V-Flyer

A nerd's question...

I live in south east Essex roughly under one of the flight paths from mainland Europe into LHR. I have just moved a couple of miles closer to London, still under the path. At my new house, I hear transient passages of louder aircraft engine noise, which I didn't hear further out. Is there a particular mark that the a/c are adjusting to? What is the altitude / distance mark they are trying to hit?

Thanks for the help.

If you don't mind expanding further, which town do you live in?

The main arrival route into Heathrow from the east passes to the North of Southend, and heads West to a radio navigational beacon known as "Lambourne", which is basically at the M25/M11 junction.

Someone plotted this using a GPS, and posted the results online. Notice that he got a load of holding patterns to fly!

http://www.gpsdrawing.com/gallery/air/berlin2london.htm

The arrival route into London City passes over Southend in a South-Westerly direction, heading in the direction of Swanley, Kent. These will be small prop aircraft like Fokker 50s and Dash 8s, or small jets such as the BAe146/Avro-RJ, EMB135, Learjet, etc.

Basically, if you have moved further west, the aircraft will be further into the approach (and so at lower altitude), and therefore easier to hear.

Also, it's possible that the aircraft could be levelling out near your new home, which means they apply a bit more thrust, or you could be underneath one of the holding stacks, which means the aircraft are circling while holding altitude and airspeed constant, also requiring thrust from the engines.

Cheers,
Mike

Rayleigh, north west of Southend. We're not under a stack as we only see planes going in a straight line. It sounds like they're levelling off. It is nothing to do with the height and being closer to LHR, as the extra engine noise is transient.

quote:Originally posted by csparker
Rayleigh, north west of Southend. We're not under a stack as we only see planes going in a straight line. It sounds like they're levelling off. It is nothing to do with the height and being closer to LHR, as the extra engine noise is transient.

Ah, you're close to one of the descent points in the procedure. They get cleared down to FL150 (15,000ft), before being handed off to the next controller and continuing descent to be around FL80 (8,000ft) by Lambourne.

North/South traffic in and out of Stansted and Luton cross the streams in and out of Heathrow in that area.

Chances are that some aircraft level off briefly - hence the extra engine noise - before getting the further descent into the Lambourne beacon from the new controller.

Some aircraft may pass over without the extra noise, as they manage to get a continuous descent toward Lambourne.

Cheers,
Mike