At the moment, most aircraft taking off to the west turn south around 1.5 miles from the end of the runway which results in a steep climb to get up to altitude. This turn takes them over where lots of people live and, because the turn is early in the flight and aircraft lose height when the turn, they have to open the throttle wider to keep climbing. This is worse in holiday seasons when is a lot of flights, especially early in the morning.
And it's worse again in the spring and summer and early autumn. When the air is warmer and less dense aircraft don't climb as well as when it's colder. Jet engines are less efficient when the air is warm and holiday seasons exactly when aircraft are more likely to be fully loaded. We think that the Airport could share this impact and give respite to residents. It could include use of a flight path to the west that goes straight up the Tyne Valley over a sparsely populated are. It could do this as well as reverting to the pre satnav configuration of a 5 mile lateral spread of departing flights. They could climb more gently and turn south several miles later at a height at which noise impact would be minimal and wear and tear on aircraft would be less. The Airport won't do this, they think that this will put airlines off flying services out of Newcastle. It claims that there would be an increase in fuel use and hence CO2 emissions as well as cost to airlines. We think that this is wrong. In their submission for the flight path change, the Airport offered no evidence for any increase in CO2 emissions - this was commented on in the assessment of their submission.
We asked the Airport to show us the evidence for their conclusion - they refused saying the report was a private internal document. We think their assertion should be exposed to scrutiny for independent validation.
Photo by John McArthur on Unsplash