Lambourne serves as the hold for traffic coming in to Heathrow from the East for all runways (both 27s and 09s). I understand that everything’s a compromise, but I’d have thought that (given the restrictions we’re all familiar with around Dubai), a single hold over Sharjah could serve traffic from all directions when either 12 or 30 were in use.
If it was a right hand pattern inbound 120 based on the Sharjah VOR, it wouldn’t overfly any palaces, (and if it did, make it a left hand pattern; the only real problem with that would be the even bigger disruption to departing traffic).
Sharjah is 10NM North East of Dubai. I’d have thought that would be sufficient room for a holding pattern that kept holding traffic North of Dubai. I understand that the pattern’s buffer areas would extend over and some miles South of Dubai, (which would go close to infringing on the palaces), but would that be an insurmountable problem with a 7000’ min holding level? The holding pattern buffer area might infringe the palace zone, but the holding aircraft should remain well clear – I’d guess a mile of so to the North of Dubai, even in a Rate 1 turn at 13,000’ (but perhaps not if there was a really strong North Easterly wind blowing).
I’d have thought that if 12 was the active, traffic would be instructed to exit the hold on a heading of around 320 to put them onto a comfortable base, and if 30 was in use, on a heading of 120. Thus, the same hold could be used for both runways employing a minimum distance to touchdown of around 20 NM (a quite comfortable distance for a low drag descent from 7000’).
I accept that the ideal would be two holds, one to the North West and one to the South East, but I discounted this because of the proximity of Tehran airspace and thought that the compromise Sharjah hold idea would involve minimum amendments to the current airspace setup we ‘enjoy’ already.
It wouldn’t involve rocket science to come up with alternative, wider tracking northerly turning SIDs that were to be used only if there was traffic occupying the Sharjah hold. At any other times, (90% of any given day), we could stick with the current SIDs.