New Thames Airport for London
Yes, it's strange nobody else has come up with that idea.
north south heathrow runway - e-petitions
Two people thought it was a good idea, so make that three now.
Paxing All Over The World
Not to worry DaveReidUK, the plan says that the new N/S runways will be in tunnels under the existing E/W. Just a gentle ramp at each end for entry and departure.
Scientists predict that the ramp will give a huge boost, as in the aircraft carrier ski-jump. Not to mention that, as the a/c starts it's t/o roll, it will be rolling down hill to gather speed and offset the up hill. I already took out world wide patents. (Although I'm now in discussion with the estate of Gerry Anderson about certain aspects of the launch ...)
Scientists predict that the ramp will give a huge boost, as in the aircraft carrier ski-jump. Not to mention that, as the a/c starts it's t/o roll, it will be rolling down hill to gather speed and offset the up hill. I already took out world wide patents. (Although I'm now in discussion with the estate of Gerry Anderson about certain aspects of the launch ...)
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To fly, or to Stay Warm
I'm not sure whether anybody else has picked this up, but another slight issue is the liquified natural gas terminal and 1200MW power station at Grain, which would have to be moved to allow the favoured Boris' favoured proposal.
Analysis - Gas, power hub to trump London's top airport project | Reuters
Of course this issue (like all the other issues) can be made to go away with the application of infinite amounts of money, but the lack of any comment from Boris on where the LNG terminal would move to doesn't help really anybody still clinging to the idea that Boris Island is a brilliant plan.
Analysis - Gas, power hub to trump London's top airport project | Reuters
Of course this issue (like all the other issues) can be made to go away with the application of infinite amounts of money, but the lack of any comment from Boris on where the LNG terminal would move to doesn't help really anybody still clinging to the idea that Boris Island is a brilliant plan.
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The LNG plant is hardly used these days - and it can be replaced with Fraccing!!!
The 3 gas turbine units at Grain are amongst the newest in the UK.
The old oil-fired power station (with the mentioned 244 m chimney) has closed so maybe that isn't the barrier that the article makes out.
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Qatar's LNG is being imported through the South Hook LNG terminal at Milford Haven which is the largest in Europe. So, that's one obstacle removed to a 21st. Century airport in the East End!
Now let's get on and build it before the badgers move in, or some idiot comes up with another fracking stupid objection.
Now let's get on and build it before the badgers move in, or some idiot comes up with another fracking stupid objection.
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Qatar
Why not sell the south east to Qatar, then they can build the new airport next to their LNG distribution centre, close to their deep water ports, (currently owned by Dubai World.).
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Why has no-one considered re-designing Heathrow into a North-South layout?
Why has no-one considered re-designing Heathrow into a North-South layout?
Umm, because the wind distribution in the UK is southwesterly. Look at the wind-distribution graph on this page. A full 45% of LHRs winds are southwesterly, and conveniently the other major wind direction is the northeasterly reciprocal.
Wind & weather statistics London-Heathrow - Windfinder
Now you can have stupid airports like Birmingham and Leeds that are not orientated into wind, and yes I have not had to divert too often from these ill-considered airports due winds, but some of the approaches have been - well, how shall we put it - 'sporting'. Now while this might be sort of alright for the local lads who have grown up with these stupid airports, the prospect of 'pilots from balmier climes' charging into a permanently cross-wind LHR with 747s and A340s fills me with horrors.
Perhaps these images will dissuade you from your folly. This is a Ryan pilot at Leeds, and even he-she-it could not kick off the drift properly. See those tyres bend and flex. Your next flight, could be on those same tyres - which fail just before V1 and take you off the side of the runway. Still happy with your next flight?
If you are suggesting we should have these sort of antics at LHR on a weekly basis, you need a brain-change.
Silver
P.S. Here is Jet2 showing Ryan how it should be done (based in Leeds, of course).
Last edited by silverstrata; 20th Sep 2013 at 19:48.
Ah, but don't forget that the OP's plan was to keep the two E-W runways as well as building two N-S ones.
Or even better, we could have three pairs of runways, oriented at 60° to each other ...
Or even better, we could have three pairs of runways, oriented at 60° to each other ...
As for the implied ATC complications of a N-S expansion (DRUK - 27th Aug), I don't agree with you. Simply depart traffic northerly or easterly to allow approaches and misses to go behind departures.
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LHR North-South layout
Quote: "Why has no-one considered re-designing Heathrow into a North-South layout?
[I]There is plenty of space to the West of the existing plot, even, at a squeeze, overthe existing plot.
Admittedly it would be hugely expensive and disruptive. So are all of the other options. This has the advantage of still being Heathrow but with SIDs and STARs over open ground at the M25 corridor. By the time it's built we'll all be able to fly curved (and steep) PRNAV GPSS approaches anyway.
[I]The x-wind issue is not an issue at all: very rarely does the wind get above 25kts from the west (most a/c and pilots can handle more than that anyway(yes, I do fly heavy jets)) and the existing runways could perhaps be kept operational for the 4 days of the year it's too windy."
Apart from practical and technical considerations, and the long time line, it's clearly not a good business case. The government can't be expected to pay, so it would fall to Heathrow Ltd.. Their money is obviously best spent on 2 more east-west rwys rather than 4 north-south rwys.
Common sense really, surely it doesn't really need spelling out.
Quote: "Why has no-one considered re-designing Heathrow into a North-South layout?
[I]There is plenty of space to the West of the existing plot, even, at a squeeze, overthe existing plot.
Admittedly it would be hugely expensive and disruptive. So are all of the other options. This has the advantage of still being Heathrow but with SIDs and STARs over open ground at the M25 corridor. By the time it's built we'll all be able to fly curved (and steep) PRNAV GPSS approaches anyway.
[I]The x-wind issue is not an issue at all: very rarely does the wind get above 25kts from the west (most a/c and pilots can handle more than that anyway(yes, I do fly heavy jets)) and the existing runways could perhaps be kept operational for the 4 days of the year it's too windy."
Apart from practical and technical considerations, and the long time line, it's clearly not a good business case. The government can't be expected to pay, so it would fall to Heathrow Ltd.. Their money is obviously best spent on 2 more east-west rwys rather than 4 north-south rwys.
Common sense really, surely it doesn't really need spelling out.
Last edited by Fairdealfrank; 2nd Oct 2013 at 20:19.
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"b. The car will get you there, but the parking will be more than the ticket price. Plus not everyone wants to dice with death or risk being late, because of the diabolical M4 (or M1 or M6 or whatever).
c. The train will get you there, but an hour after the flight departs (no overnight rail services on the UK's decrepit railways.) That means an overnight in a hotel, and more expense.
The net result, is it is cheaper and easier to fly KLM to AMS (4 flights a day) and use that as a hub. And at £140 return, it is much cheaper and easier to go to AMS than take the train or car to LHR.
This is the problem with the present London hub. If you make things so difficult and so expensive, people will go elsewhere. And so London loses out, and so does BA lose out. RIP London as a business center. RIP London...."
*giggle*
c. The train will get you there, but an hour after the flight departs (no overnight rail services on the UK's decrepit railways.) That means an overnight in a hotel, and more expense.
The net result, is it is cheaper and easier to fly KLM to AMS (4 flights a day) and use that as a hub. And at £140 return, it is much cheaper and easier to go to AMS than take the train or car to LHR.
This is the problem with the present London hub. If you make things so difficult and so expensive, people will go elsewhere. And so London loses out, and so does BA lose out. RIP London as a business center. RIP London...."
*giggle*
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Boris Johnson was out in Hong Kong today, looking at how to build an airport in the sea and transfer that experience back to London.
BBC News - Boris Johnson: PM and Osborne 'kidding themselves' over airport
This proposal is far from dead, and will form one of the major discussions and arguments come the next parliamentary elections.
BBC News - Boris Johnson: PM and Osborne 'kidding themselves' over airport
This proposal is far from dead, and will form one of the major discussions and arguments come the next parliamentary elections.
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Boris Johnson was out in Hong Kong today, looking at how to build an airport in the sea and transfer that experience back to London.
BBC News - Boris Johnson: PM and Osborne 'kidding themselves' over airport
This proposal is far from dead, and will form one of the major discussions and arguments come the next parliamentary elections.
Silver
BBC News - Boris Johnson: PM and Osborne 'kidding themselves' over airport
This proposal is far from dead, and will form one of the major discussions and arguments come the next parliamentary elections.
Silver
HKG is indeed an excellent airport, but much closer to Hong Kong and better connected to it (a 25 minute train journey with 5 trains/hour) than an estuary airport would ever be to London.
Hong Kong never had an equivelant of LHR. All it had before Chek Lap Kok was Kai Tak, a slightly larger (and more hazardous) version of LCY.
So they had to build a new airport on a "greenfield" site, and as most of Hong Kong is mostly hilly, and the flat bits are already urbanised, the airport had to be built on reclaimed land.
The London case is quite different, there is no need to build a new airport. This is the crucial difference, you are not comparing like with like.
Whether the estuary proposal is "far from dead" is an open question, some seem to think that it is, and even Boris is now banging on about 4 rwys at STN. We should know by the end of the year.
As for "major discussions and arguments come the next parliamentary elections", this issue may be overtaken by the HS2 and fracking.
Last edited by Fairdealfrank; 19th Oct 2013 at 12:07.
We should know by the end of the year.
All that we're promised in the next few months is a "short-list" from the Davies Commission.
The indications are that this will include pretty well all the serious options that are on the table, leaving aside the clearly loony ones (Walland Marsh, Croughton, Goodwin Sands, etc, etc)
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Always makes me smile that the report was called a Review of "UK" Capacity.
At least Heathrow is no worse a situation than we have now, but building an airport to the East of London is not thoroughly thought through unless of course it's JUST an airport for Londoners ?
What about the rest of us mere mortals who live across other parts of the UK ?
Not one airline will move unless forced to ....if they are, who will pay for the cost ?
And "without" suitable transport links how do the rest of us get there ?
What I do not understand is why the media never challenge some of these proposals.
It's typical that of Government thinking that by way of example we have the HS link BUT this will operate West NOT East....
Transport policy is as shambolic as ever !
At least Heathrow is no worse a situation than we have now, but building an airport to the East of London is not thoroughly thought through unless of course it's JUST an airport for Londoners ?
What about the rest of us mere mortals who live across other parts of the UK ?
Not one airline will move unless forced to ....if they are, who will pay for the cost ?
And "without" suitable transport links how do the rest of us get there ?
What I do not understand is why the media never challenge some of these proposals.
It's typical that of Government thinking that by way of example we have the HS link BUT this will operate West NOT East....
Transport policy is as shambolic as ever !
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Yes, provided you're not talking about this year. 
All that we're promised in the next few months is a "short-list" from the Davies Commission.
The indications are that this will include pretty well all the serious options that are on the table, leaving aside the clearly loony ones (Walland Marsh, Croughton, Goodwin Sands, etc, etc)
All that we're promised in the next few months is a "short-list" from the Davies Commission.
The indications are that this will include pretty well all the serious options that are on the table, leaving aside the clearly loony ones (Walland Marsh, Croughton, Goodwin Sands, etc, etc)
Could well be wrong of course, logic and common sense has been absent from this debate for the longest time: note the failure to expand Heathrow in the 1970s when it was needed.
Always makes me smile that the report was called a Review of "UK" Capacity.
At least Heathrow is no worse a situation than we have now, but building an airport to the East of London is not thoroughly thought through unless of course it's JUST an airport for Londoners ?
What about the rest of us mere mortals who live across other parts of the UK ?
What about the rest of us mere mortals who live across other parts of the UK ?
Not one airline will move unless forced to ....if they are, who will pay for the cost ?
If Heathrow still closes despite the court action, there would be one hell of a lot of compensation to be paid out, and not just to Heathrow Ltd. the carriers and the owners of Southend and Manston, who would also have to close.
Many rich influential mega-companies are based in the Thames Valley because of the location of Heathrow, and they would also want a piece of the action, so would probably not hesitate to take legal action as well.
And "without" suitable transport links how do the rest of us get there ?
This is already done in much of the country because of the lack of domestic connections to/from Heathrow.
With Heathrow closed, those of us in the Thames valley would be stuffed. Down to Southampton perhaps, or will Northolt be available for the hop over to Schiphol?
What I do not understand is why the media never challenge some of these proposals.
It's typical that of Government thinking that by way of example we have the HS link BUT this will operate West NOT East....
Don't want thread drift, so best to say no more about HS2 at this stage, except that if it is ever built, it is not going to the estuary.
Last edited by Fairdealfrank; 19th Oct 2013 at 12:40.