Heathrow 3rd Runway.

[Murph7355]

aeropilot said:

Again, only part of the point, its as much about the people coming here than about the people already here.

Heathrow is a hub airport, and Gatwick isn't.

Now, had the Govt not forced the brake-up of BAA, and the spliting apart of Heathrow and Gatwick and then allowed the high speed rail link proposal (which they cancelled 18 months ago) then the combined Heathrow-Gatwick hub with a 20 min fast rail connection between the two would have been a workable compromise going forward.
But because the Govt of whatever party can't see into the future beyond the end if its nose we just keep fking everything up.....

Not missing the point at all.

A unified transport infrastructure with rapid links between airports and main centres, then divvy up the routes to leverage the spread capacity.

You can't just keep adding stuff to Heathrow without commensurate infrastructure spend on the roads and public transport networks into it, and very soon you run out runway on that too. And if you're spending on that anyway, do it elsewhere.

(I quite like the idea of an airport in an estuary. Preclude the need for flights over major cities. Winner winner chicken dinner.

Get the Chinese to build it.

[aeropilot]

Murph7355 said:

(I quite like the idea of an airport in an estuary. Preclude the need for flights over major cities. Winner winner chicken dinner.

Get the Chinese to build it.

[Tootles the Taxi]

aeropilot said:

Murph7355 said:

(I quite like the idea of an airport in an estuary. Preclude the need for flights over major cities. Winner winner chicken dinner.

Get the Chinese to build it.

Yes, because estuaries never attract flocks of large migratory birds that just love to dive into the engines of airliners. Of course the magic electric aeroplanes won't be affected because they fly using magic don't they. Oh and Boris Island was going to be right next to where the SS Richard Montgomery sank in WWII. It's packed with degrading explosives which if they detonate all at once would take out most of Sheppey and some of Southend (maybe no bad thing).

[rxe]

Build high speed rail between LHR and LGW. Really high speed, 200 mph. Bury it under the M25. You could do the journey in 15 minutes, and then you’d have a super hub. Effectively you’d have a 3 runway, 7 terminal airport. Probably cost less than the third runway as well.

Bonus points for linking it to HS2 and all the way up to Manchester. While you’re at it, fix the stupidity of the current LHR arrangements, and make it possible to get a train from LHR out West, rather than heading into Paddington to then double back. This would chop the traffic to LHR in half.

[Evanivitch]

rxe said:

Build high speed rail between LHR and LGW. Really high speed, 200 mph. Bury it under the M25. You could do the journey in 15 minutes, and then you’d have a super hub. Effectively you’d have a 3 runway, 7 terminal airport. Probably cost less than the third runway as well.

Bonus points for linking it to HS2 and all the way up to Manchester. While you’re at it, fix the stupidity of the current LHR arrangements, and make it possible to get a train from LHR out West, rather than heading into Paddington to then double back. This would chop the traffic to LHR in half.

There's 2 issues with this concept as an airport model, and both involve time.

Air passengers would have to claim their luggage and then check in again at another airport. This takes times.

Air passengers would have to leave one airport, and go all the way through security again at another airport. This also takes time.

Unless you made the rail link a closed system for only those behind the security boundary, but I don't see that being economically viable in any way.

[Chrisgr31]

Presumably its possible to design it so front 6 carriages of the train are airside at the airports, rear ones arent? The trains could also carriage the checked through luggage

[Robertj21a]

What happens when this 3rd runway is still inadequate ?. Surely, they must have thought that the 2nd runway would meet all future needs ? Do future generations bulldoze more of the area for a 4th runway ?

Someone needs to be realistic and plan for a different approach entirely. Perhaps, gradually, make all planes for Europe go from Gatwick, Luton or Stansted. Keep Heathrow for long haul only.

Linking to connecting flights is no different to the existing situation when somebody flies in to Heathrow but there's no airline from there to their destination.

It needs somebody to make proper, long term, strategic decisions - not just 'we need a 3rd runway'.

[Murph7355]

Robertj21a said:

What happens when this 3rd runway is still inadequate ?. Surely, they must have thought that the 2nd runway would meet all future needs ? Do future generations bulldoze more of the area for a 4th runway ?

Someone needs to be realistic and plan for a different approach entirely. Perhaps, gradually, make all planes for Europe go from Gatwick, Luton or Stansted. Keep Heathrow for long haul only.

Linking to connecting flights is no different to the existing situation when somebody flies in to Heathrow but there's no airline from there to their destination.

It needs somebody to make proper, long term, strategic decisions - not just 'we need a 3rd runway'.

Apparently you're missing the point. Only Heathrow expansion isn't.

()

[Macski]

I really don't get why some of the cargo can not be moved to other airports, have Gatewick as a cargo airport and Heathrow as a passanger airport????

[ninja-lewis]

Macski said:

I really don't get why some of the cargo can not be moved to other airports, have Gatewick as a cargo airport and Heathrow as a passanger airport????

About 95% of the cargo from Heathrow is flown in the belly hold of passenger aircraft, not dedicated cargo aircraft. Indeed some passenger routes are kept afloat by the cargo carried.

[hidetheelephants]

oyster said:

Not-The-Messiah said:

Also what are economics of having a plane that needs to spend most of its life sat on the ground charging up? if it's on the ground it's not making money.

This could be the biggest challenge. And one that sets electric aircraft apart from cars in terms of viability.

Thus far advances in battery tech have increased density along with ability to charge very quickly; speed of charging if zero-carbon airliners are going to be battery/capacitor electric is unlikely to be a problem(they may not be, it's possible a fuel-cell or fuel-cell hybrid system may work better, or there may be enough incentive for aviation to move to hydrogen in the short term, but there are large technical challenges there too).

[rxe]

hidetheelephants said:

Thus far advances in battery tech have increased density along with ability to charge very quickly; speed of charging if zero-carbon airliners are going to be battery/capacitor electric is unlikely to be a problem(they may not be, it's possible a fuel-cell or fuel-cell hybrid system may work better, or there may be enough incentive for aviation to move to hydrogen in the short term, but there are large technical challenges there too).

I worked this out on another thread, but I recall you need something like a 300 MWh battery to replace the fuel tanks on a 737. Rapid charging of that would need 1/4 the electrical output of Sizewell B for an hour. An airport like LHR would require about 10 nuclear reactors dedicated to ‘plane charging.

[hidetheelephants]

rxe said:

I worked this out on another thread, but I recall you need something like a 300 MWh battery to replace the fuel tanks on a 737. Rapid charging of that would need 1/4 the electrical output of Sizewell B for an hour. An airport like LHR would require about 10 nuclear reactors dedicated to ‘plane charging.

20 tonnes of Jet A1 is about 250MWh, but gas turbines are not terribly efficient whereas electric motors are really good; let's be generous and allocate open cycle gas turbines 40% efficiency, so we only need 100MWh of oomph; allocating an arguably optimistic 85% efficiency to electric drive(airscrews are not perfect plus may possibly need a gearbox?) gives a gross energy requirement of 118MWh. typical low cost airline turnaround is about 30 minutes, so that would require a 4MW charge rate. That's chunky but not anywhere near 25%, Sizewell is 1.2GW electric so it's 0.33% of gross, plus it won't need a full charge every time any more than planes need full tanks today.

Glasgow/Edinburgh to Heathrow is 350 miles, a fully laden 737 will burn maybe 1.5t of fuel to do that, plus an allowance for diversion, IANAP so I will arbitrarily allot another 1.5t for 3t total; pro-rata that's 18MWh, which for a 30 minute charge would only need a 600kW charge rate. Either way that is a lot and charging all of the planes through UK airports daily would require more capacity, Heathrow turning around 70 planes per hour might need ~250MW for charging alone; given the likely advent of an electric 737 is optimistically going to be 2040 or so there's plenty of time to worry about the generating and grid capacity needed. 118MWh of batteries in available lithium battery tech would weigh perhaps 800 tonnes so I'm not going to hold my breath.

[Canute]

dandarez said:

If you're going to slag off China, ensure you've paid it a visit first.

I'm not going to visit China until there is a serious regime change, I'm not a big fan of genocide and cultural cleansing generally.

[p1stonhead]

Macski said:

I really don't get why some of the cargo can not be moved to other airports, have Gatewick as a cargo airport and Heathrow as a passanger airport????

fk that. Getting to Heathrow is a nightmare for a lot of people.

[aeropilot]

rxe said:

Build high speed rail between LHR and LGW. Really high speed, 200 mph. Bury it under the M25. You could do the journey in 15 minutes, and then you’d have a super hub. Effectively you’d have a 3 runway, 7 terminal airport. Probably cost less than the third runway as well.

Err, you do realise that very proposal was rejected by the Govt in December 2018.

Google HS4Air for the sorry saga of Govt madness.

[Murph7355]

ninja-lewis said:

Macski said:

I really don't get why some of the cargo can not be moved to other airports, have Gatewick as a cargo airport and Heathrow as a passanger airport????

About 95% of the cargo from Heathrow is flown in the belly hold of passenger aircraft, not dedicated cargo aircraft. Indeed some passenger routes are kept afloat by the cargo carried.

Doesn't that still leave 3 or 4 flights worth of dedicated going through Heathrow per day (3m tonnes a year means 5% a day is 400 tonnes... A 747 can hold 150 tonnes but I doubt it's all beautifully allocated).

Send that to provincial airports. Alleviates the stress on the road system around Heathrow too.

Granted as a %age it's small. But I'm not sure there are golden bullets for many of our challenges. It's what comes when you're a developed economy with a thousand plus years of history, a couple of hundred of which are heavily industrialised. Legacy infrastructure and people get in the way

[Ian Geary]

A lot of the discussion here about battery powered planes is above my head (pun intended)

But there's been a bit less comment on the consequences of this court ruling on the UK pursuing infrastructure improvements.

E.g.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51665682

Though maybe the polite exchange of thoughts is already taking place in a climate type thread on here?

Fundamentally, a zero carbon life means sitting under a branch in a forest, pooing into the ground eating raw nettles. I bet "most" uk residents don't actually want that.

The anti climate change types want to virtue signal, or be development scheme nimbys (they've been nimbys long before the climate catastrophe was invented don't forget) but only as long as their little bubble stays unchanged.

It's very hypocritical, and ignores the fact that whilst the uk is merrily shedding what little competitive advantage we had with the world away in a race to virtual signal the most, the RoW is more than happy to nick that business whilst still polluting the same.

And people wonder why there's no money to fix pot holes or provide adult social care?

(Maybe this does belong in the climate change political thread after all)

[rxe]

hidetheelephants said:

20 tonnes of Jet A1 is about 250MWh, but gas turbines are not terribly efficient whereas electric motors are really good; let's be generous and allocate open cycle gas turbines 40% efficiency, so we only need 100MWh of oomph; allocating an arguably optimistic 85% efficiency to electric drive(airscrews are not perfect plus may possibly need a gearbox?) gives a gross energy requirement of 118MWh. typical low cost airline turnaround is about 30 minutes, so that would require a 4MW charge rate. That's chunky but not anywhere near 25%, Sizewell is 1.2GW electric so it's 0.33% of gross, plus it won't need a full charge every time any more than planes need full tanks today.

Glasgow/Edinburgh to Heathrow is 350 miles, a fully laden 737 will burn maybe 1.5t of fuel to do that, plus an allowance for diversion, IANAP so I will arbitrarily allot another 1.5t for 3t total; pro-rata that's 18MWh, which for a 30 minute charge would only need a 600kW charge rate. Either way that is a lot and charging all of the planes through UK airports daily would require more capacity, Heathrow turning around 70 planes per hour might need ~250MW for charging alone; given the likely advent of an electric 737 is optimistically going to be 2040 or so there's plenty of time to worry about the generating and grid capacity needed. 118MWh of batteries in available lithium battery tech would weigh perhaps 800 tonnes so I'm not going to hold my breath.

My focus in the other thread was the implausibility of getting several hundred tonnes of lithium in the air..... However, LHR to EDI is just one destination out of many - big planes doing long haul will need rather more. E.g. A380 = 315 tonnes, charging that in an hour would present a material challenge.

[TwigtheWonderkid]

El stovey said:

Vickers_VC10 said:

Exactly this. Rail ftw.

Scrap this bloody third runway and stop pumping the cash into a dying industry. Given the current world view on pollution , I believe air passenger numbers will drop and in twenty years air passenger numbers will be massively down on what they are today.

The arse will fall out of China eventually so the comparisons to us are moot imo.

People still want to travel long distances quickly for business or holiday and goods need to get quickly around the world. Aviation is under pressure but it’s expanding and numbers are up not going down.

If the world is really serious about tackling climate change (I'm not sure we are, but if we are), the way we live our lives is going to have to change massively. We need to reduce business travel by 90%, and with the internet and global electronic communication, why not? Flying for leisure is also going to have to go, no more foreign holidays. Imports from abroad of non essential stuff will need to be reduced. I like an avocado as much as the next bloke but I don't have to have them.

If we are serious, the global economy is going to have to be curtailed in favour of local economies. No food in supermarkets from more than 20 miles away, real life changing stuff.

I doubt it'll happen, and we'll just fk up the climate instead.