A380 appears to cause interference on Loc/GS signal

[JammedStab]

Just something I found to be interesting.

According to a briefing note I saw from a NATS LHR forum. Antenna modifications at LHR were made to improve resilience.

Maybe the bigger they are on approach, the more interference caused. Anybody noticed a problem at other airports?

[Gonzo]

Well known issue....the Localiser Sensitive and Critical Areas for the A380 are usually significantly larger than those for other aircraft.

For example, for non-A380s, the LSA at Heathrow was 137m from the runway centreline, for A380s it varied from 150-192m.

Fitting our new 32 element localiser antennas has reduced that back down to 137m, and has enabled us to develop a 'Medium' LSA for 757s and smaller that is only 82m from the centreline.

[Metro man]

A340-600 causes localiser interference as, being so long it first swings across the opposite side of the runway before taking an exit thereby obscuring the signal. I've ended up with the autopilot doing S turns on the ILS on a couple of occasions when landing behind one.