"Richard J." wrote in message
. uk...
Colin wrote:
Coming back along the A30 this evening it was like a war-zone, with
Diwali fireworks all over the sky in the Cranford / Hatton /
Hounslow West area.
These pyrotechnics were exploding uncomfortably close to aircraft
on their decent to Heathrow, all around and even seemingly above
the aircraft.

Possibly true, but how do you know they were "uncomfortably close"?
Judging the relative positions of fireworks and aircraft in three
dimensions at night is difficult enough, but probably impossible if you
yourself are moving. It's very easy to misjudge completely the position
of a plane relative to the ground.

I know that aircraft landing is mainly automated, but surely this
activity is dangerous to aircraft safety as it can only serve to
distract pilots on final approach. Surely they could have banned
fireworks on aircraft approaches as part of the recent Fireworks
act.

It may have been contrary to CAA guidelines, as published at
http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/33/CAP736.PDF

Prosecution is not unknown, for example see
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=132552006

--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

The fireworks were exploding all over the area. There was certainly no
attempt at an 'exclusion zone' along the glide slope, so there was the
potential for rockets to actually hit the planes.

At this particular point prior to landing the planes are about 400-500ft
above the ground. Rockets explode between 300 and 800ft in general. So if
there are no controls there is of course a chance they could hit a plane.

But apart from hitting a plane, there is the much higher probability of
fireworks distracting a pilot on final approach.

The police weren't stopping the fireworks which were going off around here
well after midnight last night (in breach of the new law). There were so
many fireworks you would have needed a major operation from the Met to stop
it altogether (and imagine the outrage then).

Colin