Air traffic noise? (Lounged)

[Michael Palaeologus]

I'm a plane geek and love the things, noise and all.

Who else remembers the heady days of Concorde? It used to blast over every evening at about 7ish. Loud as a very loud-thing - but GOD it was beautiful.

[andyhcfc]

KirstyH, I also moved here recently, although from West London, Chiswick (bet not many peeps do that) and was very dispointed to hear noisy planes starting around 4:30ish in the morning, much noisier than the Acton side of Chiswick where I resided. It is variable, and down to winds etc although the O2 dome is a landmark for pilots on their way to Heathrow, so I guess we are stuck with it!!

[uberdude]

There's definitely been an increase in traffic in the early evenings particularly bad on fridays.

I know an ATC and he says that he takes planes off the biggin hill stack (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Biggin_Hill_Airport) and turns them on to approach for heathrow.

I have asked him not to but he declined (I Have considered abducting his first born)... The turn often requires an altitude correction climb (more engine noise) as the bulge of forest hills looms up (check the view from Honor Oak Road towards Bromley). Then the planes have to lose velocity to get on the glide path to Hrow, this generates a lot of whiney "airframe noise" . These noisy turns are made even louder by compression effects as they come over the local hills, this does seem to project more noise than average down onto ED. Similar exacerbations have been noted near Hilly Fields SE4. As ever CAA responses to my complaints over the past 12 years have met with the same lame response ie no worse than average &c.

[BarryRoad]

uberdude, what a graet insight!

I thought about going into ATC when I found out I couldn't become a commercial pilot because I'm colourblind. Then I thought I probably couldn't hack the stress...

[Brendan]

I blame the Red Arrows.

[Michael Palaeologus]

If you listen very carefully you can also hear the gentle clinking of ankle bells ...

[jb1000]

uberdude

thanks for the info. I live on One Tree Hill and we bear the brunt of this sudden upsurge of traffic, as planes seem to turn round the hill and join a flight path which leads over East Dulwich. I have complained to Tessa Jowell, who is apparently 'looking into the matter', though a few more e-mails with some more authoritative background may well help move things on. The BAA complaints route is evidently a whitewash.

Incidentally, this is set to get worse for all of us if the third runway at Heathrow is given the go ahead. The only major party supporting this is Labour.

[jb1000]

uberdude

sorry, meant to ask in the last post. Why have they changed the routes?

[tommy]

So with the proposed doubling of aircraft out of Heathrow - is it time for another campaign...?

[Administrator]

moving this to the Lounge

[alieh]

-- moved topic --

[BarryRoad]

I don't get what they're doing with this third runway plan.

I heard that the 'Heathrow Minute' (the timing between each landing aircraft) has been reduced to 45 seconds. This is clearly mental and they use one runway for arrivals and the other for departures, meaning that departing aircraft often have to cross the arrivals runway during the 45 seconds between landing aircraft. Holy Cr#p!

Anyway, I like the idea of a third runway for safety's sake, but if they're just going to cram in extra flights with it, then... well, I don't like it!

[SteveT]

Should flights over London be permitted at all? There are airports

surrounding London. I heard them at about 4.30am day before yesterday.

It was so quiet when BA had the strike, London became a quietish village.