planefinder.net

[stuart noble]

Tonight I will mostly be sitting on the fence tracking arrivals at Heathrow on my tablet. Sad eh? Don't try this at home, it's highly addictive

[Bob Eager]

I do the same but at flightradar24.com....not that we have so many arrivals on the approach to 'Kent International'...

[Dave Liquorice]

I occasionally look at the website ona clear day then wander outside to see if I can spot 'em at 35,000' B-)

I'd much rather know what the military stuff is that makes the windows rattle.

[Bob Eager]

It was good tracking the Dreamliners that were coming over every day in the summer, at about 2000 feet.

[Roger Mills]

+1

My house is about 13 miles from Birmingham Airport - more or less in line with the north/south runway, so lots of planes come over fairly low when approaching from the south. On a clear day, I can easily read "Emirates" on the underside of their twice daily 777 as it prepares to land.

One thing to watch is that if you leave Flightradar24 on for any length of time it uses a hell of a lot of bandwidth - so it's best suited to people on 'unlimited' internet packages.

[Andy Burns]

Doesn't Birmingham only have a single runway?

[harryagain]

You should get off your arse and get on one ;-)

[stuart noble]

I feel sorry for the poor devils in SW London. You shell out millions on a house in Richmond and you can't hear yourself speak.

[stuart noble]

Can't be bothered if I'm honest :-)

[Huge]

So? It's not like Heathrow is secret, is it?

[Tony Bryer]

The suggested third runway would take a proportion of air traffic away from Kew and Richmond but they're (predictably) dead against it.

[stuart noble]

Some things you can't buy e.g. silence I suppose there are technical reasons why the approach has to be along The Thames, prevailing winds etc

[Roland Perry]

In message , at 12:29:32 on Wed, 1 Jan 2014, stuart noble remarked:

It's probably easier for them, and they can't be bothered to do anything else. The old Hong Kong airport required a right angle turn only a few miles out, so in theory Heathrow's planes could approach from the north or south if the will was there.

[tony sayer]

Yep do that here and by and large it all ties up;!)...

Sad I know but..

One of them sliced thru the stay wire of a TV mast in fog once in your area;(...

[Huge]

Which was one of the reasons Kai Tak was a "Black Star" airport.

[Huge]

They won't tell you anything about the military stuff other than lies about there being "no operations in your area". I know, I've tried.

[Roger Mills]

There's also a shorter east/west runway which intersects the main runway, but that's not used very often - and never at the same time!

The vast majority of flights use the main runway - taking off and landing either in a northerly or southerly direction depending on wind direction and/or the whim of the air traffic controllers.

It's only the ones landing from the south which pass over my house - and they're still at around 5000 feet. If they're coming from the north - e.g. Scotland - but landing from the south, they execute a U-turn right over my house!

[Andy Burns]

Looking on google satellite map, it's not got runway markings, wikip says it's now only used as a taxiway.

[Roland Perry]

In message , at 14:52:17 on Wed, 1 Jan

2014, Huge remarked:

Only one of them though. I think avoiding the mountain and the harbour were much higher up the list.

[Huge]

Which bit of "one of the" was it you missed?