Neill Wood wrote:
"Richard J." wrote in message
k...
Dave Babb wrote:
I recently flew from LHR, on the way up the taxi driver mentioned an
11pm curfew for flights.
From the hotel window we could see the operating runway.
It was interesting that after about 22:45 then number of inbound
flights pretty much dried up, supporting a 23:00 shut down, but
there was a queue of flights waiting to take off until pretty much
23:30. How does this work ? Is there a grace period ? Are there
exceptions etc...

There isn't a simple answer to this! Night flights to and from
Heathrow
are regulated by the Department for Transport in three ways:

- A maximum number of night flights per season (summer/winter) for
the
period 23:30 to 06:00.

- A noise quota system under which each type of aircraft has a Quota
Count (QC) of 0.5, 1, 2, 4, 8 or 16 according to how much noise it
generates. QCs are set separately for take-off and landing, and
depend
also on engine type and other features. There are maximum QC totals
set
per season in order to encourage airlines to use quieter planes.
This
too applies to the period 23:30 to 06:00.

- There is a ban on the use of the noisiest aircraft, QC 8 and 16,
between 23:00 and 07:00. This is the only curfew. (QC 8 & 16
includes
for example older 747s, some 747-400s at maximum take-off weight,
some
older 737s etc.)

It is up to BAA as owners of the airport to regulate flights in
accordance with these limits. For further details, go to
http://www.baa.com/main/airports/hea...row_frame.html ,
hover your mouse over Aircraft Noise on the left-hand side to expand
that heading and click on Night Flights.

It used to be that the last flight out of Heathrow was always a
Nigerian Airways plane that had a reputation for breaking down and
holding up other flights.


'scuse me if I'm missing something but if it's the last flight and breaks
down how can it delay anything else?


;-)