From what I have seen most of the noise in the Essendon area comes from the jets on a right base for 34 at ML! A jet at 3000ft has a much larger noise footprint than a 172 at 500ft...:rolleyes:

PS: Their evidence seems scant at best, a few accidents many years ago and they haven't even put forward any evidence regarding 'fumes'! What f&#@ing fumes?

...and they live behind a freeway :)

It is very sad.

I lived in Airport West for 12 months, on the extended centreline of RWY 26 (maybe 1.5km from the airfield) and I very rarely heard any aircraft noise. Most of the Air Ambulance flights were pretty high by my house, the most noice came from POLAIR operating in the area and the Calder FWY.

Whinging nancies I reckon.

Has there been a study done on how much pollution all the additional housing or development that would occur would affect the area if the airport was to close. With the already congested roads and old infrastructure, how would it handle the influx. I remeber only 10 years ago the whole essendon area sewage system going under major repairs because it hadnt been touched since early 1900's. lots of those old ceramic pipes still laying under ground.

Nig

How abvout some of us get some letters off to the editors of the daily papers?

A friend of mine who lives near the airport said that Essendon Airport is going ahead big time with many new buildings going up, doesn't sound like it's going to be closed anytime soon?
A plane can crash many miles from an airport, airports are only one spot where they can crash, how about we ban planes all together, would there then be clean air, a safer environment & noise free places? I doubt it!.

If the police are there and the Ambulance service one would think that to move them would mean Tulla perhaps & then I guess that would create delays to commercial flights both international & local?

Airporst around Syd here are always being looked upon as future developments I reckon , nowhere is safe anymore from the mighty dollar


FG

Howard - it's in their benefit for no evidence to be put forward, as there is no evidence to suggest that aviation fumes are any different than car fumes.:ok:

I agree completely that it's dangerous that only one side is getting attention, as the powers that be may think that it's what everyone wants. Any suggestions on top of forming a "Keep Essendon Airport Open" ?

I believe there was something similar done at BK by flying schools, started by DW of Basair. Anyone know if that's having any success? (slightly different aim I know)

There was a case in England a few years ago where a bunch of airport noise whingers were almost successful in getting a small airfield closed down. A smart lawyer then addressed their meeting at council chambers and advised them that their names had been noted and when a member of the group advertised his/her house for sale, they would be forced to declare to any buyer that aircraft noise or crash danger was the reason for selling. Of course this would scare away prospective buyers. The noise complaints soon faded away.

If Lindsay wants to keep EN, then EN will stay. If the government doesn't approve the master plan then it will be lawyers at ten paces, and I suspect the government will lose in the courts, given that the courts would probably rule it unreasonable to allow land to be zoned for use as an airport then to prevent the land to be used for that reason. If the government wants to re-zone the land and terminate the lease, then they will owe Lindsay 99 years of lost income.

On the other side of the coin, it is now so expensive to use EN that's its value to aviation now has to be bought into question. There is no doubt about its value to Linfox.

Walrus

Expensive?
 

My aircraft is based at essendon, mainly due to it being the closest airport to home. I do not class it as 'so expensive'. Yes, they charge me $33 a landing, but parking is free (on a nice hardstand). With my usage, it is far cheaper at Essendon than Moorabbin, where they would charge me ~$3k to park a year on the grass.

Bevan..

Bevan,

Itinerant aircraft get punished badly. It can cost up to $50 to use EN because they do pay a parking fee of $15 on top of the $30 landing fee. There's also a terminal navigation fee, but I'm not sure how much that is.

Walrus

As one small action against this lunatic fringe group, can I suggest that you all hit the link below (same link at post number 15), then scroll down to the bottom of the newspaper article where you can submit your own comments/feedback. There are only two comments so far (so much for 'fever pitch') - one in favour and one against. The person in favour of closing Essendon is actually the spokeswoman of this group and is quoted in the article!

Ruling on Essendon Airport up in air - Leader News: Melbourne community news

I have posted a comment as well, hopefully it shows up soon.

Can someone supply the movements in a given week at EN with a breakdown of aircraft type?

Then it would be simple to calculate the total fuel burn (considering engine type) at takeoff fuel flow for 10-30 seconds that the aircraft would be over the surrounding suburbs (depending on aircraft type).

Then compare that with VicRoads data of the number of vehicles travelling along the Freeway. Calculate the cumulative fuel burnt in a week for all cars (east and west) travelling along the section of the freeway start at Bell St and finish at KPDrive in the west).

That should blow their argument out of the water. To rub salt into the wound, add the Tulla Freeway. Then add Bulla Rd, etc etc....

A call to arms - who can get this data?

It needs to be done properly and each source has to be referenced in a proper scientific manner. Remember you are not creating arguments against rational people, you have to have every i dotted and t crossed.

CS

heres a start CS.

Movements at Australian Airports

Gives monthly movement totals, broken down, for all Australian airports.

Good to see a few more people have commented on that article, not sure if they are from here, good to see nonetheless

Basic maths...
 

The following are rough calculations, and I invite people to refine the very broad data that I have used.

Let's use February data as listed above - 296 movements over 7 tonnes, 3448 below 7 tonnes - this divides nicely by 4 (yes I know it was a leap year, but good enough for now) giving: 74>7000kg and 862<7000kg.

Note movements are defined as a takeoff or landing.

Using the formula: Movements (n) * time in sec (t) /3600 *fuel burn (lt/hr) gives the total fuel for the period.

Let's start with the movements over 7 tonnes. Most are probably GLEX and GIVs. TOGA fuel burn of 1000kg/hr(?) and from start of takeoff roll to "outta there" in 30sec. On landing, 500kg/hr(?) - and 30 sec for approach and landing. That averages at 750kg/hr for 30 seconds per movement - 937lt/hr.

Sooo... 74*30/3600*937 = 577 lt per week.

Now for less than 7000kgs.

20% turboprop (172 movements @ 350lt/hr for 35 sec) = 172*35/3600*350=585lt
40% piston twin (344 movements@ 100lt/hr for 45 sec) = 344*45/3600*100=430lt
40% piston single (344 movements @ 45lt/hr for 45 sec) = 344*45/3600*45=194lt.

Total fuel burnt in the skies around EN airport in one week is 1786 litres.

Now it's 6kms from Bell St to either Airport West Westfield or Keilor Park Drive. How many trucks travelling along the freeway will burn this amount of fuel?

A semi travelling at 100km/h will burn 50lt(?)/100km. That's 3 litres to travel the 6kms.

1786/3 = 595 trucks per week. That's 87 a day. 3 per hour.

So from these rough calculations it shows that just THREE (3) trucks per hour driving along the Freeway from Bell St to Airport West will burn the same fuel as all the aircraft using EN airspace.

Then there's the rest of the trucks, all the cars and all the other streets!

Please comment and correct the assumptions I have made above...


This is a powerful statistic and needs to be refined, vetted and publicised.

Can an ATC provide a further breakdown of the AC types using EN and thier frequency?

Looking back at that article, theres 11 comments now. Helen van den Schnitzel is still the only one FOR closing the airport.

CEAC = FAIL:ok:

CS, if it helps, Heavy trucks burn on average 50l per 100km. So, using your calcs that is about 560 trucks which would trundle past the merge every couple of hours every day of the working week.

Of the three major aircraft accidents at Essendon.... has anyone here twigged: none of them actually happened at Essendon airport.....:cool:

Thanks OZBusDriver, recaculating using your info suggests that it's only 3 trucks per hour over the 6km route that gives the same fuel burn as all the aircraft using EN.

An even MORE damning statistic.


If ENs runways are turned into factories and warehouses, the net pollution traffic will INCREASE as it's fair to say that warehouses and factories etc being operated would have more than 3 trucks hour in an out.