Can you view all radar tracks over the course of a day/week for disturbance limits?

[Julian Hensey]

So you regional ATC types, a question for you…

I know regional airports often get complaints about “you always send the planes over Dobley village (couldn’t think of a different name!) and the residents are unhappy.” Having seen how things work, aircraft coming off an intersections are nearly always given vectors that are the same every hour and every day, so Dobley village will get them all. Now I know there are STARs etc, but in regional airports when traffic is quiet at some points how much analysis is done on tracks used over a 24 hours/7 day period and why are vectors not given at these quieter times to turn aircraft away from villages that have been overflown all day and "distribute" the disturbance with hopefully less complaints.

Is it possible to download all the tracks used on a particular day so ATC staff can see “yep we have gone over them 23 times today, let’s give em a break and vector them more to the south etc..." ?

[Ppdude]

I'll vector them so they stay apart. Don't really care about the Dobley folk. Im sure they would prefer a bit of noise in the sky rather than a lot of noise on the ground!

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

<<Is it possible to download all the tracks used on a particular day so ATC staff can see “yep we have gone over them 23 times today, let’s give em a break and vector them more to the south etc..." ?>>

Sorry, but that's not an ATC problem and those factors do not come into the equation except that some airfields have preferential noise routeings, or local noise abatement procedures which ATC adhere to but, inevitably, some people are going to get more noise than others. That's the price of civil aviation. Personally, I'd rather have 200 more aeroplanes over my house every day instead of the kids with their 500db car radios blasting the neighbourhood.

[SM4 Pirate]

Is it possible to download all the tracks used on a particular day so ATC staff can see “yep we have gone over them 23 times today, let’s give em a break and vector them more to the south etc..." ? There is gear out there that tracks everything....... It compares radar data to noise sensor readings. But it's nothing to do with ATC as such. Most countries have a noise monitoring unit; I suspect the UK does.

The data may be used in procedures/tracking development in terms of they always turn early here or there etc. It's great data to see before committing to a property / also good to get/show if your the vendor.

From an ATC view point; I avoid the noise abatement areas / height limitations etc. as required but don't give it a further consideration for avoiding and relieving the noise footprint here or there. Separation and sequencing is far more important; the brain is usually busy doing those things without something else to think about.

Well, except for the early morning starts I have when the teenagers next door are in recovery from the all nighter noisy party that kept me awake; those mornings I point everything with purpose at my house (I'm already awake, see); if I can.:}

[Yahweh]

On a tangent what's the best flight tracking software on the market at the moment?

[BackPacker]

Julian, you probably mean something like this:

http://www.bezoekbas.nl/index.cfm?page=Radartracks

[Julian Hensey]

Thanks, interesting responses and graphics there. An overlay on the radar screen of most overflown spots or routes should be entirely possible with today's technology and I am only referring to those arrival times where regional airports are taking a small amount of traffic. It would probably only be of benefit as well when the weather is clear as the local villagers tend not to notice many planes in a howling gale.

So clear weather, small number of arrivals, and some different vectoring "might" save the nimbys from the village. It would even be good pr for the local rags to say "ATC work hard to stop overflying the same spots" etc etc. and explain how it works to Mr "always writing letters because I am retired and bored" from South Dobley. :)

So how much do ATC hear of complaints from local villagers sent into the airport authorities?

[vintage ATCO]

In a former life I use to get involved in noise complaints/track keeping even though Manager ATC although I always tried not to let the former impinge on the latter! With the 'traditional SIDs' using VORs there was always a bit of a spread (3deg was allowable, I seem to remember) but when we started trialling RNAV departures every one was always down the same line. Bit unfortunate if you lived underneath it. There was some talk of having two or more RNAV departures each slightly different to try and spread the load but that doesn't seem to have happened (and I am talking 10 years ago).

Some people's (i.e. complainants) idea of overhead could vary from directly overhead to just above the horizon! :)