YPAD: New airport jet path affects more suburbs

[Justin L]

NEW flight paths are planned over the northern suburbs for jets approaching Adelaide Airport to help reduce noise, flight times, fuel costs and carbon emissions.

http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/s...006301,00.html

New airport jet path affects more suburbs
Article from: The Advertiser

EXCLUSIVE MATT WILLIAMS, RUSSELL EMMERSON

November 24, 2008 12:01am

NEW flight paths are planned over the northern suburbs for jets approaching Adelaide Airport to help reduce noise, flight times, fuel costs and carbon emissions.

Documents obtained by The Advertiser outline a plan to create a new flight path along the Churchill Rd corridor for aircraft arriving from Perth and Darwin.

Suburbs below the proposed new route include Kilburn, Kilburn North, Devon Park, Dudley Park, Prospect West and Ovingham.

Residents' groups are concerned aircraft noise on any new flight paths could devalue properties seriously and force people to move.

A recent high-level meeting about the plan heard from airport executives, local, state and Federal Government representatives, police, Qantas, Airservices Australia and Transport, Energy and Infrastructure department officials.

Minutes from an October 29 Adelaide Airport meeting show trials could start as early as March or April next year.

"The only proposed path that would introduce noise to where there isn't an existing path would be the proposed north and west arrival over the salt pans down the Churchill Rd corridor to join the existing approach from Modbury over the recently sold Clipsal site at Bowden," the minutes state.

It is not clear how other flight paths approaching the airport would change under the plan.

The minutes state the new flight paths are not aimed at increasing flights into Adelaide.

Questions also have been raised about the present flight path because it is near the site of the new Marjorie Jackson-Nelson Hospital and raises issues about helicopter air ambulances flying to the hospital.

One of the major consultancies let for the new hospital is a "flight path adviser".

In a statement to The Advertiser, Airservices Australia, which manages air traffic control at all airports, confirmed that plans for new flight paths were in place.

"There is no detailed information available for public release at this time," it states.

It would "communicate appropriately with all stakeholders once definite plans are confirmed."

"A consultation program will be conducted before any deployment is implemented," it said.

Adelaide Airport Ltd general manager John McArdle yesterday said further information on the new flight paths would be known within the next week.

"After our first meeting (October 29), the consultative committee went away to rejig a couple of the proposed flight paths . . . they will come back to us at the end of this month," he said.

Residents and Ratepayers Association state president Kevin Kaeding said residents had "every reason to be concerned about new flight paths" because of noise issues.

"It can devalue a property and those living in affected areas essentially receive a life sentence at home and it also has an effect on young children because it can make it difficult for them to sleep properly," he said.

The need for compensation was high in the minds of Prospect residents when told of the plan by The Advertiser yesterday.

Prospect resident Nick Giatrakos, 39, said the new flight path would make the area like Torrensville, where a plane "sounds like an earthquake" when flying overhead.

"There should be some form of compensation because property values will go down maybe $100,000," he said.

"People buying in the area know what they are getting when they buy. We bought here because it wasn't in a flight path."

Residents should be compensated for the cost of soundproofing affected properties, resident Steve Puntillo said.

But he said he wasn't surprised that residents had not been told about the plan.

"We are being kept in the dark – it is quite common for the Government to introduce things without keeping everyone in the loop," he said. "We should have received notification it was going to happen."

The plan for the Churchill Rd flight path was outlined as part of Adelaide Airport's transition to Airservices Australia's Required Navigational Performance model.

The model, pioneered by Qantas, is described as a "much more efficient and safe flight corridor tool placing less operational pressure on the flight crew, improves fuel efficiencies and reduces carbon pollution".

Noise is reduced because less power is needed because of the shorter approach to landings.

Qantas spokeswoman Melissa Thompson told The Advertiser the airline was "still about three weeks away" from making public statements on the plan.

The early plans for Adelaide were meant to be kept from the public "because anything to do with changing aircraft movement above residential areas is a volatile issue", sources said.

The same landing model is being trialled at Brisbane International Airport with a report stating it has delivered "significant environmental benefits to the community and efficiencies to industry".

Concerns were raised at the airport meeting about the Churchill Rd approach because the 10ha Clipsal site, sold to the State Government for about $70 million, would become a residential development catering for up to 1500 apartments.

Mr Kaeding said changing a flight path was a "major, major issue".

[Robert Zweck]

The next DAP amendment is only due next March 11th ( No. 118 ) so all this is still at least 3 months away.

Not even a hint of this in an AIC.

Yet.

[Steve B.]

All this does is formalise an existing informal procedure. Aircraft from the west or north west can be radar vectored overhead Edinburgh and/or Parafield (with suitable coord) for a right base RWY23 intercepting final abeam the CBD (at approx 5 miles). Aircraft can also enter on a right down wind for RWY 23 and turn right base intercepting final at about 5 miles. That tracking would put the aircraft over the suburbs mentioned, and a few more.

Very few noise complaints have originated from those areas in the past. More likely to have noise complaints about POLAIR involved high speed pursuits or conducting school patrols.

This procedure is only used in VMC and only for local (Australian) operators. Foreign aircraft are, or should be, always vectored via Modbury for RWY23.

We are not talking about many aircraft being routed via this new arrival route and only when RWY 23 is the duty RWY. Perhaps the residents under the current flight path from Modbury to RWY 23 have had their fair share of the noise over the last 45 years or so since jet aircraft started operating into Adelaide.

However, it will give the residents of these so called affected suburbs something to complain about and then demand compensation for something that they have been subject to, without complaint, for many years.

Anyway, that is my bitch for the day. Think it is time for a glass of lovely Southern Vales Shiraz.

(BTW, I live "down south" and not under the existing or proposed routes.)

Regards to all

[Robert Zweck]

Reported last week that these plans have been cancelled