That's odd 4Greens, they have had them at my local airport for at least the last 36 years. And EGNX too, EGGP, EGPF..........

<<In the continuing furore re the extra runway little or nothing has been said about the effect on the Air Traffic System. Why is this ?>>

Heathrow used to have more than two runways and everything worked fine - landing on 23 and 27R and departing on 27L. Didn't cause any ATC problems.

Fair enough, I stand corrected.

In fact it looks like 17 in 30 minutes has been achieved on at least one occasion in recent years, though sadly too long ago to replay on WebTrak.

Are you looking at pre 0600L?

At the moment that period isn't pressured in terms of landing rate, so nobody is doing their utmost to get minimum spacing.

At some point the government are going to have to make a decision on where extra runways are going to have to be laid, and how many. The general public will not get any say in the final decisions, and the subsequent routes are going to take a politician or two to just say "suck it up" to those affected by the new routes. Some things cannot be avoided.

A lump of Tarmac placed where there were once fields, houses, schools, offices etc. is not a runway. It only becomes one once it is hooked up to a passenger or cargo handling facility. Unfortunately for LHR, this is the bit our ignorant politicians fail to realise. It's is but like me saying I have a gold and diamond mine in my back garden. Well I do; if you dig far enough. The thing that has not been discussed is how this marvellous lump of Tarmac will be used. Will aircraft have to cross two runways get to/from to it? Will there be enough stands to handle the extra traffic? It's a bit like buying aircraft carriers without aircraft. Until the planes arrive, it's no more than a boat.

Regarding the ATC and ground handling I truly believe there will be no problem. Every hour that LHR is open, a really excellent team of people ensure that it is operating at maximum capacity. And if they are given a third runway, they will make it work. But to get the full benefit, the operational bugs should be ironed out before anything is built. But they won't be. I have no doubt that lots of expensive children in sharp suits will be called in to provide advice and design the thing only to p!ss off smartish when their fees are paid. Their true lack of knowledge will again become apparent when the real expects have to work with their design.

Best of luck Heathrow. You may eventually get your new runway. Your real problems will start once it is finished.

PM

Piltdown Man, You surely have seen the FULL plans?

http://your.heathrow.com/wp-content/...i_easyread.pdf

It is more that just a piece of 'Tarmac'. Please research before you post.

If all else fails, you could always look at the published plans.

No. There will still be a need to cross 09R/27L for movements that haven't used that runway but need to get to/from T4 (if it survives) or Cargo, but 09L/27R will have an endaround taxiway at the western end so there should be no requirement to cross it.

That appears to have been addressed with either two or three T6 satellites, plus T2D and T2E, although only an optimist would predict that queuing for a gate will be a thing of the past. :O

Point taken. Yes, my example was for the half-hour from 0530L to 0600, which explains why a quick search could only find one instance in recent years.

The following half-hour brings up a few more examples, including one that's recent enough to be viewable on WebTrak - 17th January this year, where 17 heavies landed on 09L between 0601L and 0630 in the following sequence:

B763-B772-B772-A388-B744-B772-B744-B744-B789-B772-A388-B744-B744-B77W-B788-A388-B763

Excellent - good show to the very hot radar controllers.

DR,

Bear in mind that in-between those would have been arrivals to 09R (I assume - haven't checked). Using only one runway would increase the landing rate to that one runway.

Yes, in this instance four 09R landings during that half-hour.