FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Ask the staffer
Thread: Ask the staffer
View Single Post
Old Jun 25, 2019, 1:58 am
  #195  
Lost-in-Space
 
Join Date: Mar 2014
Location: Madrid
Programs: BA GfL
Posts: 156
Originally Posted by Heathrow Tower


Heathrow Airport are planning to use the 3 runways in four different configurations and rotate through them to provide respite.

You can see them described in the latest consultation that has just opened.

Essentially, if you consider working from northernmost to southernmost, and where M=Mixed, D=Departures and L=Landing, the modes will be;
MDL
MLD
LDM
DLM

Mixed mode won’t be a planned configuration on the middle runway, because the missed approach procedure has to go straight ahead (there’s a runway either side), which means it will conflict with a departure from the same runway (ideally you’d want the missed approach to turn away from the runway if there’s a departure just getting airborne). To enable mixed mode on the middle runway, you’d have to build in a procedural longitudinal separation, for example, the departure must be rolling by the time the inbound is at 6nm from touchdown (so that if there is a go around, there’s enough separation from the departure).....this restriction would cripple the throughput of that runway.

Hope that makes sense!

HeathrowTower, many thanks, nicely explained!
Lost-in-Space is offline