. It is an oddity and fairly unique:

(1) It serves as an overspill for long haul carriers who cannot gain access to Heathrow, e.g. Vietnam Airlines, and loses them once they do, e.g. Omanair;
(2) It is a base for point-to-point carriers such as U2, FR and BE;
(3) It is a base (secondary hub??) for BA for limited shorthaul and mostly leisure long haul (e.g. west Indies), again, predominantly point-to-point;
(4) It is a major charter/holiday company base (e.g. Monarch, Thomas Cook), again, point-to-point.

Like LHR it is almost full and has expansion issues, a new runway cannot be considered before 2019.

Not sure that non-Oneworld transfer traffic could be tempted to LGW. There is no incentive for the airlines to move especially as LHR is grouping the alliances together for ease of transfer.

It is possible that IAG may keep BD and BA separate (like IB and Vueling, or LH, LX, OS and SN, or AF and KL for example) because of integration, and staffing levels, pay, and seniority issues, at least in the short term, in which case there is no reason why BD would not remain in Star, while route swapping, codesharing and schedule synchconisation take place. IAG, Like LANTAM, could have airlines in, and make money from, membership of more than one alliance, especially if it buys more Star Alliance carriers, such as TAP.

New York is very different from London. Much of JFK and EWR traffic is domestic, as is all of LGA's, and transfer traffic is domestic-domestic or domestic-international. International-international transferring does not really exist in the USA, one has to arrive (visa or ESTA, border control/customs) and then depart (check in/security), which, of course, is to be avoided wherever possible. LHR on the other hand has 30-40% transfer traffic, much of it international-international.

Do like the idea of HS2 extending to LGW, would also suggest that it should also link to LHR. HS2 should also pass through London St Pancras rather than London-Euston to connect with the Eurostar, that would be joined up thinking. Still unconvinced that HS2 will be (or should be) built, but that could stray off-topic.

[Romaro]

I like the sound of one of the options/alternatives tabled earlier in this thread:

Make better use of RAF Northolt which is barely utilised - have a five mile tunnel linking LHR and Northolt underground - road and rail/M40 + M4 inner ring road effectively.

Then go and re-use Upper Heyford with a bigger junction (No. 10) on the M40 (immediately adjacent to Upper Heyford) and divert the HS2 line westwards at that stage to follow more closely the M40 - or have a spur coming off feeding that new airport. If HS2 was to take 45 minutes from London to Birmingham, it will take just twenty-something minutes from London to Upper Heyford. Ideally have HS2 go via LHR in the first place.

LHR + Northolt + HS2 + Upper Heyford then gives the industry two extra interlinked runways which already exist - no new tarmac, one of which is massive - 2.2 miles long.

It has its limitations, but (a) it's one hell of a lot cheaper than some alternatives and (b) both extra runways are the right side of London for the demand that exists and (c) one wouldn't have to wait two decades for this to be instigated - we could be there in just ten, perhaps less?

[Skipness One Echo]

Not sure how Northolt would work in practice, it's not taxiabale to the central area so there's no actual connectivity. I mean someone landing at Northolt connecting at LHR would surely find it quicker at AMS or CDG and FRA. It's a competitive disadvantage. Connection times would be much higher.

There's enough moans about coming all the way in from T5C to the UK Border, a five mile train journey is not something you could sell in the market.

[silverstrata]

Man7:

Why can't you debate this subject without making smart-arse patronising remarks.

Have you actually ever got your feet wet in the mud of numerous UK estuaries and bays ?? I have, as recently as this afternoon in fact.


Because while your other comments were sensible and worthwhile, that particular one was pretty inane. We were talking about building on sand, and then you talk about alluvial muds - is that a sensible contribution to the debate?

Actually, I used to be in mineral surveying, so i know a little about this. And I don't even know why we are debating this subject, because building on land reclaimed with sand is a known technique. it has been used for over 500 years, and is still being used to this day.

This is Dutch land reclamation today - using clean sand and not alluvial muds:


http://cdn.marineinsight.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/amsterdam.jpg




And this is the Palm Resort similarly being reclaimed from the sea with sand:


http://architectureintlprogram.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/the-construction-of-palm-deira.jpg




In other words this technique is a known factor, and it works. Although the Palm Resort's idea of leaving the sand 'uncontained' (because it looks nicer) is stretching the technique to its limits. As I said before, the sand needs to be stabilised and contained (preferably within a concrete wall). As anyone who has built a sand-castle will know, if you leave sand unbounded and uncontained it - well - disperses quite rapidly.





Jabird:

Now I don't have a Thames Estuary contour map to hand, but I put it to you that your island would be several times deeper than Foster's only partially offshore proposal at its deepest point.


Now that is a better question. Maplin sands (north coast) is about 1 fathom over a large area, and Margate sands (south shore) is about 2 fathoms over an even wider area. I may have Silver Island too far north, and thus dropping the northerly two runways into the main channel, which would not be a good idea - in which case the island may need to drift south a little, or put the domestic runways on the south side.

Yes, the Silver-Foster proposal on the Isle of Grain has little or no reclamation required, it is true. But you have still not proposed how you overcome the Greens and their endangered fibonacci snail. How do you deal with tented encampments sitting there for decades? Lampposts and ropes might do the trick, but that is not very PC.

And is the noise factor for local communities in Gravesend and Chatham acceptable or not? (Although the extra jobs for these fairly run-down communities might be a big bribe.)








Jabird:

There is also the question of how the various Thames ports would operate if Silver barrage was closed? Locks in such a structure would be prohibitively expensive.


Lock provision is a consequence of the barrage, not Silver Island. But since London will need a larger barrage anyway it just makes more sense to combine the two projects. While it is true that the Silver-Foster barrage will be shorter and only entomb the Tilbury area, rather than all of Canvey Island and Chatham, the cost for locks will be the same wherever the locks are placed.

But note that the current proposal for a new London barrage is from Sheerness to Southend - in other words exactly where Silver Island is located (hence my suggestion for this location in the first place). And if you are going to build such a huge barrier across the Thames estuary, then why not stick a motorway on top of it, and an airport right beside it? Seems reasonable to me....

Bear in mind, however, that these locks can be left open most of the time. The present barrage only closes about 5 times a year, and I expect the new one will operate similarly.






PAX:

At the risk of sounding like a broken record: No new airport will be built in the South Easth of England in the next 25 years. Reasons have been detailed several times in this thread already. Now, back to the debate.


Then what to do? LHR will wither and die if something is not done. I already avoid the place like a plague because of previous bad experiences. I'll even transit via Madrid, rather than LHR, and I am sure many others feel the same.

And all of this is lost traffic and lost income to UK PLC. If it is easier to have a head office near Schiphol, then that is where the money will go. And the UK will wither and die alongside LHR.

And divided or fractured hubs is not really what is needed. Yes there will always be domestic traffic and cheaper traffic to LGW and STN, but the premium intercontinental traffic wants a large hub with very good ground and air communications into London/Britain/Europe.

That is what LHR is supposed to be providing, but providing very badly. It is a shame that LHR is in such a rotten place; but with no possibility of expansion it will have to close.

[Fairdealfrank]

Silverstrata, you keep stating that LHR will be sold or have to close, but you consistently fail to explain WHY Ferrovial (as owners of the airport) would be inclined to either sell or close the airport. Bearing in mind it's a damned good earner for them, you really do need to properly explain your thinking on this issue.

[jabird]

Silver,

Maplin sands (north coast) is about 1 fathom over a large area, and Margate sands (south shore) is about 2 fathoms over an even wider area. I may have Silver Island too far north, and thus dropping the northerly two runways into the main channel, which would not be a good idea - in which case the island may need to drift south a little, or put the domestic runways on the south side.

Maplin Sands is to the east of Southend, so you would need to park your island just off the coast, and I think you would have just enough space for 2 wide spaced parallels, running roughly NE-SW, but I wouldn't like to see local reaction to such a proposal. Margate is well to the east, so you might aswell use Manston and give Iran Air some company. If you log on to Ordnance Survey, you can see the locations of these sand banks.


I don't even know why we are debating this subject, because building on land reclaimed with sand is a known technique.

I don't think the Dutch polders are comparable, the Zuiderzee is shallower and surely calmer, being an inlet and behind coastal islands.

Combining projects might lower some costs, but only if the location for each is optimal in the same location. The barrage you mention is merely a report, I don't think there has been that much investigation into the matter, or a costing of such a mammoth undertaking.

Any barrage to the east of the major ports could not be crossed by simply placing a bridge on top - the structure would have to be very much higher to enable ships to pass under, then you would have the challenge of what you would do with a road and railway crossing at height, then needing to dip to avoid conflict with the runways. The Oresund crossing, situated near CPH airport, uses a combination of bridge and tunnel, but there is no barrage. I think that is why Foster's answer puts the road and rail link through a tunnel. This would be much more expensive further out, especially if the surface is uneven.

Would need to see a cross-section of the estuary at this point, which I don't think either of us have easy access to, but this is part of the fundamental problem with building here - it is both expensive, and risky. If it wasn't, all the house builders in the country would have been trying it long ago, not just the flashy show off builders in Dubai, where they have (or had) the money.

As I said before, the sand needs to be stabilised and contained (preferably within a concrete wall)

Such a structure and wall would also need to be high enough so the site was above the tides, and that is quite some volume on the 6 runway site you propose.

[jabird]

FDF,

Silverstrata, you keep stating that LHR will be sold or have to close, but you consistently fail to explain WHY Ferrovial (as owners of the airport) would be inclined to either sell or close the airport. Bearing in mind it's a damned good earner for them, you really do need to properly explain your thinking on this issue.

I can only presume that for such an act to happen, the govt would have to pass a law forcing it from them. They would, of course, resist vigourously, and it would be a long drag through the courts, and even then, they would still have to be paid the market value of the site as a going concern + a premium. One hell of a purchase for a closure which would not be operationally compulsory!

Also, for such a hub to work, it is likely that other airports might need to close too, so then you have separate cases to close down multiple owners - otherwise, faced with the inevitably high PSC for using Island Airport, and it no longer having the competitive advantage that LHR has by being closer to London, more operators would just switch to LGW.

So much as though I love the concept - or at least Foster's slightly more workable version as an engineering challenge, I can't see the politics or the finances ever working.

On the other hand, a new runway at Gatwick and sizeable midfield terminal giving an overall capacity in the region of 80m would be workable financially if there was also a suitable improvement in surface access. The politics would be tricky, but even if there are some big home owners in the vicinity, it is still a far easier sell than LHR's 3rd runway.

[Daysleeper]

Such a structure and wall would also need to be high enough so the site was above the tides, and that is quite some volume on the 6 runway site you propose.

Not an unheard of volume though, the Rotterdam extension is about 7 square miles and directly onto the North Sea.

Ultimately this is a political decision, the rest of it is just engineering and fairly well understood engineering at that.

[jabird]

DS,

Not an unheard of volume though, the Rotterdam extension is about 7 square miles and directly onto the North Sea.

True, but still an extension in pieces (Maasvlakte 1, then 2), rather than a completely new venture. A port does tend to benefit slightly from being next to the sea:rolleyes:


Ultimately this is a political decision, the rest of it is just engineering and fairly well understood engineering at that.

Yes, whatever they do, there will be politics, but it has to make commercial sense too, not just in terms of can it be built to give shareholders an ROI, but also how could such an airport be built by sacrificing at least one other going concern, and still satisfy (a) the shareholders of all and (b) competition authorities.

I don't doubt that an estuary airport is technically feasible, but we don't have much precedent of doing this in the UK. History also shows that even if a plan is developed for a new superhub, the older, closer (to the city centre) airport remains open, as in SEL, TPE etc, more often than it does not.

[MAN777]

I think its about time that we got real and accepted the fact that the Middle East and Euro hubs have stolen the game from under our noses, so what do we do ?

Spend Billions on a scheme to show we are the centre of the universe or let them spend their billions on superhubs, and we use their facilities.

London is never going to be a branch line regardless of what happens, capacity can be maintained by use of A380s but where compromise has to be made is this never ending desire to have point to point from London to every point on the world.

Sorry London but you are going to have to change planes for the first time in your lives:rolleyes:

[jabird]

MAN777,

For the time being at least, LHR is still Europe's busiest airport. London's airports combined still keep the world aviation capital title (by pax numbers).

capacity can be maintained by use of A380s

Not feasible for shorter routes, where frequency is needed, and load times would prevent fast turnaround. But in principle I agree - larger aircraft means more pax from same runway, but still creates issues with wake, and land still needs to be found for the terminals. I think switching 737-500s to 800s, sacrificing some shorthaul frequencies for larger a/c on long haul more likely change.

never ending desire to have point to point from London to every point on the world

This is a natural desire anywhere, and remember that whether ptp or connecting, a seat is still occupied - and the hop to AMS or CDG for conx uses MORE runway space than direct in a 777 going direct as the hop uses a smaller aicraft.

Yet, despite rising fuel costs, despite UK APD being a notch higher than everywhere else, people still want to come and go from London. LGW is seeing a big uptake in Asian routes, and it has room to expand in a way which is far more cost effective and politically do-able than either a new airport-on-sea or at LHR.

Don't forget that UK regional airports have done very well out of the growth in locost carriers - I remember EDI's route map in my days as a student there until '98, very few European cities served directly, now look at it, not to mention EWR too.

[Flightman]

Are The Palm and The World islands sinking?

Not a good advertisement for that type of construction is it?

[Nick Thomas]

Silverstrata has a point re building on sand. The Rio-Antirrio bridge across the Gulf of Corinth is built on a level gravel/sand base. There are no piles through this as the Gulf is increasing in width by about an inch a year and therefore the bridge has to expand and move to accommodate this. The area is prone to earthquakes and since it's opening the area has suffered a quite severe earthquake with no damage to the bridge. The sand would have to be contained by a sturdy perimeter wall. In areas of very high load it would be possible to use rock etc for the island formation. Therefore by careful planning a mixed sand and rock island could be built. Areas between the runways could be sand based as well as possibly some of the terminal buildings (depending on there design). Whilst areas of higher loading could be built on rock. It would be expensive but with good design it would be possible.

[silverstrata]

Fairdeal:

Silverstrata, you keep stating that LHR will be sold or have to close, but you consistently fail to explain WHY Ferrovial (as owners of the airport) would be inclined to either sell or close the airport.

Jabird:

they would still have to be paid the market value of the site as a going concern + a premium. One hell of a purchase for a closure which would not be operationally compulsory!


Its called a compulsory purchase, or even nationalisation - an established political procedure. The whole of BAA is only about £4 billion (from October share sale), so about £2 bn would secure LHR. The development and sale of LHR would gain £12 bn according to Foster, but I think it would be more than this.

And if the Spanish don't want to get involved with part ownership of Silver Island, then the government ends up owning and operating (and later privatising) a huge public asset.




Jabird:

Also, for such a hub to work, it is likely that other airports might need to close too.


Possible, but unlikely. This is about 'Heathrow' expansion rather than stealing traffic from other London airports (stealing from AMS and CDG instead).

But if LGW and STN do end up with less traffic and partially closing, it's their own damn fault. They have been repeatedly offered expansion and more jobs over decades, and they have repeatedly said: "no we don't want any new investment, and we don't want any new jobs or any job security."

Ok, so if these regions want their primary employer to wither and die, and become unemployment blackspots, so be it - their choice.




Man7:

Sorry London but you are going to have to change planes for the first time in your lives ((not enough point-to-point flights from LHR))


And therein lies the problem. If the favourite Euro hub ends up as being CDG, AMS, or FRA, then business and their investments will gravitate there too. And while this would not have been such a calamity if successive government had not destroyed our manufacturing capacity, the UK's over-reliance on the City would mean that UK PLC would go bankrupt.

Can you just imagine a Germany that cornered the market in all of Europe's high tech manufacturing (as it already does), and then became Europe's primary financial center too. This would be a worrying financial and political dominance, I would say.





Flightman:

Are The Palm and The World islands sinking?
Not a good advertisement for that type of construction is it?

Jabird:

I don't doubt that an estuary airport is technically feasible, but we don't have much precedent of doing this in the UK.


As I said before, they did not bound the Palm Resort site with concrete, in order to make it look nicer. An engineering compromise too far, in my opinion.

However, if you can imagine something like the Brighton Marina filled with clean sand, you get the idea. Constrained sand is a very good construction foundation, as we have proved, and those concrete caissons at Brighton have stood for 40 years, and will easily stand for another 60.

And the construction technique for Silver-Boris Island would be the same as at Brighton - cast a caisson on top of the last one, then winch it out and drop it in. Tried, tested, quick and effective - and you just keep going and going until you meet your start point.



http://www.youthation.co/images/post/347BrightonMarinaTower_pic5.jpg




The bottom line here is: Can LHR serve London, Britain and Europe for the next half century?

The answer is: No.

So what to do? LHR is irreversibly constrained in:
noise,
departure and approach safety,
surface transport links,
flight transport links,
curfews,
runway numbers,
runway separations (for parallel approaches),
taxiway space and separation (especially with A380s),

Thus a new location is a must, and so there is no argument here. The only question, is where that new location should be. Silver-Foster on Grain or Silver-Boris Island?



.

[Fairdealfrank]

Silverstrata,

For the government to pass a law you imply that LHR would be nationalised, it's owner, Ferrovial, would be compensated (at taxpayers' expense), and that taxpayers' money would fund the Thames airport and associated infrastructure.

How likely is that?

The Conservative government's policy in the 1980s was to privatise airports and those owned by the government were sold off. Conservative policy has not changed, Labour is as Thatcherite as the Conservatives, so they will not take this course of action. The Libdems and other parties will never get the opportunity to take this course of action, so it will never happen.

Apart from that, it cannot be afforded, and if it could, there are more important calls on taxpayers' money.

Your comment "I already avoid the place like the plague because of previous bad experiences" is quite revealing, it suggests that your arguments are subjective rather than objective.

[A30yoyo]

I thought Heathrow's 3rd Runway was approved and in the bag with private finance available then the current Government killed it....An act of vandalism in my book.
Strong safety argument for extra runways at all of LHR, LGW, STN in my opinion

[jabird]

ts called a compulsory purchase, or even nationalisation - an established political procedure. The whole of BAA is only about £4 billion (from October share sale), so about £2 bn would secure LHR.

Silver,

That is exactly why I referred to LHR as a 'not operationally compulsory' purchase - in other words, LHR does not have to close for S/B Island to function.

Therefore, the proposition is a commercial one - SBI needs LHR out of the way to be viable, but FGP will take one of two actions - either they will fight it in the courts, dragging on for years, or they will say ok, yes, you can buy us out, but you have to pay top whack.

Where do you get the £4bn figure from? BAA was delisted in 06 at £10bn. T5 alone cost £4.2bn, and is a going concern. True, market has seen better days, but LHR traffic still holding up, even if malls may be suffering a bit.

Now the city is well accustomed with the concept of buying businesses and asset stripping or evaluating their component parts as being worth more than the sum of the whole, but I put it to you that LHR is very much a going concern, and worth more open than closed.

If LHR took up the kind of space that RUH or DEN do, then fine - you can fit Manhattan into the space these places take up, but LHR just isn't like that, hence the reason why it is difficult to expand. Central Area + T5 + 2 runways either side + T4 outside this is a very compact model indeed. There might be some land around the airport currently used for parking that could be better used, but that is no concern of SBI Operating Holdings Ltd / PLC.

The development and sale of LHR would gain £12 bn according to Foster, but I think it would be more than this.

Where did he say this, and what makes you think his figures would be so conservative - he will have commercial property consultants on his team, and he will want to give an optimistic figure to make his plan look workable.

I'm just not convinced that terminal building recycle easily into other structures - not the same as stations, where huge vaulted roofs can house conference / concert facilities (M-Central), Museums (Orsay, Paris) etc etc.

If that means the whole site gets flattened, including his mate Lord Rogers' T5, then I'm sure Foster would be delighted!

[silverstrata]

Lord Foster reveals further details about his airport.
Lord Foster reveals further details about his Thames Estuary airport plan (http://www.kentonline.co.uk/kentonline/news/2011/november/29/thames_estuary_airport.aspx)


a. The wreck of the SS Richard Montgomery, a Second World War ship packed with explosives, poses no danger.

(Spin and mirrors, obviously he knew nothing about the ship and its dangers).


b. A new study indicates that the risk of bird strikes on aircraft is not unique to the Thames Estuary and that this risk could be successfully managed.

(His researcher has been to Pprune, and seen my postings).


In addition, the airport layout has changed. Suddenly we have:

Taxiways in between the runways.
No terminal buildings at the end of the runways.
Some runways longer and some shorter.

Someone has obviously been tuning into Pprune. Eventually, we may even get the runways orientated into the prevailing wind and thus nicely offsetting the easterly approach so it is not over central London. And we may even get runways at least 1500m apart for simultaneous approaches too - you never know.

And how about the two commuter runways, Fosty? There is not much point just replicating LHR to the east of London. Would just 4 runways really give us the extra capacity that this new airport would need to justify its existence?


http://www.kentonline.co.uk/images/thames%20estuary%20airport_v_Variation_1.jpg




More details from the Foster website.
Foster + Partners (http://www.fosterandpartners.com/News/458/Default.aspx)


But this is how it should be done....


http://i40.tinypic.com/n9r89.jpg



.

[silverstrata]

Fairdeal:

For the government to pass a law you imply that LHR would be nationalised, it's owner, Ferrovial, would be compensated (at taxpayers' expense), and that taxpayers' money would fund the Thames airport and associated infrastructure. How likely is that?

Jabird:

Where do you get the £4bn figure from? BAA was delisted in 06 at £10bn. T5 alone cost £4.2bn, and is a going concern. True, market has seen better days, but LHR traffic still holding up, even if malls may be suffering a bit.


Fairdeal:
Purchase of LHR £2 bn.
Sale of LHR as the largest business center in Europe £12 bn (Foster) £40 bn (Silver).
Kerrrching !


Jabird:
BAA was one of the worst deals in history, and Ferrovial nearly went under because of it. I could sell you my house for £2 million, but that does not mean it is worth anything like this. One thing they missed, was the poor state of the infrastructure and the £mmmm that it would cost to put things right.

The valuation comes from their most recent deal. In October Ferrovial sold 6% of BAA to Alinda Capital for €320, which values all of BAA at about €5 bn, or say £4 bn. The Spanish picked up a good deal with Nationwide Bank, but lost it all and more besides with the BAA deal.

Thus what is LHR worth - £2bn??



Foster's new comments about making LHR into one huge great business park (he's been reading Pprune again), were in the Sunday Times. He estimated it would make £12 bn for the government (obviously this would have to be a government 'kerrrching', as it would need a multitude of planning permissions. ) The article is behind a pay-wall, I'm afraid.



.

[Fairdealfrank]

This is all very well, but Ferrovial makes good money running LHR. When ordered to sell two of its south east airports, LHR was not even considered. Why would a such a large business park on the LHR site be successful without a local airport? Maybe it could revert to being Hounslow Heath: a bit of green belt to replace that which would be lost in Kent/Essex with the associated infrastructure of the island airport.

Much of the business/industry in West Middlesex, and indeed in the wider Thames valley, is there because of proximity to LHR. Without it, the area could become a series of dormitory towns like the Essex commuter belt on the other side of London, and a "Thames valley gateway" regeneration programme may be needed as well as the existing "Thames gateway".


Before Ferrovial could be bribed or cajolled into selling LHR, or subject to a compulsory purchase order, etc., the alternative has to be up and running. So WHO PAYS?

Let's be realistic, even if the Thames airport is technically, architecturally and geologically feasible (which it probably is), it is a commercial, financial and political non-starter.

A second runway at LGW is prohibited. The very powerful anti-airport lobby there achieved a binding agreement to prevent airport expansion there for 40 years. this expires in 2019. LGW expansion is fraught with difficulty, and will not solve the lack of capacity at the national hub, LHR.

So there is only one answer: a third and fourth runway at LHR and associated expansion. With no capacity constraints a percentage of slots could be reserved to allow a return of “thinner“ domestic routes, much needed new destinations would become available, and increased frequency (on some routes) could be achieved. Aircraft will be much quieter and cleaner by the time the new runways are in use, it's already happening with the B787 and the A350.

[Ranger 1]

A new study indicates that the risk of bird strikes on aircraft is not unique to the Thames Estuary and that this risk could be successfully managed.


I would really like to know who carried out this study and how they actually intend to manage it :confused:

[jbt]

Taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture, surly it would be more sensible to look further afield across the country instead of just focusing on London's airports? The HUGE investment required for a brand new airport would surly be better spent on providing the infrastructure for the airports we already have but are struggling eg. Doncaster - Opened in 2005, the 3rd longest runway in the UK (sufficient length for A380's) and perhaps some others up north.

It is a common place perception that for anyone living up north wanting to further than eg. Spain, then (with the exception of Manchester) they have to travel south to a London airport.

If the infrastructure was there, then perhaps the northern airports would be able to alleviate a lot of the congestion from London's airports for only a fraction of the cost of a brand new airport?

[Bagso]

By all means put a new airport in the Thames with 8 runways it is by far the best remedy BUT surely you still have to close down all the other airports in the South East to free up the airspace ?

Are there not too many conflicts for arr and dep traffic from the other airports in the South East ?

[ZOOKER]

How much research has Lord Fester done into how the ATC system will cope with this, and how it will interface with EHAM, EBBR, EGKK, EGLC and EGMC etc?
Bear in mind that as the oil runs out, (and it is doing), airlines, no-matter where they are flying to and from, will be demanding more optimum vertical and horizontal profiles.

[jabird]

Silver,

Whilst I fully accept the concept of a business being worth more dead than trading, I just don't accept this as the case in respect of LHR. Afaik, the land on which LHR is also property of BAA, not the govt, so hypothetically, any asset stripper could go round buying up airports and selling the land on.

Getting planning permission on any land formerly used as airport, considering the noise caused by aircraft and the air pollution issues (more due to the road traffic around the airport than the a/c), would be the relatively easy part.

PLH has closed and is likely to be turned into houses, but not LHR. Why not? I suggest because it's value as an airport is more than its value as housing or offices. So I don't buy the £12bn figure and certainly not £40bn. However, one difference between retaining an airport on this site and a brand new city is that the tallest structure at LHR is the control tower, whereas LHR City could theoretically have no height constrainst, if they could get past the nimby lobby, who would be dealt a mammoth positive in not having an airport there (not that they'd appreciate that though, they never do).

Even if we take £4bn for BAA, I put it to you that the value of LHR is still more than 50% - combine SOU, GLA, ABZ, STN, you still get barely half the traffic from LHR, and the ability to generate revenue from this traffic is lower still.

FV's lawyers would no doubt see this potential though - so they'd fight for a higher valuation if going down the CP route, otherwise the govt would have to nationalise the whole company - then we're into the kind of territory only entered by the very socialist governments you so ardently despise.

FDF,

Before Ferrovial could be bribed or cajolled into selling LHR, or subject to a compulsory purchase order, etc., the alternative has to be up and running. So WHO PAYS?

Foster has stated that he has spoken to 'stakeholders', including private sources who would back the construction and running of the airport. I'd like to know which airlines are keen on the idea, and how people expect a return, but even going on ther figure of £10bn for LHR, this is still only 1/5th of the £50bn price tag for the overall scheme (airport + barrage + road / rail links).

I have asked SS before though and I will ask again - given £30bn of the above project costs on airport and related infra, given an unknown fee for buying out LHR, at what rate would you set the PSC in order to have a profitable operation and get a return on capital? Afaik, LHR sh PSC is around £27, already one of the highest in Europe. Remember upto 65m pax pa, you are just replacing LHR, not adding any new capacity.

Before Ferrovial could be bribed or cajolled into selling LHR, or subject to a compulsory purchase order, etc., the alternative has to be up and running.

This is a very key point, again one which SS keeps glossing over. There have been cases - Stapleton > DEN eg, where one airport has been closed down, and everything moved overnight to start fresh in the morning. But moving across from LHR to Thames Island? No move of an airport this size has been done before.

Therefore, chances are that such a move would take place in stages. And as with many before, closing down LHR would prove much harder than expected.

A second runway at LGW is prohibited. The very powerful anti-airport lobby there achieved a binding agreement to prevent airport expansion there for 40 years. this expires in 2019. LGW expansion is fraught with difficulty, and will not solve the lack of capacity at the national hub, LHR.

Exactly, 2019! Considering how long LHR T5 took to get through planning, there's no way any new runway in the SE will start build before 2020 at the earliest.


LGW expansion is politically easier than LHR, as there are less marginal seats, and less people full stop.

I question how much of the appeal of LHR is due to all the majors being there, and hence other airlines wanting me-too, and how much is because of proximity to London.

I just don't see any UK govt present or future backing LHR R3, and as for a fourth, I'd sooner see a huge invasion of Danish bacon winging its way across from the farms of Jutland.

So, the question is - can expansion at LGW be done in a way as to mitigate these two disadvantages?

1) Offer swanky new terminals at LGW for Star (no more feeder to LHR after bmi sale) and Skyteam. The likes of Flybe can provide some domestic feeders, dare I see that as Easy moves more and more towards being a 'proper' airline, they may be a possibility of deals there too for s/h connects?

2) Assuming that most LHR connects are indeed within same airline or alliance as I suspect (if you have figs to contrary, please provide), LGW could then be established as viable connection hub in its own right too (way beyond its limited facilities at present).

3) Save the £5bn earmarked for pointless Heathwick line, and upgrade rail links from LGW to London. Billions on Crossrail will improve E-W travel across London, but this is still just a regional link, doesn't even serve LHR5, or the long distance station complex either side of the British Library. At the very least, implement something along the lines of Crossrail3, enabling through service between Brighton, Gatwick, Central London (xrail tfer at TC Road), Watford, Milton Keynes and points north. Probably the most expensive tunnel in history by cost per mile, but it is only c. 3 miles between Euston and Victoria.

Daft? Unworkable? Look at New York - JFK handles c. 46m pax pa with terminals for each player, whereas EWR is the 'hub', with c 33m pax pa, dominated by United / Continental. Which is 'the' New York Airport? Personally, I prefer EWR as it is a neater design, and better connected by rail throughout NE corridor. Ditto for LGW's potential - but restore the xcountry link through Reading as an easier, non sexy win too!

Also, nothing is more silly than the current arrangement with same airline (BA-BA) connections having to sometimes go between LHR & LGW.

[Prophead]

Jabird:
BAA was one of the worst deals in history, and Ferrovial nearly went under because of it. I could sell you my house for £2 million, but that does not mean it is worth anything like this. One thing they missed, was the poor state of the infrastructure and the £mmmm that it would cost to put things right.'


I think you need to look deeper into it and see exactly why Ferrovial bought BAA. Who do you think is doing these improvements? Who is building a large chunk of Crossrail?

[jabird]

Prophead,

LHR has always been an entangled mess, but on the plus side, T5 was brand new, and that in itself was a £4bn investment.

I think you need to look deeper into it and see exactly why Ferrovial bought BAA. Who do you think is doing these improvements? Who is building a large chunk of Crossrail?

From what I see, there are numerous different contracts for different sections of tunnel, then again for the stations and surface work. Ferrovial are just one of many players here, all the big construction firms seem to be represented, not sure I see a connection between that and LHR.

If FV are willing to sell LHR at a 'reasonable' price - as they will then get major part of construction contract or ownership in the new Thames Airport, then that would be a major step forward. However, for the time being, that is purely hypothetical. I still repeat - even using back of envelope stuff, what is the business case? How many passengers pa would be needed at a PSC of £x, spending an additional £y in terminal and other spin-offs to make it work? Even with BAA/FV on board / out the way, Island Airport is further from the centre of London than Heathrow, meaning LGW becomes potentially just as attractive, and it can easily undercut on PSCs. Sure, attach Thames Island to Crossrail, but that stops virtually everywhere en route, ok, add a link straight into St Pancras, but is there the platform space. Now as said before, these problems are not insurmountable, but they could push the costs up still further. The Foster rail link around the edge of London would also add a few billion, and create a number of additional technical challenges.

[silverstrata]

JBT.

Taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture, surly it would be more sensible to look further afield across the country instead of just focusing on London's airports?


We have been through all this before. Please read the thread. A new Thames airport is all about international interlining routes, and nothing to do with regional airports (apart from regional airports then being able to interline international passengers through London rather than AMS).




Bagso.

BUT surely you still have to close down all the other airports in the South East to free up the airspace ? Are there not too many conflicts for arr and dep traffic from the other airports in the South East ?


Certainly it is crowded there, but then it already is. Departing eastwards from LGW you are already held down at 6000ft for ages, to miss LHR inbounds.

AMS and BRU are too far away to be effected. LGW is more of a problem, but if you have a SW facing Silver-Foster airport (the closest to LGW), the westbounds can be funnelled through the present N Downs gap (between present LHR and LGW) due westwards.

Southbounds are far enough from LGW to run through their inbounds, although there will have to be set airway airspace and altitude/ flight level restrictions on passing the LGW centerline.



Jabird.

at what rate would you set the PSC in order to have a profitable operation and get a return on capital?


Should every UK project give a direct monetry return? Is there a direct monetry ruturn to building the M25, and its subsequent widening? No.

The benefit is that business works better, and the nation prospers. The same will be true for a Silver Airport - the basic infrastructure can be government owned, and leased out to various private operators for a nominal ( or usual ) rent. The benefit to the UK will be felt and 'repaid' at the national level.


.

[jabird]

Silver,

Should every UK project give a direct monetry return? Is there a direct monetry ruturn to building the M25, and its subsequent widening? No.

And again, we have been through this before, but for people picking up the thread for the first time, I will repeat, you can't compare a new airport with a road, especially as govt takes in revenue through fuel duty, which airlines don't (and won't) pay, road tax etc, and the last time we did build a new motorway, it was done as a toll road.

Yes, airports enable business links and bring tourists in, but they also export K citizens elsewhere to spend their money. You have to look at the political clamour to impose ever higher rates of APD, not just because of the green lobby, but because it is a nice little earner for HMR&C.

In most cases, UK airports have been able to fund expansion privately, although BHX has had a few quid from regional quangos for its runway extension. Now a lot of use here question how that will get a return, but we're talking £130m v £20-30-40-50+ BILLION for your Silver Island!

Sorry, but I just don't see that happening - I can marvel at the design drawings, but funding has got to come from private sources. Maybe, just maybe, the govt could act as guarantor, but I think the reality is that treasury would say it has to sort itself out, if the island sinks, then developers might come cap in hand for a bailout, and then who knows.

If you will excuse the pun, we really are in uncharted waters, hence I repeat my request - come up with some figures, knock them around a bit and let the PPRUNe Dragons decide whether or not you stay in the Den.

I'll start you off with an average PSC of £50, 100m pax pa gives you £5bn revenue. Any ideas on margins for fuel sales? %age of pax who pick up a hire car and what the airport takes? I know average shopping spend in LGW is just £5.

I'd like to suggest adding in airport hotels, offices etc, something Foster seems to have omitted. On your island, these would need deeper foundations, but if we just stick to a single terminal complex with 2 runways either side, what are the height limits? One giant rectangular based pyramid with an observation deck on level 49 and control tower on 50? How would you evacuate in the event of a refueling fire? Once you go outside this terminal area, reclaiming more land for offices is going to get very expensive.

[silverstrata]

Jabird

Sorry, but I just don't see that happening - I can marvel at the design drawings, but funding has got to come from private sources.


And I just don't see that happening. The basic infrastructure, like the island and rail/motorway network has to come from public funds, just like the proposed high speed rail to BHX and MAN is to be government funded. Some things are beyond private investment, which tends to look even shorter term than governments.

Beyond that, new hotels and even terminals may well be private enterprises. And I see no problem with that, just like the government provides motorways upon which private companies place (awful) service stations. (I hope new terminals will be better than Watford Gap.)


Beyond this parochial discussion, there is the problem ofnthe national debt, which has to be addressed at some point.

One way out of this dire situation, is to simply print loadsa-money and stoke inflation in order to cancel out all our debt. This will stoke inflation, but that is the whole point - ten years at 15% inflation will cancel out the government's debt and we can start again. In which case, creating money for vast projects like this can be beneficial.

But, but, but, I hear you say - borrowing money got us into this mess in the first palace. True, but if you spend the money on infrastructure, it will pay for itself. The trouble with New Labour is that they spent the money on social engineering and any non-productive project possible - all hail to the 'disadvantaged gravy train', while the productive elements in our society can either be taxed or go to hell. China, on the other hand, spent money on a massive re-engineering of the nation, and is powering ahead.

So a massive splurge of investment would effectively 'bankrupt the nation', to a point where you reset the economic system, stop printing money, and start again (the Deutsche Mark Point) - but start again with some massive infrastructure projects already completed and on-line. Sure, your private savings might be devastated, but if you still think that that £10,000 nest egg is really worth £10,000 then think again. If you are that gullible, I would strongly suggest that you spend the money now and enjoy it. Investing it is probematic in the extreme - houses are overpriced, shares are overpriced, the pound is overpriced, and so any investment is going to loose you money anyway.

Best face facts, that your £10,000 is only worth £2,000 and live with it. But lets have a 21st century aviation hub as a bonus.



.

[Skipness One Echo]

One way out of this dire situation, is to simply print loadsa-money and stoke inflation in order to cancel out all our debt. This will stoke inflation, but that is the whole point - ten years at 15% inflation will cancel out the government's debt and we can start again. In which case, creating money for vast projects like this can be beneficial.
And wipe out everyone's savings? You're a complete genius! Are you in fact Gordon Brown?

[silverstrata]

Skippy

And wipe out everyone's savings? You're a complete genius! Are you in fact Gordon Brown?


You misunderstand the role and function of money. Money has no intrinsic value. I could come to power and in a fit of generosity give every adult in the country £10 million. But would this make you rich? No, of course not, it would just stoke inflation, and make a loaf of bread cost £2,000.

But this is what Blair and Brown have already done, over the last 10 years. So you think you have (say) a £10,000 nest egg - but you don't really. Like the gift of £10 million, your nest egg is a meaningless figure based upon zero industrial production, so those squirrelled savings of yours probably have little or no real value.

Check out the business section of the Sunday Times, and see how many sucessful businesses are reporting profits or new products (or reporting anything at all). None. And money based upon no real production is no better than Monopoly money.

This is another reason for the Thames Airport, and other associated infrastructure projects.

We do not need to stimulate general spending, as the government keep saying, because this will go on consumer imports (because we do not make anything) and thus enrich China, not the UK. instead we need to stimulate infrastructure projects and demand that as far as possible the materiel is derived from UK businesses.

Such a stimulus, based upon printed money, would reduce government debt through inflation, and divert money from our present unproductive investments (houses, schools, and yes, even hospitals) and place it into projects that will spur the nation on.

And I have to mention again, that if we divert the £12 billion annual overseas aid budget into infrastructure, we could pay for all of the Thames airport and associates infrastructure in less than five years. Why should we give money to India, who has a space program, when we cannot aford a space program ourselves, in addition to not having a world-class airport near our capital city.

.

[Prophead]

'From what I see, there are numerous different contracts for different sections of tunnel, then again for the stations and surface work. Ferrovial are just one of many players here, all the big construction firms seem to be represented, not sure I see a connection between that and LHR.'

I was talking about the improvements to Heathrow. Ferrovial do not own all of BAA. They are however carrying out a lot of the upgrade works at the airport and would certainly be involved in further work to create a third runway and associated tunnels & terminals. This has also allowed them to become a known construction company in the UK.

To say that they would regret buying a large chunk of BAA is incorrect.

They were also a large investor in the crossrail project.

[Fairdealfrank]

The last few posts have been excellent, covering topics as diverse as: printing money, inflation, the value of savings, Blair's social engineering, gravy trains (EU?), Deutsche Mark point, and India's space programme!

Fantastic, and to think that I was worried about going off topic by mentioning doubts about whether HS2 will or should be built........

[PAXboy]

Fairdealfrank :ok:

This is a paper airport, proposed so as to make it look as if Johnson is doing something and to promote his desire to PM. But no one is doing anything.

The simplest two points are:


There is no money.
The HS2 is designed to help quite a lot of people through an (eventually) long route. BUT that is being held back by a few MPs trying to save their seats as their voters don't want it.

How many voters/MPs are going to protest at:


such a major amount of rail + road + airport building across multiple areas
disruption in local areas during building
many properties (domestic and commercial) dropping rapidly in value when the move is made
the 'M4' corridor is what it is BECAUSE it has London and LHR on it. If LHR goes - then the 50 years of investment in the corridor loses value
BUT if LHR does not close - then how can you support two major airports, supposedly doing the same thing.

Never going to happen - even after Boris is PM sometime after 2020.

[silverstrata]

Paxboy:

This is a paper airport, proposed so as to make it look as if Johnson is doing something and to promote his desire to PM. But no one is doing anything.

There is no money.



Actually, counter-intuitively, it may be the 'lack of money' that ensures the airport is built.

CaMoron and his side-kick Cleggers will find themselves in an even greater recession in 2012 - one that will really bite and place another million on the jobless queue. Hint - take a look at the business pages, and try to spot any decent production company reporting profits; and I don't mean 'parasitic' elements like shops and local services.

What to do?

Well, one way out would be a national infrastructure programme, which is why just such a proposal was discussed recently.
George Osborne's £5bn gamble to stave off recession | UK news | The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/nov/27/george-osborne-gamble-autumn-statement)

Now Osborne is whistling into the wind if he thinks £5bn will turn the country around, it will take a minimum of £250 billion, carefully applied and not wasted as before. But where to get this money from, when times are tight?

Firstly he could claw back £10 billion a year from overseas aid.
Secondly the airport project comes with a promise of a payback on the sale of LHR.
Thirdly he is going to have to bite the bullet and go for more 'quantitive easing'.

They have already 'printed' £200 bn since 2008, but this did absolutely nothing, as it went straight to the banks and government simply to cover their bad loans. This has to be another £250 bn that is specifically earmarked for infrastructure projects, manufacturing investment, and high quality R&D - with not a Merchant Banker** in sight. (And then add to this the £130 bn saved from overseas aid and LHR)

And what infrastructure projects are most badly needed? Quite obviously, UK aviation is in need of a huge overhaul, to bring it into the 21st century - but what about that running sore known as Heathrow? ...... Hmmmm.



** Cockney rhyming slang.


.

[jabird]

Silver,

Without getting into a massive economic debate, the treasury is always pushed from every department to give it more money. There is a long held view in the development arena that the wealthy countries should give 1% of their GDP to developing nations. India may have a space programme, but it also has extensive poverty. I really don't want to drag on with this point, but it needs to be made clear to you as you keep repeating it, and there is no way it can be just cut to pay for this airport. And even if it was, judging by the kind of comments I get when I enter conversations with other people, the NHS would get it long before infrastructure.

Now if you think infrastructure is the way out of a debt crisis, go and look at the top 3 most indebted nations per capita (Japan, St Kitts Nevis, Greece), and I will happily debate the grossly induldgent infrastructure projects each has embarked upon, starting if you like with airports.

So I bring you back to the business case. Paxboy, I saw this as a complete fantasy in the govt 2003 White Paper, although this was by no means the first time a Thames Airport had been proposed. I never took much notice of Boris proposing it, but when Foster came out with his version, it gained a LOT more gravitas.

Foster says he has 'stakeholders' who are interested. Nothing to suggest he has actually got out and talked to airlines, but let's suppose that investors are interested.

Silver, let's go as far as saying that govt will back the road and rail infra (although I find this unlikely) - you like to knock all these other business types (we're actually quite good at retail, we export a huge amount of services, and the City, for all its faults, is still a big earner) - so let's see your business acumen.

Stop trying to put the world to rights, or trying to change foreign policy of a country you don't even live in. Airports might provide transportation, which in turn provides economic benefits, but they must stand or fall on their own merits.

So I ask again, and will keep asking, as you are the one who proposed the airport. This is Kent, not Kobe. How much would you set the PSC at, and how else would you earn revenue?

PS - Paxboy, I'd gladly debate the pros and cons of hs2, see the thread marked 'Eurostar' which went into this terrain, Jetblast might have something too.

[jabird]

Silver,

You have gone very quiet of late, I was giving you an invitation to make a business plan, I didn't think I'd shut you up :O

Maybe we can carry on after the festive period, Merry Christmas everyone :)