Should Heathrow Get the 3rd Runway

No it's not air force one, it is a shadow.

And where are they going to put a third runway? it's all built up around the airport.

I know this is why the resedents are haveing protests against it so...

What ever happends happends.

Yeah - a third runway (about 6000ft as opposed to the 12,000ft of the other two, ILS-equipped runways) would need extensive demolition and use of green belt.

I can see why residents wouldn't be happy. If they all volunteer to stop taking flights I might start taking their objections more seriously.

Here's the proposed plan for the new runway:

antone wrote:

Yeah - a third runway (about 6000ft as opposed to the 12,000ft of the other two, ILS-equipped runways) would need extensive demolition and use of green belt.

I can see why residents wouldn't be happy. If they all volunteer to stop taking flights I might start taking their objections more seriously.

Here's the proposed plan for the new runway:

Isn't the runway a bit short then? I mean.. 7000 feet isn't much to accomodate 747's etc.. They can get 737 or A320 or smaller..
And it is going to like Schiphol much 😛 Schiphol runway Polderbaan is far away from the airport too
😛

Jeez... you'd waste half your gas taxiing out to there!!!

Heathrow's problem is it is just too cramped for the volume and size of aircraft that come through there... they'd need to do soome major overhauling I think, and I highly doubt that will happen... they just don't have the space at or around the airport.

Bartfs wrote:

Isn't the runway a bit short then? I mean.. 7000 feet isn't much to accomodate 747's etc.. They can get 737 or A320 or smaller..
And it is going to like Schiphol much 😛 Schiphol runway Polderbaan is far away from the airport too
😛

Well, when you think about it, a Cessna requires as much runway space and a departure slot, just like a 747. So overall, the size of the aircraft isn't Heathrow's main problem.

That is, if the smaller aircraft could use the short runway, there'd be more space on the other runways for the bigger planes.

belgeode wrote:

Jeez... you'd waste half your gas taxiing out to there!!!

Heathrow's problem is it is just too cramped for the volume and size of aircraft that come through there... they'd need to do soome major overhauling I think, and I highly doubt that will happen... they just don't have the space at or around the airport.

Yeah. They were talking about a sixth terminal to go with the new runway, which might save some taxiing I guess. If they moved all of the flights to places like Manchester, Birmingham, Inverness, Aberdeen and so on to this new terminal and runway, it may help things.

The alternative seems to be to build new facilities (including a runway?) at Gatwick instead. That's less built up. They even thought about Stansted, but seem to have decided against it. It seems the costs of work there would raise the operating charges airlines pay to the airport by a fair amount. Stansted relies heavily on budget operators like Ryanair and EasyJet, who have small profit margins and would not pay higher costs.

I flew into Schiphol about 6 months ago. I am not sure but judging by the length of the taxi (1/2 hour,) it was probably that runway. What is quite funny it that to get to the runway one has to go on a bridge over a road. When you drive down the road crossed there is a sign that says 'slow, aircraft crossing.' I guess this will raise some foriegner eyebrows from time to time.