Sydney weather and curfew
 

Watched Rex 472 'land' 16R 44 mins after curfew at Sydney tonight.

Both he and a virgin B737 conducted missed approaches just before 11pm curfew.

Given Virgin (ex Perth) diverted to Melbourne and Rex diverted to Orange but got halfway there and came back, do turboprops have a better chance of a curfew dispensation than jets?

Note ATC did not seem to be aware of any dispensation warning Rex 5 times that curfew was in operation and Penalties apply.

CG

PS: Some great piloting out there tonight during the Sydney cold core 'hurricane' that had airfield winds to 57 kts and A380s going missed :ok:

Dash 8's are exempt from the curfew, so would assume Saab340 would be also.

Curfew doesn't apply to turboprops such as the Saab 340, Dash 8s, ATRs, B1900s, Kingair's etc.

I seem to recall that the Quadrapuffs were exempt when they were operating from YSSY - or is it my faulty memory?

Whilst the curfew doesn't apply to turboprops (and a certain number of quiet jets), you can only depart off 16R and arrive on 34L.
Looking at the TAFs and Metars, I doubt an arrival on 34L would have been possible!

Yes, landing on anything other than 34L is a violation of curfew regardless of dispensations, but if you planned to get there on time and you end up still airborne during curfew, you do what you have to.

"You do what you to" ???? I like that attitude, we must have went to the same school!!!

Given the significance of the weather event, I believe it would be reasonably fair to say that anyone busting the curfew last night, would have made that decision on reasonable grounds, especially considering SAFETY.

As if you could hear an aeroplane over the noise of the howling wind.

Yes they got special consideration, because even if they departed at dawn they were pushing to make YSSY by 11 pm!

A few years back was operating ex Heathrow in the evening.
That afternoon a storm came through and shut the airport for the best part of two hours.
The curfew was lifted until all aircraft were where they had to be either in or out.
We left at 1am.
Makes sense when slots are tight.

And the 146 was allowed into SYD during curfew, but in on 34L and out on 16R.
I used to drive the AN freighters.

halas

146 is still allowed in during curfew. Landing allowed on 34L with up to 20 knots tailwind, but that wasn't much use these past few days.

Heathrow applies common sense to their curfew policy. No such thing exists in Sydney, all politically driven unfortunately. :ugh:

Gotta' agree S.U.B.

As if the crews didn't have enough on their plate last night without at every frequency change being reminded of the curfew requirements. I mean FFS! Notwithstanding the annoying aspect of it all, the much more serious potential of pressuring a crew into an alternate, and possibly incorrect course of action.

Whoever presides over this lunatic policy should take a long hard look at themselves!

Hopefully the airlines will show some balls and tell them as much.

On nights like this there needs to be some safety override!

I just hope that this or other curfews don't, one day, end in tears with some poor souls at the pointy end making decisions to avoid breaking curfew and paying the ultimate price.

Even the thought of it sends a shiver...

The question that needs to be asked is "Was the airport there before you bought the property you are trying to protect from noise?" If the answer is "yes" then the response is "sorry, grandfathered right belongs to the airport, unless you want to pay to have it shifted?"

Overly simplistic, but watch these same folk that have caused this curfew get up in arms if their transit time to a relocated airport goes up to 2 hours plus.

Le Vieux

Is it really true that air traffic controllers were including information about curfew requirements in transmissions to aircraft inbound to Sydney during last evening's weather events?

Sydney weather and curfew
 

Last night, all night, wind 170/25-40 and WET runway. Nothing landed (....after the Saab got in on 16R)

Whenever I have to land at SYD past the curfew I just divert; usually to MEL where there is no curfew and stand down due to FTL. Saves a lot of hassle and paperwork and I simply leave it to the company to sort out the subsequent mess. Mind you I avoid SYD trips like the plague whenever I can and only go there when forced to: such as when on standby duty if I can't negotiate a trip to somewhere else instead.

The irony is the noise made by the wind and the rain would have been far louder than any aircraft landing...........common sense doesn't apply when it comes to the curfew in Sydney.

The airport was, but the third runway was not.

The curfew was designed in 1994 and was a product of Labour dominated local, state and federal governments around the airport and inner city at the time.

Transport Minister at the time was Laurie Brereton with as a big a conflict of interest as you could imagine.