Apologies for the slight thread creep but having landed at LGW today, just as the next batch of c**p fell out of the sky, I started wondering why so many UK airports have an (in)conveniently placed hangar or office building just upwind of the threshold of the most-used runway.
27L @ LHR has BA & BMi buildings, 24 @ MAN has the CAA tower (a real peril in a strong NW blow), 26L @ LGW the BA base etc. etc.
These edifices seem almost to be designed to create the worst sort of turbulence at low level; I think they shed enormous vortices at regular intervals. No effort seems to have been made to 'feather' the edges of the buildings or aerodynamically tailor them to produce less of a wake. There also seem to be large unused (or used for carparks) areas around the runways which could have been developed, but no, they build as close as they can get to the numbers. I notice that around Europe the areas around the ends of the runways are left pretty clear.
Am I being paranoid?