PIREP - A DISCUSSION & NEWS FORUM FOR PILOTS.

[PIREPorter]

Sydney Airport delays counter-productive

Spacing between arriving, and arriving and departing aircraft flying into and out of Sydney KSA is causing excessive burning of fuel and creating a larger than necessary carbon footprint, according to aviation critics.

Holding for aircraft arriving during peak morning and evening is usually not less than 30 minutes, and with some weather factored in, 60 minutes of flying holding patterns is almost guaranteed.

Minimum flight altitudes over federal Transport Minister Anthony Albanese's electoral area encompassing Rockdale, Carlton, mean arriving aircraft have to be vectored a long way south over Botany Bay to lose height, increasing fuel burn-offs for the sake of saving a few decibels of noise over Mr Albanese's voters.
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[Kaptin M]

Flying QF from SYD to BNE on Thursday, the (B767) flight was delayed by almost 1 hour because the operating cabin crew had been delayed on an inbound flight.

What spacing does SYD ATC use between arriving aircraft? I reckon it's a lot more than the Japanese use for ops into Narita and Haneda.

More high-speed exits off r/w 34 wouldn't go astray, either.
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A pilot is responsible for delivering the final product. The SAFE transportation of passengers to their destination.

[Travolta707]

Sydney air traffic controllers seem to get unfairly rapped at various times.
We like the slow Aussie pace you guys work at!
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Gone fishin!

[Keg]

Kapt, the spacing in SYD is as good as I've experienced anywhere else in the world given our runway set up. The two high speeds on 34 are in just about the right place. It's the 'high speeds' off 16R and 16L that are the problem....particularly given that they hang a 180 shortly after exiting the runway. They exit left off 16R is about 200 metres too close to 16R threshold making it easily missable with any float of 500'.
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Nunc est bibendum

[Scurvy.D.Dog]

... bout sums it up!
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KSA shoves about as many kero burning wake turbulence makers within its relatively small airport boundary as it can. Sure, there is traffic density (ground and airborne) variability, but much of that is borne out of curfew and scheduling etc
.
The one that always cracks me up (not the giggling type of crack up) is the omission of full length threshold taxiways at places like Hobart and Alice Springs.
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Hobart moves somewhere in the vicinity of 1.4 million pax p.a. How many 'vector miles' are used to sequence stretch arrivals to accomodate for 'after landing' and departing aircraft backtracks?!!
.
How much money p.a. in wasted JetA1, time, and unnecessary Aircrew and ATC workload
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In a word ..... DUMB!
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'... keep the taps open .. track direct to short final .. number one'

[glekichi]

Quote:

The one that always cracks me up (not the giggling type of crack up) is the omission of full length threshold taxiways at places like Hobart and Alice Springs.

Don't get me started!!

[glekichi]

Although if all goes well this week I may only be in Hobart for another month or so!

[Radar]

Sounds like someone has an interview
Good luck.

[glekichi]

Cheers Radar. Passed the interview - check flight on the pc12 next.
Back to topic though..... Nup, never flown into Sydney so not qualified to comment
Hobart though, lack of taxiways combined with lack of testicles from some of the controllers makes the place incredibly frustrating at times. As soon as there is any sign of a conflict one of the aircraft is sent via the new Zealand arrival or departure. I reckon a go around every now and then when things get too tight would be alot more efficient than the over cautiousness applied at the moment. Couple of good controllers but they are the exception rather than the rule.
Does anyone fly into Hobart as well as other regional airports on a regular basis? I don't know if it's a Hobart thing or an australian thing but the kiwi controllers certainly seemed to challenge themselves a lot more than the ones here. Is pushing things frowned on in Airservices, perhaps?

[Hugh J@rse]

Yep! Going there tomorrow ex CB. I find it interesting how they manage Cambridge into the mix.
I can't complain about HB - when you need a backtrack for departure, ATC just extend traffic on downwind. No biggie. What concerns me more about such places is the use of procedural separation, and the late changes to clearances on departure, etc. Reprogramming the box in the lined-up position with someone breathing down your neck on base/final is more of a concern than a backtrack.

There are plenty of regional ports we operate into (both controlled and not) where it's either a requirement to use the turning nodes (pavement limits), or due taxiway placement - backtrack. It's usually tightarsed councils that won't invest in airport infrastructure which causes the problems

Sydney? The most dysfunctional airport I've ever operated to/from. If I were to "blame" anything, it would be government interference. This is the real issue at SY IMO. They dictate movement caps/curfew/noise "sharing".

There's no votes in airports......

[Scurvy.D.Dog]

... have not flown into HB for years, and to be completely honest, don't know what the 'operating mode' is for the team down there, so cannot comment.
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H.J .. re-programming is a pain, we know that, but part of the reason it happens is both our towers have the majority of their traffic arriving from and departing to the north within about a 60degree splay. It means of course that conflicts require amending routes depending on where each are at the time you are about to go. Terrain and cloudbase add to the restrictions. Surveillance based services are not going to be that much different in that regard, in fact likely more restrictive (procedural standards close in are less restrictive that 3 or 5nm by radar).
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'... keep the taps open .. track direct to short final .. number one'

[Keg]

Hugh J@rse wrote:

Sydney? The most dysfunctional airport I've ever operated to/from. If I were to "blame" anything, it would be government interference. This is the real issue at SY IMO. They dictate movement caps/curfew/noise "sharing".

Saw a breath taking example of that last night. Inbound from BNE about 2030 Sydney time. Aircraft behind us was forced to hold at Bulga for one pattern due to SYD using one runway for arrivals. Only departures were on 34R. The crew requested 34R if 'no delay' to be told 'not available'. This noise sharing stuff sucked.

The other effect is that we ended up 18 miles to the south at 180 knots going through 4000' having been on V/S -500 for the last five minutes following a Qlink Dash 8. He could have quite easily landed on 34R (there were no departures on 34R when he landed) and thus we could have been cut in and saved about 400kg of fuel. I don't think the government quite realise how much 'carbon' we blow out the back of our engines due to their inane rules about who flys where.
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Nunc est bibendum

[J430]

Keg

It will not be very long and the Government will not care about carbo output anymore, however if you convinced the Big Q to start invoicing the government for added expense due to stupid policy, or Sue for Damages, then they might listen even a little bit.

J

[Kaptin M]

J430 wrote:

It will not be very long and the Government will not care about carbon output anymore

Because of the carbon emission tax, which will be added on to the ticket price.

Yep, holding and (excessive) vectoring going into SYD always has been an overkill, and the reason for increasing the scheduled flight time from 1 hour 10 mins to about 1 hour 30 mins on the SYD-BNE route.
But is there likely to be any change to the policies? I doubt it.

Keg wrote:

The two high speeds on 34 are in just about the right place.

The piece of "fantastic plastic" (A330) I came down to Sydney on managed to miss them - then again, they may have been looking at the clock and factoring duty/flight time payments into the equation.
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A pilot is responsible for delivering the final product. The SAFE transportation of passengers to their destination.

[Keg]

G'day Kap. When it's quiet ATC will often offer a 'roll through'. Of course it could also be an Airbus thing! I don't think I've ever missed either of those taxiways in a Boeing.
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Nunc est bibendum