The position of the new runway is already in the public domain. The communities 1.1nm to the north of the existing centrline will be directly overflown. Arrivals will all be positioned from the north side from a circuit "inside" and below that for the current arrival stream. Some crossing through the Heathrow overhead from the south will occur.
There is no room for new Holds for the new runway and the experience at Stansted/Luton has taught us that you cannot service 2 runways with different flow rates from the same stack. This means that R3 traffic must be flowed and metred en-route so that bunching is eliminated. The fall back is that if bunching occurs, traffic for R3 will be packed to remove the surge. Normally it will operate mixed-mode.
Unless the regulator changes its position on new ATC separations standards it is difficult to see how alternation on the existing main runways can be maintained due to ICAO requirements for missed approach off the Centre runway.
Traffic will be vertically separated until established on final using ICAO SOIR standards (SOIR = ICAO Doc 9643). The plan is to join long so that CDA can still be achieved meaning that the base legs will be out at about 25 nm for the main runway and about 22nm for the new runway.
Terminal 6 will be just west of the village of Sipson and be only slightly smaller than T5.
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Last edited by 120.4; 22nd Nov 2007 at 18:35.