Air Lingus flights over Citywest

craiginireland

Hi All

Over the last few weeks there has been a whole load of Air Lingus planes over Citywest.I know Baldonell is close but they aren't landing there.
Some of them look like they are heading towards Shannon / West and some of them look like they are circling Dublin...

Is this a new route for Air Lingus? A few of them seem very very low and are extremely noisy.

bazzachazza

Right down wind runway 10 at Dublin not a new route at all.;)

http://www.radarvirtuel.com/#

Andrew33

craiginireland wrote: »

Hi All

Over the last few weeks there has been a whole load of Air Lingus planes over Citywest.I know Baldonell is close but they aren't landing there.
Some of them look like they are heading towards Shannon / West and some of them look like they are circling Dublin...

Is this a new route for Air Lingus? A few of them seem very very low and are extremely noisy.

I live in CityWest too, I love summer cos most of the air traffic routes overhead on way to a landing on 10 due to prevailing easterlies. you'll see more than AL if you keep your eyes open.

I think they have become noisier though, reckon its the diet of ash making the engines rougher;)
Seriously though, I think its just the clear summer air allows sound to travel better rather than tru clouds which would muffle sound of engines a bit.

Su Campu

As pointed out above nothing new, they use that route all year round when there are easterlies. They may seem louder cos you're probaby spending more time outdoors lately with the nice weather! ;-)

unkel

Su Campu wrote: »

As pointed out above nothing new, they use that route all year round when there are easterlies. They may seem louder cos you're probaby spending more time outdoors lately with the nice weather! ;-)

Indeed they pass over my house in Lucan too with E winds. I did notice several Aer Lingus planes flighing lower than I ever saw before a few days ago, one was particularly low last Sunday around dinner time, I looked it up on radarvirtuel and it was a flight from CDG to Dublin. Others like Ryanair weren't anywhere near as low

bazzachazza

Ryanairs are flying CDA's.

yaeger

Most airlines will fly CDA's most of the time, its not a ryanair exclusive....
If only Dublin were more forthcoming with track mileage it may increase CDA's but they don't seem to care...

Su Campu

yaeger wrote: »

Most airlines will fly CDA's most of the time, its not a ryanair exclusive....
If only Dublin were more forthcoming with track mileage it may increase CDA's but they don't seem to care...

Sorry, what's a CDA?

bazzachazza

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous_Descent_Approach

Continuous Descent Approach (CDA) or Optimized Profile Descent (OPD) is a method by which aircraft approach airports prior to landing. It is designed to reduce fuel consumption and noise compared with a conventional approach and involves maintaining a constant three degree descent angle during landing, until meeting the Instrument Landing System (ILS). Basically, instead of approaching an airport in a stair-step fashion, throttling down and requesting permission to descend to each new (lower) altitude, OPD allows for a smooth, constant-angle descent to landing. This reduces noise pollution and saves fuel.

unkel

So why doesn't Aer Lingus fly CDA's? It seems to be a best practice system, lowering both noise pollution and fuel waste?

bazzachazza

Combination of many factors probably.

unkel

bazzachazza wrote: »

Combination of many factors probably.

LOL, like?

highlydebased

unkel wrote: »

LOL, like?

ATC being the main one.

bazzachazza

ATC is only one. Pilot willingness and training is another. There are no published CDA's available for Dublin yet next there will be this http://www.eurocontrol.int/eec/public/standard_page/proj_Point_Merge.html

unkel

bazzachazza wrote: »

Pilot willingness and training

So what are you saying? Ryanair pilots (who are presumedly paid less) are more willing and better trained than Aer Lingus pilots?

Tenger

unkel wrote: »

So what are you saying? Ryanair pilots (who are presumedly paid less) are more willing and better trained than Aer Lingus pilots?

No neccesarily. Perhaps FR introduced CDA into their training 4-5 years ago. (I believe Finnair have been doing this since 2001-2 in Finland) Maybe EI are changing their curriculum to include CDA or planning to do so. You cannot change training and procedures overnight.

Another aspect could be that CDA is 'harder' on the ATC end of things. I have no idea if this is true or not,just throwing a theory out there. Do you have to be 'lined up' earlier on a CDA? Perhaps the IAA are the restricting factor on the percentage of CDA fligts into DUB?

skybus

Aer Lingus having been doing CDA's for years. In fact they have been doing them long before Ryanair was even established. It is not a new concept. As one of the posters has already correctly said, the IAA don't issue CDA monthly percentages for any Irish, European or International airline flying into Irish airports. As such it is impossible to tell by the naked eye simply looking up into the blue sky whether an aircraft is flying higher or lower on a CDA without knowing it's exact altitude and distance to touchdown. UK airports and other European airports do issue the statistics and there are links from various airport operators on a monthly basis. If anyone is really bothered about it they can look them up and see the near 100% accuracy of CDA's completed by Aer Lingus and most airlines on a monthly basis into far busier airports than Dublin in both Europe and America.

CDA's are not something new and are not exclusive to airline operations. It is not necessarily something you train for. It is simply good 'airmanship' to use a constant low drag, low power approach from top of descent until established on the final approach of your flight regardless of whether it's a Ceesna or a Jumbo you are flying.

unkel

So can I conclude that that particular Aer Lingus airplane flying over low was not on a CDA but ordered by ATC to fly at that altitude (excuse my ignorance please if this is a stupid question)?

It's notoriously difficult to estimate, but I'd have thought it was flying at about 4000-5000 ft. This was in Lucan with maybe another 15 miles to fly until touchdown in DUB. There were only 3 airplanes in the greater Dublin area at the time according to radarvirtuel

The only airplane of any size that I've ever seen flying lower than that over my house is the coastguard Casa propeller airplane landing at Baldonnel, which is only about a mile or two from my house

skybus

5000ft at 15 miles to run would mean it was nicely set up on a three degree descent CDA gradient and not low. To work out a CDA you simply multiply your distance to touchdown and multiply by three. You then add a few miles to allow yourself to slow down and configure the aircraft for landing and perhaps another couple for a tailwind.

Su Campu

unkel wrote: »

Indeed they pass over my house in Lucan too with E winds. I did notice several Aer Lingus planes flighing lower than I ever saw before a few days ago, one was particularly low last Sunday around dinner time, I looked it up on radarvirtuel and it was a flight from CDG to Dublin. Others like Ryanair weren't anywhere near as low

Are you sure it was Sunday 30th? I looked at Casper.Frontier for that day and they were using R28 all day. The only planes over Lucan were either departing or transiting the zone at high altitude.

unkel

skybus wrote: »

5000ft at 15 miles to run would mean it was nicely set up on a three degree descent CDA gradient and not low. To work out a CDA you simply multiply your distance to touchdown and multiply by three. You then add a few miles to allow yourself to slow down and configure the aircraft for landing and perhaps another couple for a tailwind.

Would you mind doing up a simple calculation with those figures? I'm not bad with sums but mine don't usually include a third dimension

Su Campu wrote: »

Are you sure it was Sunday 30th? I looked at Casper.Frontier for that day and they were using R28 all day. The only planes over Lucan were either departing or transiting the zone at high altitude.

I'm pretty sure it was Sunday 30th May, but I will confirm tomorrow