BarryRoad

shd - BAA (British Airport Authority) is the operator for London (and other) airports, easily confused with the airline, BA (British Airways). Manchester is operated by MAG, Manchester Airport Group, etc.

I was up at my girlfriend's house in Hackney and could see them from there too!

I'm such an aviation geek that I'd pay for the privelege. My girlfriend, however, would not, so we're not going to move there. Off topic, sorry.

http://lhr.webtrak-lochard.com/template/index.html Above is a link to webtrak - it monitors the aircraft inbound to Heathrow (haven't watched long enough to see if it's all London traffic). There's a 24 hour delay due to obvious security reasons, but if you note down the times of disturbance you can track down who's fault it was. I wouldn't bother phoning BAA to ask them if the 0603 VS002 Virgin flight inbound to Heathrow, which you tracked at 4,300ft over your house 24 hours previous, can be re-routed from now on. They'll laugh in your face... Actually, it might be funny to do that prank call. If you do, record it for me :-)

Horrible isn't it? The 'six degrees' rule dictates that most people know someone who knows someone, etc who was lost there. Luckily my brother and mom were still on the drive from North Carolina, where they were on holiday, to Boston to get their flights, so they turned back and stayed for a further couple of days until airspace was opened again. My Uncle, a Port Authority policeman, was lucky in that his partner on the PATH train beat went in to the offices to file all of their documents from their shift that morning, but unlucky in losing a work partner and friend... and then having to go in for the rescue and clean up operations. I think I might avoid this thread for the rest of the day.. getting a bit emotional!

On my mom's sofa sick as a dog with a high fever watching Neighbours, expecting my mom and brother to be on an American Airlines flight out of Boston. Not a pleasant 24 hours.

... please don't lounge for this.. "Now all you have to do is to get your neighbour to switch off their sodding car alarm"... and put some tyre spikes down for the Apollo 21 ice cream van that operates throughout winter.

I got this old map of Peckham and Dulwich somewhere on the interweb and Friern Farm was basically where my house is on Barry Road, I think... Pretty cool.

There has indeed been a change to the approach into both Heathrow and London City Airports. I'm trying to search for some hard evidence but can't find anything on paper (or interweb pdf). The change I've noticed hasn't been the actual direction or density of aircraft, but the altitude - particularly on London City inbound flights. It's lower, and because of that, noisier. Given there's nothing I can find on the interweb about this, I will use some aviation geekery to make a guess or two: - The weather : We all know it's been rubbish, and cloud cover may be leading to lower approaches for safer operations. - The weather II : Wind direction. Planes like to take off and land facing into the wind. Wind going over the wing increases lift, in addition to the lift produced by the aircraft moving forward. Heathrow's main active runways are 27R and 27L because the wind usually comes from the west (the 27 on the runway name indicates a bearing of 270 degrees, West). If the wind isn't doing what it usually does, the flight path including the altitude may have to be changed to deal with this. We've been having dodgy weather and it might be because we're getting more northery or easterly winds that normal. Also, about a month ago I was at work up near Blackfriars and saw a few planes departing the area in the opposite area to usual (eg, taking off on 9L or 9R). This is very noisy because the engines are on almost full power. Haven't seen that happen since, though. - Marketing push to wind people up until the A380 starts operating and then they can show off just how quiet it is? ha ha EDIT - I also just read that wind can actually blow noise pollution around, so again, changes in wind direction could be causing more noise. Mental. So, as I said, there probably is some paperwork that would point us in the right direction as to why this would be the case, but I can't find it. But maybe it is just down to the weather....

Lottery syndicate, anyone?

I'll probably be at the CPT anyway, despite vowing to myself to stay in on Friday night after a rather busy social week.

sounds cool! bring it tonight?

A trendy warehouse conversion office near Southwark tube station.

Mockney - want to swap your Mariokart DS for my Cookin' Mama for a bit? I'll look after it! Tried to buy it second hand at Blockbuster last week and head office had it in as more expensive used than new! Argh!

Yep, sometimes they just feel like they're slipping a bit when you take them out. Also when you give them a clean, just check how firm they are!

My dad got these http://www.shure.com/ProAudio/Products/PersonalMonitorSystems/us_pro_E3_content for me a year or so ago. They're great, but will also set you back a bit. They come with all different size ear insert things so you can choose the most comfortable ones for you. Be warned though, as soon as there is ANY indication of the rubber insert slipping off the main headphone bit, change the insert! I spent a couple hours at Kings A&E feeling like an idiot waiting to get the thing out of my inner ear. No damage done, but just bloody annoying!

Don't tell my boss that!

ohboy ohboy ohboy ohboy ohboy ohboy !!!!!!!!!!!!! Have you seen this?! Google Earth flight simulator! http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2007/08/hidden_google_earth_fligh.html?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890 you have to press the key combo quite a few times to get it working, but once it's going it's pretty cool. Might be worth making your google earth cache a bit bigger too :-)

Has anyone said Quincy yet? I love that tune.

Good stuff :-) I'll PM him :-)

I had a lovely weekend. I went back to work at the CPT for a few shifts as all but one of the regular staff were at Reading Festival with Keef. Nice and quiet, ate too many crisps. Also saw Ant stroll by with his family - great weather for it :-)

Mockers - is your designer mate Paul on here? I can't remember but met him at the Plough. Maybe we can sort a couple logo ideas out?

me

Noah Wile, obviously.

All the aliens I've ever met are always raving on about these 'weather balloon' things they invented.