On (15 May 95) Bob Lawrence wrote to Paul Edwards...



 BL> I was out at the airport the other day, watching them landing

 BL> and taking off, and on a perfect day with just slight haze, I

 BL> coul see how easy it would be to use the wrong strip.



 PE> You could always try doing a Plane Dance in the hope of getting

 PE> them to crash, because just looking at them for the last 40

 PE> years and not seeing a single one of them crash doesn't seem to

 PE> have worked terribly well.



 BL>   That's true, if you believe that Australia has a special magic

 BL> (perhaps something to do with the Dreamtime) that prevents planes from

 BL> landing on the wrong parallel runway. On the other hand, if we assume

 BL> that Austrlaia is just part of the larger world, and that our lack of

 BL> plane crashes is merely question of numbers, seeing that we are only

 BL> 1% of the flying population of the planet, then we can expect it to

 BL> happen sometime soon. It happens world-wide, on average twice a year

 BL> as parallel runways become more common.



first time i saw parallel runways was on a school trip to heathrow

almost 40 years ago. afaik there has never been an accident there since

due to parallel runway use.



 BL>   I was simply reporting my observation. 



 BL>   The main runaway at Mascot is surrounded by taxi-ways, used

 BL> differently by the various aircraft depending on their type and

 BL> landing length (most smaller than 747s). While I watched, traffic was

 BL> west-to-east, for both takeoff and landing, and the new runway was not

 BL> in use until a 747 arrived from west-to-east.



 BL>   It frightened me, because for a moment it looked like it was going

 BL> to land on the other runway where a plane was still taxiing from a

 BL> previous landing. At touchdown, the separation is about 200m, and at

 BL> 200 kmph that is 250mS - not a lot.



 BL>   As I said, it is very easy to see how these accidents occur. It

 BL> should be quite exciting when they start running the airport the way

 BL> it is intended to be run, with simultaneous landings and takeoff in

 BL> opposite directions.



uh? the operation of any parallel runway system that i have ever seen

has both takeoffs and landings in the same direction. anything else is a

stunt show.



                        Keith



... I'm a modemer & I'm OK, I post all night & I work all day(yawn)



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