Righto...so whats wrong with Richmond for 2nd airport.
 

Driving home today, listening to some whacker from politics saying they dont need a 2nd airport for Sydney, but at the same time no increase in the movement cap will even be contemplated for YSSY.

Some random points Ive been thinking about. Purely hypothetical.

1. What is the theoretical capacity of YSSY if the pollies butted out and left it to the pros.......but no change in curfew.

2. Would a 4th runway, parrallel to 07/25 be useful.

So why cant Richmond be used. The RAAF apparently wants out. Level everything. Now a grand plan is in order. Use the whole area thats south of the River (not sure of the name) and north of Karrajung Rd. According to google earth, that gives you an area 7km wide by5km or so deep. Plenty of room for just about any airport of any size you want.

But it's a flood plain yells someone from the back of the room. Welkl yes it is, but we have a secret weapon....civil engineers. Hell, if Hong Kong can lop the top off a mountain, Singapore can build an airport on land reclaimed from the sea. Kansai was built on a man made island in the middle of a bloody great bay. Funchal has half the runway built on stilts on the side of a mountain.

Surely we can handle a flood plain. or have we become that inefectual.

The Indonesians are starting to build a 40 km long bridge over a deep ocean to link up their two biggest islands. A massive engineering project in any ones language.

Apologies in advance if this might be better suited to another thread currently running, but personally, I like Ben Sandilands' suggestion: Just cut Sydney loose & leave it to fend for itself.

Sydney Airport? Just cut Sydney loose and get on with life | Plane Talking

After more years than I care to remember, the NSW government (in whatever guise it happens to be at the time) is still no closer to showing the balls to commit to a second airport than it was before. In the meantime, Melbourne's population/economy/infrastructure is growing - with forecasts that it will actually eclipse Sydney as the nation's largest city in the next twenty years - in fact, the rest of Australia is growing, & in the meantime Sydney will end up becoming irrelevant.

YSRI = FG Central. Current runway can not be extended. A long North-South would have to be built. Once you have to do that then it has no advantages over a greenfields site.

Personally I think suggesting Wilton is a classic Sir Humphrey move. With the adjacent Sydney Water catchment area and the housing estates already in place and growing... It will provide another 2 to 3 years of solid controversy before it is quietly scrapped.

my thoughts too - but the whole western basin kind of is too... sure they can build the new stuff to a low vis standard but there's still stacks of delays with that stuff

We lack people with vision. People like Keith Williams who took out the side of a mountain for Hamilton Is airport.

We have instead three year politicians with a three year vision. No use upping it to four years, they just do nothing for another year.

Richmond? Well, think of Meigs Field. Meigs Field - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It can take the load off Sydney while they think of something else to keep the bureaucrats in business.

Well perhaps Meigs wasn't the best example, but a good case.

Spot on Capt Kremin. Reports, studies, consultants,Federal Government muddying the waters with another location,State Government resistance, Federal Opposition waffling,Local Government NIMBY/IMBY, my God this could go on for decades........oh wait it has. Not going to happen in my lifetime.

It is symtomatic of the inertia that has existed in NSW for two decades, and despite O'Farrell's massive majority he has turned out to be a huge disappointment as Premier. No doubt the back room boys in the Liberal Party are already scheming if things dont improve. The voters are less tolerant and forgiving these days.

The type of politician that would look beyond the next election has been extinct since the 30's.Nothing to see here, move on.

In my personal opinion i dont see the need for a 2nd airport. They should get rid of the 11pm-6am curfew and spend the money on building new roads like the F6, improving public transport and improving roads.
Even if Sydney airport gets that congested surely they could raise landing fee's on narrow body aircraft to try and encourage airline's to use widebody aircraft.

Even if they do build a 2nd airport it probably will be come **** rip off like everything else the NSW government builds like that "2 lane" cross city tunnel :ugh:

Possibly true but I am beginning to suspect that the axiom about "the people getting the government they deserve" is also true. Politicians and their parties run focus groups, polls, you name it, they KNOW what WE the people care about and want. I also don't subscribe to the theory that they are dumb, most of the politicians I have met and spoke with are intelligent and articulate people. They just do not have the will to drive long term visions it seems.

We live in a country that thinks Masterchef and MKR are fantastic television, that produces a Kyle Sandilands and makes him a star, that allows Craig Thomson to continue holding a seat and voting in our federal parliament whilst under a cloud. We pay football players $500K a year for seven months work and provide stadiums around the country on peppercorn rents for the AFL whilst they in turn sell TV rights for a billion dollars. Most of what happens does not make any sense because every small part of the jigsaw is looking after its' own piece and no one sees the whole. We have a national debate and hand wringing about a few thousand boat people arriving on our shores seeking asylum with almost nothing at all said about the number of people who arrive by aircraft and stay illegally, a number greater by a factor of about ten.

The state of national debate in this country gets reduced to the lowest level, eg Germaine Greer on QandA takes aim at the PMs bum size, this from an "intellectual and feminist" no less. Imagine if she were one of the great unwashed.

The first job of government is to be re-elected. Everything else is secondary. So our friend whose electorate is near Sydney airport will put the views of a couple of thousand homeowners who bought their house decades after the airport was built ahead of the national or state good. He would argue that is his job as the local member, to protect and represent their interests and so he is correct.

The new Sydney airport should be about half way between Sydney and Canberra and joined to both by a high speed rail link. Anything else is a massive compromise. Problem is that since the federal government stupidly leased the airports out they have lost control. If they had control selling the land for housing at Mascot would pay for a good proportion of the new site with land buy backs etc.

Question. If the airport leaseholders can turn a profit from the leased airports why couldn't the federal government as the owner? Answer that and you understand the mess we are in.

Bob Brown is not a stupid person, his timing is brilliant, much better in fact than John Howards almost as good as Bligh losing the election at the right time so that she will not have to face the music once Qld Water gets sued by all and sundry.

Off to have a glass of medicine.:eek:

"I-2001" excellent post :ok: I too feel this country has it's priorities all wrong.
There simply is no future for planning of airports or otherwise for that matter.There isn't a visionary amongst the lot of them!:ugh:
We waste billions on failed Govt ventures yet we all dig deep here in Vic for Eg on the RCH appeal at Easter time for the kids of our future nation,we raised $16Mill or so a great effort...what did we Vic's waste on Myki & the pink batts fiasco just as a start ??? :ugh:
Another Airport for Syd,high speed rail links etc...........yeah like to see that!!!:ugh:

Don't forget everyone that a polly is in the game as a job,nothing else but to make his bed as comfy as possible & ride the wave of perks until it's time to bail like we have seen of late. A 3 year tenure is damned short,like their visions!!!
That saying ..."what do you call a 1000 lawyers chained together at the bottom of the ocean?..............a good start"...............substitute Pollies & now where getting somewhere !:ugh:

God help our children in the future,we've left an awful mess for them,something that none of us can be proud of!

Rant over...phew !

Wmk2

Lift the curfew

List the movements per hour limit

A lot of problems would be fixed real quick.

CATIII ILS

Tell all the whingers to take a dose of Choppers Medicine and Harden the Fokker Up

That would give you 10 years to sort out another airport to support a properly functioning YSSY.

Anyone disagree?

...............................................yeah jabadabadoo I disagree, we can't have common sense here it just won't work as far as Pollies go!:-)


Wmk2

Icarus2001.........Are you Ben Sandilands? :ok::D

Australian politicians are now the weakest, most gutless breed of inbreds we produce. I would love to pay a politician what they are worth.

If anybody saw Bob Brown's press conference where he pronounced that the greens were ready to govern the country :cool: And the grinning idiot beside him that now 'leads' their party. Or anyone who heard Larissa Waters comments about donations to political parties (She gives new meaning to the phrase 'dumb blonde').

Yep, this country is in capable hands :cool:

Dream on Sydney, a second airport? Not in my lifetime.

Dood, you do that, you wouldn't need a second airport in Sydney in my lifetime :cool:

............ ummmmm derrrrrrrr.............

The pollies are that effing dumb :ugh:

but if implimented, you could then plan ahead.


Hang on Wally is right........can't be having no common sense around here :rolleyes:

Why not Richmond?
 

As one who operated out of Richmond for more than a decade I can tell you Richmond is not only FOG CENTRAL, but there is absolutely no way of extending 10/28 sufficiently and the provision of a runway of sufficient length oriented E/W would involve sending both road and rail underground if the Rail link and the main road between Windsor and Richmond townships were to be retained.
Add to that the limited infrastructure and the probable need to relocate the RAAF flying operations. The one thing that cannot be engineered to ensure uninterupted operations is the dreaded fog. Anyone who has operated into and out of Richmond will fully understand just what a problem it is.

That is why we need Cat3b. minima of 20ft vis of 150m. This is how Europe keep their Airports running. Try ZRH in the winter, they have far more 'fog days' than we do, snow and ice and yet seem to manage alright. This country is very Third World when it comes to Aviation. Even India has Cat2 where International Airports like OOL don't even have an ILS. I cannot think of one airport in the US that still has an NDB. The International Aviation Community consider Australia a backwater these days. Very sad compared to how we were once held.

In fact India has Cat 3B at Delhi. I did one one day when even the birds were walking, onto a new runway and the A Team on ATC.

Usual Cat 3B minima for my operator's A330/A340 is 'no' DH and 75 m.

Australian airports are a goddamn disgrace.

high speed rail a non-starter
 

High speed rail is expensive. Think around $40 per 100km in Japan, if you're a full-fare Shinkansen ticket holder (from memory). And that's in a country with a much higher population density than NSW & ACT. It would be more expensive in this country, even ignoring the need for a tunnel under the Blue Mountains.

It would also need stupendous cash up front from the public purse, which won't happen in NSW.

At the moment air travel is both cheaper and more convenient than rail for most people. No doubt that will change eventually...

And a environmental nightmare. I find it ridiculous that the Greens propose such a deal. If you consider the thousands of Kilometres of clearing you have to do, the damage to the environment, the carbon footprint due loss of trees, the carbon footprint of the steel in the rails plus the maintenance, trains are not the answer over long distances when compared toto relatively small area of a airport. 2 x 2km of tar vs 1000+km of steel rail:hmm:

Reading between the lines you could almost argue that the powers at be are out to destroy aviation in this country for some reason. These so called 'Green' solutions are not when you scratch the surface.

Read the Mrdak Joint Study Report
 

Have a good solid read of the Mrdak Joint Study Report (over 3000 pages if you have the time...). It is thorough and makes many good points. You can argue about the exact time scales for growth, but it is clear that the problems which are forshadowed will occur and that the decsion needs to be made NOW.

Short answers

A decent sized site is need for a multi runway international airport with appropriate ground trasnport facilities etc. The YSRI site is too small and as said above is a flood plain.

The ignore sydney approach won't work; there will always be many flights routed through YSSY and when the system gets overloaded then the delays will cascade australia wide. this will just get worse.

BOF is a quarter- wit who has no vision except for trying to save a few votes. I doubt he can read that much material, or even if he does, has no capacity to understand it!

Badgery's Creek looks like the best option to me because the land is set aside... Mrdak says as much...



SB

That would be this one...

http://www.infrastructure.gov.au/avi...ec_summary.pdf

Who wants to fly between 11pm and 6am? Look at Brisbane and Melbourne and you'll get your answer. There're about 3 flights per day at each of those airports that would be affected by a Sydney-style curfew. No one wants to fly at that time. If I'm looking at setting up in international business in an Australian city I'm not going to choose the one that forces me and my employees to travel at such unfriendly hours. I'm going straight to Melbourne or Brisbane.

Spend what money on other infrastructure? A new Sydney airport won't cost the Government anything. The Government can sell the right to build a new Sydney airport. It makes the Government money (which can then be spent upgrading surrounding transport infrastructure).

Where are you going to park all these extra widebodies at YSSY? They're already struggling to fit them all in.

Big engineering progects in recent years.

The Laerdal tunnel, Sunda straights bridge in indonesia, the Chunnel, even the Greeks have bult one of the worlds largest bridges. The Millau Viaduct in France.

What have we built here in oz since the the Snowy River Hydro scheme in the 50's.

We cant even do something simple like blocking off a flood plain.

Australia is going backwards at an ever increasing speed.

Seriously?? :}

But I agree, Australian airports are a bloody disgrace. There are so-called third world countries that have airports far better than ours.

Unfortunately, this country suffers from an acute lack of vision. Our infrastructure is rapidly falling apart and there is precious little political will to do anything about it. I love this country, but there are times when I'm embarrassed to call myself Australian.

ButFli, I often operate a midnight horror widebody flight (not QF) to Asia out of MEL and it is usually chockers. I think the demand is there.

Yes Buzz, they were bloody good. Indian ATC is a shambles most other times though.

Ozgrade, I fully agree. Australia: preoccupied with supporting three levels of government for a relatively small population and other important matters such as gay marriage, multiculturalism and the 'climate change' scam.

Kansai

Reclassify Lord Howe (falsely if need be) - name it John Howard International.

Option 1.

I'm sure the current and future generations of aircraft are whisper jets compared to the old 707s and 747s of yesteryear. The airport at Mascot has been around a hell of a lot longer than the good rate paying citizens of surrounding areas - time they harden up and realize why their house was probably cheaper than others not near the airport.

Option 2.

Leave the cap on movements as is, but move regional and light aircraft traffic to Bankstown with underground rail connection to SYD Domestic and International.

FORGET "SYDNEY'S SECOND AIRPORT" - go regional, boot the RAAF out of Willy'.
No curfew, cheaper "taxes" etc would put KSA on the spot re their exorbitant charges and the polies would not have to go cap in hand to Macquarie Airports for their "approval".

Role on....

why not Holsworthy? extend the current runway obviously, its far enough from residential areas for noise to be no consideration, not only that, no one complains of the weapon fire noise around here, rail link is very close, just extend off Glenfield station, new Freight depot is planned for Moorebank, the M7 and M5 very close, and the airspace is already restricted, so can easily be changed to class C without disrupting existing airspace, and all flight paths will arrive and depart to the south, over virgin bushland.

A standard heavy rail line from Epping to Rouse Hill is looking like the best part of $10billion.

How much would a high speed rail line to Canberra or Williamtown cost? Compulsory acquisition of how many Sydney properties at the best part or $600k per 500m2 block? Running along the Great dividing range? Crossing the Hawkesbury River and going under / above the hills and valleys from there up to Wyong? How much would it cost to maintain that distance of high speed line? What sort of subsidy would be required to cover the costs of 200km (to Willy) or 300km (to Canberra) high speed journeys?

Next bit - move the ADF out (RAAF out of Richmond or Willy, Army out of Holsworthy, RAN out of Sydney for the benefit of cruise ships). To where? How is it that every member of the ADF apparently will be happy to live in Tindal or Weipa or Cultana or some other Godforsaken outback dump? Care to explain how recruitment and retention will be addressed? Care to explain how FLTLTs and CAPTs and SGTs and the like will be replaced when they get the choice of losing their marriage or leaving the ADF?

The Auditor General identified an average per member additional cost of $15k p.a. to maintain 1 BDE in Darwin. Watch retention when Op SLIPPER ends and there are no trips and medals any more .... 1 & 3 BDE will bleed. The Army has to work hard to post people out of 7 BDE in large part because they'd prefer to live in Brisvegas than Darwin or Townsville. Why is 7 RAR now at RAAF Edinburgh instead of Robbo?

How much does it cost to train RAAF aircrew? If the only posting locations are Curtin / Scherger / Learmonth / Tindal consider how much more it will cost to recruit and train.

The Gummint already owns Badgery's Creek. All it takes is is an ounce of political gumption. It's the right answer. Everyone knows it is.

And if you look at Google Maps you will find Sydney West Airport marked at Badgery's Creek, so why not build it there and be done with it.

LikeThis - its not just the cost of shipping the ADF members off and then having to train a bunch of people because everyone else has left with their corporate knowledge..

e.g. for Willytown there are 6x Flying Squadrons, A few different HQ's, ATC, GCI, and a truck load of support people.

If you kick them out all of that basing and support infrastructure needs to be rebuilt somewhere, the people need to be relocated along with housing and the money to achieve this isn't coming out of thin air...

Because successive Govts have been so inept for 25years it starts looking like an attractive option - until you realise that the govt just needs to do their job and Govern, rather than carrying on like 15 year olds in Parliament trying to get cheap shots in...

Boot the RAAF out
 

Alien Role, I joined the RAAF in 1958 and even then there was talk of moving RAAF Richmond to Narromine. I guess the RAAF have pretty good roots in the Hawkesbury as they are still there and no doubt still will be after I have slipped off this planet. Willy will be the same, and of course, it is a case of who injects most into the local economy at both Richmond and Williamtown? Lift the curfew in Sydney and remind the natives that KSF has been there much longer than many of the residential areas which surround it.

Why would the RAAF need to vacate YWLM?

Build a parallel rwy and big new civil terminal to the south. Military can keep the northern side with access to training areas etc.

Freeway onto the F3 and railway connection to existing at Hexham would better serve anybody north of mid central coast. The area would boom and become a satellite for Sydney.

If you are going to put in a new runway, Freeway extension and Rail line why not then just build a new airport at Sydney where the demand actually exists?

Civilian Access to RAAF Airfields

Summary – Major Capital City and Secondary Airports
50. There is no case for RPT operations from Air Force airfields where an adjacent Major Capital city Airport is available as these aerodromes have adequate capacity well into the future. The caveat, with respect to the Sydney Region Capacity Study being the exception. In seeking to operate a civil airport at AMB, EDN, PEA, or RIC, a prospective operator would be basing their proposal on commercial rather than operational considerations. Additionally, the WLM experience provides sufficient warning that civil aviation access can have unintended consequences for Air Force, including increased costs, capability loss or skewing of personnel requirements, (both ATS and ARFFS), and ultimately reduced military access to the airfield, with attendant significant, and possibly irretrievable capability loss.
51. If significant general aviation activity was to be approved at Air Force airfields, reversing the decision would be difficult. Further, it would be difficult to be selective when agreeing to a request from a commercial organisation to use an Air Force airfield as it would no doubt be followed quickly by others requests seeking similar access.


Any initiative aimed at introducing Heavy category RPT aircraft will require increased wake turbulence separation distances, thereby reducing arrival and departure traffic rates, which will serve to disrupt both military and civil movements. WLM terminal airspace is designed for fighter operations, and is not adequate for either increased levels of Medium category aircraft activity or the introduction of Heavy category RPT activity. Major exercise activity also creates significant increased traffic flows adding to congestion. The impact of heavy aircraft activity on required ARFFS category may place further unfunded pressure of Defence resources. A review of the current Operating Agreement, to allow access by Heavy category civil aircraft to WLM, is inadvisable and the WLM/NAL lease should be amended to exclude Heavy category civil operations. A summary of WLM traffic capacity issues is at annex B

Let me guess, the military wrote a report recommending that they do not share "their" airports with mere civvies?

Perhaps an "independent" report is needed.

Yes minister? A report minister? Well here is the conclusion we will have a consultant write the other 1000 pages to support our conclusion.

Yawn.

Maybe my sarcasm meeter isn't sensitive enough but an independent report has been written. It can be found here and it highlights the issues that have been talked about already in this and other threads... :ugh: Please do keep up.

So now thats the RAAF and the Independent steering committee report reccomending that Williamtown not become Sydneys second airport.

Willy is becoming a large airport by stealth anyway, as the North West of Sydney, the ever increasing Central Coast, and of course the growing Newcastle/Hunter region demand better airservices. It has been shown that many of the residents of these areas would prefer to drive the F3 than face Sydney and the almost promised traffic gridlock anyway if flying domestic, not to mention the cheap parking fees that NTL offers. Over the next ten years NTL airport is really going to become a big airport, call it regional, call it what you like, but that area of the coast is growing big time, and it has to be serviced one way or another. Great flying WX 99% of the time also.