London Banter - View Single Post

Malcolm Weir

On Fri, 19 Dec 2003 02:13:27 +1030, (Aidan Stanger)
wrote:

[ Snip ]

ATC already have "little time to react" in many cases, and it's got
nothing to do with the number of runways.

But how often is it a "fail to danger" situation with a complex
solution?

Most of the time.

Did you see the BBC docufake "The Day Britain Stopped"? Their plane
crash scenario is not very realistic under the present situation, but if
a third runway were to be constructed then the risk would increase by
several orders of magnitude.

This is pure nonsense, a simple "fear tactic".

Do you always regard the highlighting of possible risks as a "fear
tactic"?

No. But until you provide some shred of support for your claim that
the risk "would increase by several orders of magnitude" (that is, by
*at least* 100 times), you will be treated as a scaremonger.

The issue is not the identification of "possible risks", but your
bald-faced unsupported assertion that the risks are so dramatically
increased.

Having already spotted two major errors in the programme, I
doubted the reason for the plane crash because I thought it would be
obvious that (with only 2 runways) the thing to do would be to send the
aircraft that had failed to land round the other way. When they
mentioned that there had been a similar incident a few years ago that
resulted in a near miss, I looked on the net to see if that was true,
and found it was. I don't have the URL to hand, but try asking Google
for "UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch - Aircraft Incident Report
No: 5/98"

(Not to mention that
ridiculous and unfounded hyperbole with that "several orders of
magnitude", a statistic that's based on, errr, nothing).

I admit I don't know the figures, but when the standard missed approach
procedure is to go round on the side where aircraft aren't taking off,
do you really think that the number of potentially dangerous movements
for mixed approaches WOULDN'T increase by several orders of magnitude if
aircraft were taking off on both sides?

First, on what insanity are you projecting on ATC? Why would aircraft
*be* taking off on both sides?

To illustrate the foolishness of your fear tactics, let's call the
runways Left, Right, and New. All proposals thus far have New be
much shorter than Left or Right, and is located to the north. So if
you are using New for departures to the west, you'd *also* use Right
for departures, and Left for arrivals. Aircraft departing on New
would bank gently right shortly after take-off, allowing aircraft
using Right to continue straight, and go-around manoeuvre on Left
would turn to the left.

Etc.

You seem determined to construct a totally assinine scenario, point to
it, and claim that for the UK to do what is routine in the USA would
immediately result in massive death and destruction.

I would simply note that your scenario has little or nothing to do
with reality.

(E.g. the new runway, to the north of the current long pair, will be
shorter than the others...)

Los Angeles International Airport has FOUR parallel runways. It ain't
a big deal, despite what the doom-sayers claim.

Are they offset so there is scope for an early turn?

Each pair is not, but the northern pair is further west than the
southern.

IIRC each pair operates totally independently, with T/O and landing
clearances being given regardless of what is going on on the other two
runways.

Do aircraft land on the middle runways while others take off at the edge
runways?

Usually not. The landing aircraft use the outer runways, with
take-offs on the inner ones.

This has little to do with issues of safety, and more to do with
managing the flow of traffic on the ground (i.e. departures all go to
the end of the runway, but arriving aircraft can be and are dispersed
along the landing runway's turn-off to take advantage of multiple
simultaneous runway crossings when there's a pause in departures.

How many near misses have there been?

"Orders of magnitude" less than you'd like!

Malc.