AIRPORT FLIGHT "PATHS"

 

©Ross Coster
[Convenor, Blue Mountains Conservation Society No Western Sydney Airport Subcommittee]

When the Western Sydney Airport draft EIS was released, we were all horrified by the proposed flight paths.
They included a 'merge point' over Glenbrook, as well as flight paths over Blackheath, Katoomba, Lake Burragorang, and the Wollemi, Grose and Kanangra-Boyd Wilderness areas.

You can see these nice neat 'paths', combined into one image on our campaign page.
The flight path maps generated a heap of local angst, and resulted in a pop-up anti-Airport group named RAWSA (Residents Against Western Sydney Airport). We network well with RAWSA and NoBCA (No Badgerys Creek Airport) based in Blacktown.

In the final EIS, the Airport Proponents removed the 'indicative' flight paths and told us the flight paths would be developed after the Airport construction started, and would avoid homes and wilderness.

This felt at the time like classic bait-and-switch tactics.
Show us a horrible outcome, get us all angry, then remove the main point of contention, thus deflating the anger.

This didn't work of course, and we are still campaigning hard to stop this nightmare project.
Why didn't it work? Because there are no such thing as 'flight paths;' and there never was.

When a plane is on approach to an Airport, it needs to spend the last few kilometres on a predictable path, following beacons and instrument landing systems to 'hit' the runway.

When a plane takes off, this is not what happens.
Planes take off into the wind, turn, and head for their destination.

Given there are hundreds of destinations, the 'paths' look more like spaghetti.

The image below is of Aircraft movements in Sydney (at Mascot and Bankstown) for a single day.
Move this pile of flights west 35km to Badgerys Creek, and you get the idea.

You can generate your own similar image here by turning on "Show Today's Flights".

Western Sydney Airport will 'use' the suburban areas of Western Sydney, as well as the World Heritage Listed National Parks of the Blue Mountains, as a huge area of approach and depart airspace.

The noise, fine particulates, metals, toxic gases and unburned fuel will rain down on us, and our precious bushland, 24 hours per day.
There will be no 'quiet' locations, no places left untouched, all areas will be affected.

The existing flights from Mascot and Bankstown will also still happen, using altitude to overlap airspace, so the noise we all experience now stays, and a whole extra layer, at a lower altitude, gets added.

When a plane is at half the altitude, the noise level quadruples. So much for our peaceful lifestyle!

We all need to be writing letters to our Politicians telling them this is not OK, this project must not happen.

Letters are more effective than e-mails, but if you want the easy way, go here: