Wiggins' routes discovered

A red letter day, dear reader. One of my undercover researchers (codename: Casey) has unearthed a map of the routes agreed between Wiggins and TDC many moons ago. Apparently one of the lead negotiators from the TDC side was Cllr Harrison. These 'people-friendly' routes didn't make it into the Section 106 Agreement due to an oversight by, er, Cllr Harrison. Shame.

These routes were mentioned at a meeting held at Manston, chaired by Cllr Harrison. I got the impression that they had somehow wisped away to nothingness, lost forever to the eyes of mortals. I'm pleased to have sight of them at last. I expect Infratil and TDC will be thrilled, too. Now that they don't have to go through the rigmarole of (re)negotiating effective noise abatement routes, they can use the time they've saved to install fixed noise monitors under the newly agreed routes.

click it to big it

click it to big it

The carefully drawn coloured lines on the map are explained by the accompanying colour-coded key.

The red route labelled 1 is the standard westward instrument departure route: by the time the plane is doubling back on itself and heading south, it's supposed to be at 3,000 feet and climbing. Route 2 is the alternative westward route; route 3 is the standard eastward instrument departure route. All of the other lines and boxes are explained in the key.

What I find interesting about this is that it so clearly shows what is achievable. The planes can fly more people-friendly routes. So what do you think the odds are of anything resembling this appearing in the next S106 Agreement?

CCC's Regeneration Department

My favourite starfish

In the interests of spreading our love and help far and wide we (Mrs Earplugs and I) met up with some of the Canterbury people who will be dealing with Thanet District Council over the next few months while Infratil’s Masterplan is being goggled at.

It turned out to be a useful and encouraging way to spend a morning. There was a big cheese from CCC’s Environmental Health bods, the top banana from their Regeneration department, and Cllr Mike Patterson, who is on the KIACC. (I couldn’t help wondering: if you snip bits off people from Regeneration, do they simply re-grow, like starfish? If so, it offers an easy way to ramp up the staffing levels.)

The plan was to provide them with enough armour, ammunition, sticks and carrots for them to be able to nudge Thanet away from a worst-of-all-possible-worlds outcome. The mighty wodge of words, numbers and pictures we gave them can be summarised thus:

• The Draft Masterplan for KIA is indicative but insubstantial – it needs to be redrafted, and then put out to consultation properly.
• The Section 106 Agreement should reflect the needs of everyone affected by the operation of the airport, not just Infratil and TDC.
• There is absolutely no need or justification for night flights (other than emergency diversions).
• Flight paths should avoid population centres by overflying the sea, or sparsely populated land.
• If overflying towns is unavoidable, the planes could fly higher for longer, and then descend more steeply.
• These ‘people-friendly’ routes should be agreed and implemented before flight volumes increase.
• Infratil must demonstrate that the routes are being adhered to by recording and reporting what the planes actually do.
• Infratil must install adequate noise and pollution monitoring equipment.
• The noise monitoring equipment must be used consistently.
• The readings from all the monitoring equipment must be recorded consistently.
• The recorded readings must be published frequently and regularly (e.g. on-line).
• Failure to comply with the S106 agreement must be reported and fined. Any decisions not to fine must be explained.

As you can see, all good reasonable stuff, and they seemed to buy into it. In all fairness, we all know that Canterbury are no more than consultees in this process, and have no effective Vulcan death-grip that they could apply, other than possibly dragging everything through the courts. In that respect they are about as powerless as a Thanet resident. Nonetheless, they are prepared to listen politely, pay attention and take notes – which puts them in my good books. It remains to be seen how much they can influence Thanet, but I shall keep fuelling them.

Better monitoring needs better radar

Altitude thickness

In the Olden Days (2005), Manston’s radar wasn’t good enough to tell them exactly where their planes were. They couldn’t tell the exact height because they only had Primary Surveillance Radar.

In the Modern Age (2009) they also have Secondary Surveillance Radar (they buy a feed from the MoD) so they can now tell the height of planes as they pass over Herne Bay. And elsewhere, presumably.

But they don’t record it.

This is perplexing me. Given the aviation industry’s healthy obsession with safety statistics and analysis, I would have thought that recording the actual position, speed and direction of all aircraft within detectable range of any airport would be encouraged to the point of compulsion.

This begs a question: when someone (like me) complains to KIA about low, noisy, off-route planes (as I have), how can they possibly be so certain that the plane was at an appropriate height, given that they have no record of it?

Another question: for a presumably modest outlay, Infratil would be able to to publish clear, accurate information about flight patterns, like this example from Luton Airport. How can they resist? It's a very effective way of letting everyone know exactly what's happening.

Oops. Did I just answer my own question?