Any really busy airport requires more than one runway.

When it gets really, really busy (like LHR is) it needs more than one runway that can be used for landing at the same time, i.e. 'independent simultaneous instrument approaches'. To meet the requirements for 'independent simultaneous instrument approaches' the runways have to be far enough apart. At LHR the runways are not far enough apart (there is no airport in Britain that has runways far enough apart). When a third runway is built, the 'outside' two runways will be far enough apart.

(LHR is running at about 98% capacity. At busy periods the spacing between landing aeroplanes is about 2 miles. In 'low visibility' conditions the minimum spacing safety requirement for most aeroplanes is about 4 miles, so when it becomes foggy about 48% of capacity is lost, hence all the delays and cancellations every time the fog rolls in there.)

Three runways are useful as two can be used for departures and one for arrivals at 'departure peaks' and two can be used for arrivals and one for departures at 'arrival peaks'. This ensures more efficient and therefore safer operations (although safety at LHR, together with probably most British airports, is very good anyway) AND it helps to reduce concentrations of noise by reducing the concentration of traffic on departure and arrival paths during those peaks.

Despite everything that any 'green' or pseudo-'green' politician might sprout, that extra runway at LHR is a requirement if there is not another British 'hub' instantly available. Failure to get on with that runway fast will have the hubs at Amsterdam, Paris, Frankfurt, Madrid (all of which have more than two runways and sufficiently separated for 'independent simultaneous instrument approaches'), Doha and Dubai (and probably several more too) rubbing their hands with glee at the stupidity of British politicians.

It is far too late to be thinking of a 'new airport'. It will take too long to be ready to use (just look at how long the 'efficient' Germans have been with getting Berlin Brandenburg ready!!!!).

It is the wrong side of that 'traffic jam' called London to be a properly 'British' airport. It is a 'London regional'.

Other than for an hour or so in the early morning and an hour in the late evening, Heathrow doesn't have "departure peaks" and "arrival peaks", in fact it doesn't really have peaks and troughs at all (hence the 98% utilisation).

The Airport Commission's two shortlisted proposals for Heathrow both involve balanced arrival and departure capacity, achieved by operating one of the three runways in mixed mode for the majority of the day.

Triossie,

I'm intrigued when you say that LHR's runways are too close to support independent parallel approaches.

Where do you get that from?

From here, perhaps? http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/589/ICF_ru...rt_16Feb09.pdf

"approaches on the two runways during periods when TEAM is applied interact with each other and are dependent whereas full mixed mode would use support systems and associated procedures and practices required to enable independent parallel approach operations."

Is that quote incorrect?

No, that précis is correct.

It doesn't mention anything about distance, which was my point.

Gonzo

Agreed, if the likes of SYD can (and do) operate individual parallel approaches (they go on about it on the ATIS, just like LHR's permanent "wingtip clearance.....") to 34L/R with I'm pretty sure closer spacing than LHR's 27 L/R I struggle to see why LHR cannot do the same - unless it's a subtle Oz vs. UK vs. ICAO rules thing......:sad:

All three of them!

OK, insert the word "unrestricted" (and at any busy airport you would want as few restrictions as possible):

"6.7.3.3 SUSPENSION OF INDEPENDENT PARALLEL APPROACHES TO CLOSELY-SPACED PARALLEL RUNWAYS
Independent parallel approaches to parallel runways spaced by less than 1 525 m between their centre lines shall be suspended under certain meteorological conditions... "

Now being at LHR/EGLL, you could provide us with the exact distance between the runways there?

Hence the need, whether you like or loath the place, for that extra runway, fast!! If the existing UK 'hub' is already that close to full, then there is simply no time to think of an entirely new airport (and I refer again to the 'efficient' Germans and Berlin Brandenburg). LHR doesn't have the capacity at the moment to provide a reliable feeder service to/from the rest of the UK (the moment there is anything like fog, etc., at LHR then the airline that provides most of those feeders cancels them) so it is questionable if it can be truly called a 'UK hub' or just a 'hub in the UK'.

Back to the name of the thread: no, a new airport is not feasible unless you are planning decades ahead (and then it should not be on the French side of that London traffic jam if it wants to be considered to be a 'UK hub'). In the mean time, UK plc's airline industry needs to stay in business and from the 'hub' aspect of it, LHR needs improved runway capacity, FAST.

The centrelines are 1420m apart.

ICAO rules (see Doc 9643 - Manual on Simultaneous Operations on Parallel or Near-Parallel Instrument Runways) specify different minimum runway separations that will permit independent parallel approaches, determined by the precision of available surveillance radar coverage.

I don't know whether the UK and/or Australia has filed any differences from the ICAO rules, but I suspect not.

9643 is 'only' an ICAO manual, so it's not a case of filing a difference. Any airport can operate in a way that is not contained within 9643 provided that the method of operations satisfies the state's NRA.

They are 1415m apart.

Close enough for government work ...

Though the OP did specify "exact distance", so perhaps we should point out that they are a millimeter or so farther apart at the midpoints than at the ends, due to the curvature of the earth. :O

Under the present LHR rwy arrangements, simultaneous landings do take place in the early morning 0445-0600. Granted it is not busy then.


Good point!


Indeed, even if we are thinking about a new airport, LHR expansion would still be needed because it is 50 years overdue, and the new airport would take another 50.

As this is the case let’s just do the former, and do it now.




It could be said that LHR has one departure peak and one arrival peak, both operating from 0600 to 2200.


Exactly, and well summarised!

Not quite.

Overnight, until 0600, LHR operates a night alternation schedule which involves use of one runway only.

It's from 0600 to 0700 that both runways are typically used for landings (known as "TEAM" - Tactically Enhanced Arrival Measures).

Trossie,

Apologies for the mis-spelled name, my iPad autocorrects it to Troissie for some reason.

Your quote is incomplete. If I remember correctly, and this is off the top of my head, 4444 6.7.3.3 then goes on to say that independent ops should be suspended when weather such as windshear or thunderstorm activity are being experienced, but that the types of weather should be as agreed with the national authority.

Such weather conditions would cause any single landing runway operation to increase spacing from the bare radar minimum of 2.5nm, so to portray this as a negative when such weather conditions occur rarely, perhaps 1-2% of the time, is slightly spurious.

DR and Fairdeal, the period between 0600 and 0700 we do land on both, usually alternately for most of that period, but on dependent approaches, i.e. 6nm spacing to each runway staggered by 3nm, so again it is technically incorrect to term the operation as simultaneous.

We're in danger of arguing about definitions here, which is always dangerous.

ICAO certainly use "simultaneous" to describe both independent and dependent parallel approaches.

If you have, say, an aircraft at one mile for one runway, and one at 4 miles on the other runway, then clearly they are both on approach at the same time i.e. simultaneously, albeit staggered.

NATS may have a different definition of the term, of course.

OK Fair enough, I'll be the "daft laddie" and ask the question that no one else will.


Why the hell does it need the government and various other politicians sticking their noses into this?


All the airports that are under consideration for expansion are privately owned. Therefore if Airport "X" wishes to expand and add another runway to its property portfolio, it should be up to Airport "X"'s owners to plan the expansion in a suitable manner, seeking commercial funding and obtaining the appropriate permissions through the appropriate commercial channels.


As of the date that the airports were sold off, there is no longer any "National Interest" in them, so the politician s should back off & go back to their day jobs before they end up committing the next six generations to unaffordable interest payments on another Enron-Economics PFI deal that we don't need.........


Bottom Line:-
If Heathrow wants another Runway then Heathrow needs to plan it, pay for it & build it.
If Gatwick wants another Runway then Gatwick needs to plan it, pay for it & build it.
If Stansted wants another Runway then Stansted needs to plan it, pay for it & build it.
If Luton wants another Runway then Luton needs to plan it, pay for it & build it.
If Southend wants another Runway then Southend needs to plan it, pay for it & build it.
If another company wants to create a completely brand new airport in the somewhere else in the Thames valley, then someone needs to finance and create said company, before it to has to plan it, pay for it & build it.


Unless of course we pay the current owners a £1 each and re-nationalise all the major airports, other than that it's solely a business decision, not a political one and it should stay a business decision.

Donkey497 My guesses are as follows:

• Planning permission IS political and the larger the space the more so. In the UK the planning system is what it is - whether that will change in the future is not part of this discussion.
• The public have got so used to the politics of these things that if they all stepped back and said: "It's a local govt thing, do what you want." The public (and press) would accuse them of abandoning their responsibilities. It's a lose-lose for them.
• When planning how far apart runways are and the implementation of 'simultaneous approaches' etc. There are international agreements for ALL carriers, so that folks may be trained to expect the same thing means the same thing in different countries (whether or not that actually holds out in practice? That's another discussion too ...) ;)

I'm with Donkey497

If local authorities were given more control over their own planning controls, airports would be built by forward-thinking local authorities who wanted to encourage development and employment in their area.

The original municipal aerodromes were built by forward-looking councils such as Manchester, Birmingham and Luton under their own planning regimes.

Heathrow, on the other hand, was the result of a strategic decision by the then wartime government.

It's naive in the extreme to expect that government won't have a continuing role, albeit not as paymaster, in the development of the infrastructure to support links between a trading nation and its markets.

Indeed, the government's role is to take the wider strategic view, not be bullied and intimidated by a an alliance of a small, mainly rich, vocal minority that mostly lives far away from Heathrow, and even smaller groups of Libdems and eco-warriors.

We live in an increasingly centralised country, where both central government and the EU micro-manage the smallest detail, and local government (such as it is now) does not get a look-in.

One thing is for sure, if business rates still went to councils rather than
central government, it is almost certain that council support and planning permission (as opposed to central government permission), would have been more than forthcoming for Heathrow runway expansion.