Near miss with 5 airliners waiting for T/O on taxiway "C" in SFO!
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Though I agree that the public goes/is insane, I think the real issue is twofold. First, most commercial US airports servicing larger cities were built on open sites in the bi-plane era. Take a look at some 1930s pictures. Open land all around where the predecessor field locations (mostly AAF sites) were chosen. Hundreds of fast jet flights with hundreds of people on board each was never a thought back then. Second, the character of the traveling public has changed from business/well-to-do (say up through the 60s) to everyone now. People now want cheap seats, and really don't care about a two hour+ drive to get to an airport that will save them $100 in airfare.
Good luck trying to add a runway in the northeast - at some locations that would require a really really really big aircraft carrier. Denver and Dallas/Ft. Worth recognized the dilemma and placed their next sites well outside of city limits where coincidentally there was a lot of open space. Bet you in another 50 years, not much open space around either. Even so, it took decades (and finally a threat from the gov't that it would pick the site) for Dallas and Ft. Worth to agree to a location. And do you remember the reaction to closing Stapleton? People were praying for that baggage system to continue to eat bags. Flew in to Stapleton on a Monday and was supposed to fly out of DIA on Thursday. Stapleton was a ghost town - not even a news cart or a shoe-shine location let alone food. All back on Thursday when I again left out of Stapleton - news cart guy told me that was their third move to DIA and back again.
Used to take me 15 minutes to hop in the car and start pre-flight. Then the N-S runway was closed, land sold, office park added. Then they built a middle school less than half a mile from the remaining threshold. One overshoot with fatalities (hit by on-coming car as ac exited runway onto a street) and bam - airport closed for good due to threat to school.
Good luck trying to add a runway in the northeast - at some locations that would require a really really really big aircraft carrier. Denver and Dallas/Ft. Worth recognized the dilemma and placed their next sites well outside of city limits where coincidentally there was a lot of open space. Bet you in another 50 years, not much open space around either. Even so, it took decades (and finally a threat from the gov't that it would pick the site) for Dallas and Ft. Worth to agree to a location. And do you remember the reaction to closing Stapleton? People were praying for that baggage system to continue to eat bags. Flew in to Stapleton on a Monday and was supposed to fly out of DIA on Thursday. Stapleton was a ghost town - not even a news cart or a shoe-shine location let alone food. All back on Thursday when I again left out of Stapleton - news cart guy told me that was their third move to DIA and back again.
Used to take me 15 minutes to hop in the car and start pre-flight. Then the N-S runway was closed, land sold, office park added. Then they built a middle school less than half a mile from the remaining threshold. One overshoot with fatalities (hit by on-coming car as ac exited runway onto a street) and bam - airport closed for good due to threat to school.
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Though I agree that the public goes/is insane, I think the real issue is twofold. First, most commercial US airports servicing larger cities were built on open sites in the bi-plane era. Take a look at some 1930s pictures. Open land all around where the predecessor field locations (mostly AAF sites) were chosen.
Recall, first Grand Central Air Terminal (Glendale) was the very early airline airport. Then, it became insufficient, so airline operations were moved to Burbank.
And, look at San Diego today. Absurd!
California has a horrible track record except for Sacramento. They did pull that one out of the bag. Not an international airport, though, nor was that intended.
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Paine Field in Everett, existing one that Boeing uses for new aircraft. Public uproar when Horizon tried to add 2 flights per day.
San Diego is a good example, that parking structure was permitted (and approved by the FAA) for another level. The only reason there isnt, is that the workers refused after getting scared to death building what they did.
Heathrow and Gatwick, extra runways hasnt quite set in yet with the public
These crazy scenarios with simulataneous parallel ops, reduced sep appraoch, time based sep, and other capacity strategies are here to stay, and are only going to get tighter until the 99.9% is crossed.
San Diego is a good example, that parking structure was permitted (and approved by the FAA) for another level. The only reason there isnt, is that the workers refused after getting scared to death building what they did.
Heathrow and Gatwick, extra runways hasnt quite set in yet with the public
These crazy scenarios with simulataneous parallel ops, reduced sep appraoch, time based sep, and other capacity strategies are here to stay, and are only going to get tighter until the 99.9% is crossed.
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Apple picking
KORD. So named, for Orchard Field, which in turn was named for Orchard Place, a small farming village northwest of Chicago. In the 1930s traffic was outgrowing Municipal Airport (the airport now known as Midway, MDW) and the city sought a site for a second airport but without any decision. In 1942 Douglas Aircraft needed a site for a manufacturing plant (and accompanying runways) for C-54 aircraft and an open area near Orchard Place had suitable transportation access especially rail links. The then-CAA insisted that the main runway be configured with parallel directional orientation to Municipal's runway, and hence the construction of the first 32-14 runway. (Willow Run airport near Detroit, Michigan, needless to say never reached O'Hare's league - but its legacy likewise is military aircraft manufacturing, and indeed nothing in Chicago O'Hare Int'l Airport can even remotely compete or match with the Second World War bomber plant heritage at Willow Run.)
The lesson, for those wishing not to be consigned to failure by the mistakes or oversights of the past, is that merely moving out of the city, out into open space, is not a long-lasting solution to the airport needs of an evolving aeronautics and air transport sector. This is beyond the mere sad political theater of a mayoral administration in Chicago designating the small, barely capable airport in Gary, Indiana as Chicago's "third airport." Rather, like generals who cliché always assigns to fighting the last war, responsible urban and regional planning officials historically have not had the luxury of looking beyond the necessarily foreseeable future, and thus have not asked (perhaps with rare exceptions), "what if?" But if any of the nascent aeronautics revolutions occurs - SSTs, space tourism, SSTOs, semi-autonomous aircraft - today's airport planning will seem as incredibly weak and ill-informed as, as, . .......as the ridiculous assertion that a major air carrier flight operation could come within the yardage of a couple three first downs of a catastrophic landing atop a row of planes on a taxiway at a major airport. Ah, well, uhhh, wait.
The lesson, for those wishing not to be consigned to failure by the mistakes or oversights of the past, is that merely moving out of the city, out into open space, is not a long-lasting solution to the airport needs of an evolving aeronautics and air transport sector. This is beyond the mere sad political theater of a mayoral administration in Chicago designating the small, barely capable airport in Gary, Indiana as Chicago's "third airport." Rather, like generals who cliché always assigns to fighting the last war, responsible urban and regional planning officials historically have not had the luxury of looking beyond the necessarily foreseeable future, and thus have not asked (perhaps with rare exceptions), "what if?" But if any of the nascent aeronautics revolutions occurs - SSTs, space tourism, SSTOs, semi-autonomous aircraft - today's airport planning will seem as incredibly weak and ill-informed as, as, . .......as the ridiculous assertion that a major air carrier flight operation could come within the yardage of a couple three first downs of a catastrophic landing atop a row of planes on a taxiway at a major airport. Ah, well, uhhh, wait.
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West Coast, I was involved in the design of the structure.
It was permitted to go another story higher. When you look at the structure now, you can see that the ramps are not complete and just end, with an odd configuration to turn around and back out.
You are so smart using such a big word!
It was permitted to go another story higher. When you look at the structure now, you can see that the ramps are not complete and just end, with an odd configuration to turn around and back out.
You are so smart using such a big word!
I wonder what year they displaced the 27 threshold at SAN to where it is now. When on the visual glide path, the parking structure does not really seem much of a factor as it is now. It must have been quite sporty at an earlier time!
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Not to dismiss the general theme of your point, but there has, as far as I can tell, been nothing but general excitement at the fact AS is starting daily passenger service out of Paine next year. I don't know when Horizon (or do you mean Alaska?) tried what you are referring to, but the mood seems very different there now.
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Can't answer that one. I do recall that ALPA was quite upset because the FAA Part 77 specialist did the incorrect calculation, thus issuing a no hazard determination. A subsequent correct calculation showed it should have been a hazard determination. But, by the time the structure had been completed so the FAA just shrugged their collective shoulders. Such a sterling safety agency...not.
As sporty as KSAN is, try the procedure to 27, circle to land on 18 at NAS North Island at mins in a heavy C-5! In the turn, I could only wonder what it sounded like in terminal building.
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Having the ILS on stby and switching it to active at 4 miles is not an option on the A320?
I am starting to appreciate my old 738 more,
Time to dig out the old A320 manual and review what I am missing out on.
By the way , no GPS , how is that even allowed in an airliner. Seriously.
Oh and visual at night, how safe is that, rely. Not this night anyway.
I am starting to appreciate my old 738 more,
Time to dig out the old A320 manual and review what I am missing out on.
By the way , no GPS , how is that even allowed in an airliner. Seriously.
Oh and visual at night, how safe is that, rely. Not this night anyway.
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New NTSB SFO taxiway overflight video
NTSBgov
Published on May 2, 2018
May 2, 2018: San Francisco International Airport Terminal 2 security camera video of the July 7, 2017, Air Canada taxiway overflight.
Published on May 2, 2018
May 2, 2018: San Francisco International Airport Terminal 2 security camera video of the July 7, 2017, Air Canada taxiway overflight.
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Aircraft Performance Report
The lowest adjusted radio altitude (nominally indicating the bottom of the landing gear, the
fuselage would be an additional 5 ft higher), which occurred as the airplane passed over
PAL115, was 60 ft. Measurements were made using an image of the security camera footage to
confirm this altitude reading. The image when ACA759 and PAL115 are closest is quite small
in the camera frame, so measurements made from the pixilated image are approximate. The
vertical stabilizer of the A340 was well illuminated and is 8.2 m (26.9 ft) tall (Figure 6).
Assuming ACA759 passed directly over PAL1151, the distance between the two airplanes in the
image was measured to be 13.5 ft. Allowing for uncertainty, this measurement was bracketed to
be between 10 and 20 ft of air gap. An A340 is 55 ft tall, so the altitude of the fuselage of
ACA759 as it passed over PAL115 was between 65 and 75 ft. This is consistent with the
adjusted radio altitude.
fuselage would be an additional 5 ft higher), which occurred as the airplane passed over
PAL115, was 60 ft. Measurements were made using an image of the security camera footage to
confirm this altitude reading. The image when ACA759 and PAL115 are closest is quite small
in the camera frame, so measurements made from the pixilated image are approximate. The
vertical stabilizer of the A340 was well illuminated and is 8.2 m (26.9 ft) tall (Figure 6).
Assuming ACA759 passed directly over PAL1151, the distance between the two airplanes in the
image was measured to be 13.5 ft. Allowing for uncertainty, this measurement was bracketed to
be between 10 and 20 ft of air gap. An A340 is 55 ft tall, so the altitude of the fuselage of
ACA759 as it passed over PAL115 was between 65 and 75 ft. This is consistent with the
adjusted radio altitude.
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Perhaps it’s the camera angle but judging from the change in landing light illumination angle, it seems the pull-up is rather abrupt when he flies over the tail of the waiting aircraft. Last moment reaction? Would be interesting to know the precise moment they advanced the power.
Perhaps it’s the camera angle but judging from the change in landing light illumination angle, it seems the pull-up is rather abrupt when he flies over the tail of the waiting aircraft. Last moment reaction? Would be interesting to know the precise moment they advanced the power.
