Hi all,

I've been trying to refine my seat selection even further and I've got three questions for the FT hive mind:

1. Is it possible to determine the direction of take off (or landing) and runway to be used for an upcoming flight that you're on?
2. If you can, how do you do it?
3. How early can you find out?

I recently was on a flight to LAS and I ended up on the wrong side of the plane. Off the port side, we were climbing right beside Mt. Rainier and I missed the chance to take some awesome photos... so now I'm trying to make sure I'm on the right (correct) side of the plane every time. Advice?

The runway choice is typically based on the wind. Headwinds are preferred. You can view the weather data for Seattle here: http://flightaware.com/resources/airport/KSEA/weather which will give you observations and a forecast.

If you look here: http://www.airnav.com/airport/KSEA you can find a phone number for the ATIS (Automatic Terminal Information Service) in the communications section which should give you the runways in use, but it typically changes each hour.

As per the previous post, it depends on the weather.

Maybe at some airports, you can go with the statistics (e.g., 65% of the time, the wind blows that way), or you can try to change your seat assignment at the gate based on very recent weather conditions.

I have been on what seemed like incredibly long taxis, only to look out the window, and find we were still quite close to the gate where we started. I wonder if the reason for that is the wind changing while we were taxiing. Or maybe just some other operational reason, opening/closing a runway, something like that.

If you're flying with me, just make sure you always select the side opposite from the side I'm sitting in and you're gold!

True story :/

for the long of it, lets look at dca. approach from south is dominate. takeoff to north. if winds exceed 10-15 mph from south, they they switch. when wind gets over 30-35 mph from west, a short cross runway is used.

DCA has some larger planes in use for west coast flights. if the wind is less than about 20mph from the north, those guys will wait for a clear space, and take off down wind to the south.

you can probably get a good guess earlier in the same day by going to LiveATC, listening to the control tower of the airport, and seeing which way they're taking off. But, sometimes they do turn airports around if the wind changes. And if they use multiple runways for takeoffs not sure how you can determine which runway they'll use (though the direction should be similar)

Flight Aware could be another option. By looking at departures earlier in the day you can see which ways planes are heading out of the airport. But there's no sure way to know which way your plane will go as it depends on weather and other traffic.

While the other advice is all good, I would just use
www.aviationweather.gov
but that assumes you know something about & how to read aviation weather.

The simple answer, as others have already stated, is that wind dictates the direction of landing and takeoff. However, for up-to-the-minute info, this advice is solid. I tune in to LiveATC often and find it somewhat interesting in short bursts, especially at peak times or when the weather is a bit challenging.

use the historical trend for the seat at ticketing....closer to flight date, check the forecast & hope there's a window seat available on the other side if you want to change....

Hard or even impossible to be able to tell. You COULD use historical weather patterns and make an educated guess but weather reports are ever changing and you'll either be on the right side or you won't.

1 Is it possible to determine the direction of take off (or landing) and runway to be used for an upcoming flight that you're on?

2 If you can, how do you do it?

3 How early can you find out?

1: Not 100%, no. But close depending upon the airport.

2: Take off will always be into the prevailing wind. Beacuse most locations have winds in the same general direction the majority of the time, take offs will tend to be that direction. Some airports vary, but not much. In the absence of wind, take offs will generally adhere to noise abatement restrictions. PHX is unique. In the absence of wind (although generally west to east) they will reverse take off directions based on the time of day due to some contract between Phoenix and Tempe. SAN and LAX will almost always be toward the ocean, except during Santa Ana winds, usually in the fall. LAS is usually east to west, but has less predictable wind directions and will often move that to northerly take offs. ORD is a crapshoot. LHR will generally take off westerly.

3: Depends on the general airport, but given unsual weather you can find out that day.

Interesting. I am a newbie at reading the information on the airnav site. Any tips on how to decipher?

That was what I was thinking, but I was hoping that things might be more planned.. or at least conditionally planned: For example, if take off heads north, then it'll fly to the right of Mt. Rainier... if south, then to the left.

Reply in bold.

A lot of the time - but not always.

- There may not be an into-wind runway available

- Some airports have a "preferred runway" - for reasons such as noise abatement -, and the rule in those cases is usually something like "the preferred runway will be used unless there is a tailwind/crosswind component of more than X"

- Traffic permitting pilots will sometimes request a runway that's not into wind because it will save them time/fuel - no problem if the wind is light enough and the runway is long enough

- The sun can be a consideration as well, especially at airports with a lot of VFR traffic. Making a visual approach into the setting sun is quite challenging!