New runway at Heathrow
 

Would be interested on views as to whether NATS can cope with a new runway at Heathrow.

I can't see why not. Obviously, things will change with a 3rd. runway but these people are seasoned professionals who can work their way around new systems & procedures. It might seem a daunting task, but I have full faith in them. In any event, it won't be a "suck it & see" experience. It will all have been subject to simulations & exercises prior to going live.

Without wishing to blow smoke up their collective backsides, I have no doubt whatsoever that they will cope with a third runway. Heathrow has the best controllers in the world bar none.

Megaton.. thanks for the comment, greatly appreciated by a Heathrow "oldie".

4Greens. So far as I am aware the third runway will be parallel with the existing one so it should be quite straightforward for ATC. Heathrow once had 6 runways and although traffic levels were far less than today, ATC coped OK.

Is this a real question? The doubting question is whether the government have the balls to introduce a new runway and take the hit by telling the locals to suck it up and live with it.

Not wishing to dampen everyone's enusiasism for the brilliance of Heathrow controllers, a 3rd runway will present a few problems for an already congested TMA.

How do Heathrow envisage using the runways, there is talk of mixed mode, or will it be compass departures of the north and south with landings in the middle?

Discussions to take place at a later date.

Staffing, we don't have enough at the moment. Another GMP position, another air controller, is the tower big enough? TMA? South West deps and willo are struggling now, more sectors required, a different TMA layout maybe, a change to SIDS and STARS? more TMA staff needed.

AC, same as above I am sure.

New routes means consultation to ensure the people whose houses are effected will have chance to complain and protest, and on we go. Public consultation could take years.

Finally, all the above is solved and we have a 3rd runway at Heathrow which will be at 98% capacity almost immediately. Gatwick will still be running its only runway at 98% as will Stansted and Luton, we lose a runway at Heathrow, where do the planes divert to? Thus will Gatwick get a 2nd runway also, thus creating an even busier and more complex TMA???

Interesting times for ATC over the next few years, however which Governement will have the backbone to build extra runways. Everybody wants to fly, but nobody wants planes over there town,city, farm, school etc etc. More aircraft noise is a vote loser, and political suicide!!!!

All fair points, nimbler, but I have no doubt that they are solvable problems ..... If, & when, the Government finally makes a decision !

Just what PPRuNe needs - yet another thread on Heathrow expansion. :O

Pretty well all of your points have been extensively discussed in previous threads, as a forum search would have shown.

The published plan shows a rotation scheme with one or other of the outer runways being used in mixed mode at any given time and the other two operating in segregated mode as per current practice.

In other words, equal capacity for landings and takeoffs (1½ runways each), for obvious reasons.

No, there is no scenario that features new runways at both LHR and LGW.

Gatwick are keen to build a second runway, but only if LHR R3 isn't going to go ahead. Heathrow, despite their claim to be indifferent, would be much happier investing in a third runway in the knowledge that Gatwick is still going to be capacity-constrained. And no government is going to want the additional pain that would result in giving the green light for expansion at both airports.

Hi Dave, I know all this having worked in airspace projects very recently.the mixed mode options look interesting especially as Heathrow PLC want to be able to depart southerly departures off the northern runway, or northerly departures off the southern runway, thus crossing go around tracks and possibly other departures.

If it ever happens will be an interesting development to design and work on.however it is a big IF!!,

I agree with your comments, Nimmer. But surely, if Heathrow PLC want to operate in the way you state, the ATC response should be along the lines of f... off ! End of story.
The actual method of operation should be left to those who have to apply it & who know what they are talking about.
or, am I being a bit too simplistic ?

Would a 3rd runway affect Northholt?

It would be exciting!

The missed approach case has always existed, of course, with departures from either runway going both north and south depending on the destination/SID, and the potential for conflict with a GA on the other runway being taken into account.

What would be new is sustained simultaneous departures from two runways where significantly more than 50% of them would be on the southern SIDS. That will be interesting.

...and GMC will be a nightmare.

JK would sort it M....!

If the men in suits and dark glasses would let him...

(JK, the controller who still holds the Heathrow record for 'the most aircraft cleared for take-off at the same time'...)

No. We couldn't cope.

Of course there would be no airspace changes.

No staffing changes.

No procedure changes.

No technology changes.

And certainly nobody giving a theoretical R3 any thought whatsoever at the moment.

:}

At the rate we're going, by the time EGLL R/W 3 opens, there will be RNAV and ATM technology available which hasn't even been invented yet.

Zooker, how about the RNAV and ATM technology that has been invented, is working, and isn't being used?

Unfortunately, those on the ground with the loudest voices appear to be no great fans of PRNAV etc., all those loud things doing exactly the same thing all the time, right over MY house.....
The future will have to resolve neighbours as well as conflicts in the air.