I am interested in getting involved in supporting SFO's expansion plans (enough third-world on-time reliability!). Although I am there quite often, I have never seen any information or URLs on how to get involved; anyone knows?

Thanks.

I live near the airport and fly out of SFO quite a bit (1K on United with all flights originating out of SFO). I don't believe in the plan put forth by SFO. In fact I am cynical enough to think that the airport management tries to exaggerate the delays to build support for their runway expansion plan.

The supposed problem is that the 2 predominant runways are too close together to allow simultaneous landing of two planes in poor whether. Yet the plan they espouse lengthens the runways by 8,000 feet. There are no planes made today or planned for the future that require such long runways.

I think there are at least 2 additional solutions that don't require so much bay fill or so much expense:

1) Better radar to allow landing of planes on the two runways under instrument conditions. BTW--this is already in progress with the $20 million upgrade in air traffic control equipment/software--much cheaper the $2.5 billion for new runways.

2) If the problem is that the runways are too close together, they should just build a second runway that is spaced further apart rather than building two runways that are very long (I have to admit my bias here--I live in Foster City, and the new longer runways will bring quite a bit more noise to my community as well as destroy prime sites for my favorite sport of windsurfing).

mikel51

As a private pilot, I can tell you that whenever the ceiling is below 3000-3500 feet (i.e. marine layer/"fog" layer or storm) OR the wind is not from the West (like in winter storms), the capacity of the airport for arrivals goes from 60 per hour (daylight) or 50 (night) down to 27-30 because parallel visual landings CANNOT be performed. This is 100% due to the fact that the runways are too close togeter. (More info at http://www.fly.faa.gov/ois/west/zoa/sfo/frames.htm ).

As far as I can tell, there's no ground-based equipment that would allow for instrument arrivals on runways separated by 750' -- the current FAA requirement is 4300'.
It was my understanding that SFO proposed building a runway in the Bay, far enough from the current one to permit parallel instrument landings, and that's what I would support.

BTW, according to Government data at http://www.bts.gov/ntda/oai , in February a whopping 39% of United's flights arriving at SFO were over 15 minutes late or cancelled outright -- and this in a winter with well-below average precipitation (and number of storms)! On the way out, the comparable number was "only" 31%.

The plan is to build two runways. One aspect is to separate them far enough to allow simultaneous insturment landing on both runways. The other part of the plan is to extend the runways so that they extend >8,000 feet further south than the southern ends of the current runways.

Actually, simultaneous independent instrument approaches down to 3000' separation are allowed as long as a Precision Runway Monitor (PRM) System is in use.

SFO is planning on using SOIA approaches using a PRM. Aircraft on 28L will conduct a straight in approach, while 28R approaches will be conducted using an offset ILS. When the aircraft are 3000' apart, the a/c on the right side will have to acquire the adjacent aircraft visually, at which point they will fly a VFR approach.

This will allow for the use of simultaneous approaches down to lower minimums.

San Mateo County Supervisors Mike Nevin and Mark Church hosted a forum at the College of San Mateo on Monday July 30, 2001 to discuss issues related to jet noise, air pollution, traffic, and most important, plans to fill in more of the bay for new runways at SFO. About 90 people attended the first meeting to discuss these issues.

While San Francisco residents will vote on a Charter amendment in November that would approve or reject any plan to fill 100 or more acres of the bay, San Mateo Country residents do not currently have the veto power over new runway construction, though they bear the brunt of the problems associated with overflights, pollution and traffic.

I would recommend contacting the supervisors mentioned above if you are interested in getting involved with the airport expansion plans at SFO.

A fourth and final community meeting was held today at 9:30 at the Isaac Newton Center Auditorium in the Santa Clara County Government Center in San Jose to discuss concerns regarding plans to fill in a portion of the San Francisco Bay to reconfigure the current runways as well as other issues such as the airport's delays problems.

The meeting, which ended at 11:30 am, was hosted by County Supervisor Jim Beall; Jim Cunneen, president and chief executive office of the San Jose Chamber of Commerce and Connie Correll, executive vice president of TechNet.

The forums were designed to include public opinion in the decision-making process, according to Kandace Bender, spokeswoman for the Airfield Development Bureau.