Flight Path out of IAH
 

First post here, so sorry if it is not the right spot or sort of topic... I have been at least silver elite every year since 2001, have 35,000 + EQM this year, so I fly a bit, but not as much or often as many of you. I have noticed a change, it seems, on some flights out of IAH as they go north. It seems speed and altitude are kept low for quite some time (10 minutes or so, according to Flight Tracker). First time I thought it could be weather related (flight to OMA in Sept), but it happened again Sunday on a trip to LAS with a clear sky. Must be some sort of control or noise thing??? Anyone else notice or know why?

Again, apologies if this is too far off topic for the forum.

I don't really think it's a change. They've been doing this for years out of IAH.

Houston had a test program in place allowing aircraft to exceed 250 knots below 10,000 feet on departures. That program ended, and now IAH departures must maintain 250 below 10k, just like every other airport.

At 10,000 feet we are allowed to accelerate to our optimum climb speed, which for most aircraft is near 300 knots. If you are restricted to an altitude below 10k for awhile (descending traffic above you), or speed restricted due to an aircraft right in front of you, you will be kept at 250 knots. :cool:

Departure Altitude
 

If you are departing to the north, the flight is kept below arriving traffic. When the airport has landings to the west, which is most of the time, the inbound traffic from the northwest arrives over the Woodlands and travels over Porter to the north of the airport. Once you have traveled far enough north after takeoff, the flight is past this traffic and you are cleared to a higher altitude. If I recall correctly, the flights are held to either 3000 or 4000 feet unless there is no traffic. In my experience, this takes about 5 - 10 minutes after takeoff, if you are departing on runway 15 L/R and there are arrivals on 26 L/R and 27.

Of course, 15 L/R are *southbound* departures that head towards the Galleria (if 15R) or east part of downtown (if 15L). Normally if you take off on 15L you bank far enough outside of the inbound traffic doing their U-Turns to land on 26/27. If you take off on 15R, though, it's a different story. They tend to turn you northbound pretty soon and that's when you might have a little bit of interference, but for the most part that doesn't happen it seems.

It's very rare that IAH uses 33 L/R for takeoff or landing.

Thanks for the replies and insights.

wrt 33 L/R, I was flying into IAH November 15, a day of extremely high winds from the north/northwest. Because planes were using 33 L/R to both take off and land things were quite backed up and after holding south of San Antonio for about 45 minutes we went to Austin to re-fuel and wait for an arrivial slot to open up. While in Austin I was talking to the pilot who said he was going to have to check his log book, but thought that he had probably not landed on 33 L/R in about 10 years. It is indeed rare to use that configuration to land.

Reminds me of the time that we landed on 25 at DEN (into a gale blowing from the west). I thought that we were going to clip one of the "peaks" on top of the main terminal. That was a shocker.