Simultaneous parallel take off's, are they widely practiced? safe?

Run_to_da_hills

Reading this article in a UK tabloid about parallel take offs and landings. Is this widely practiced in airports?

I would have thought that this would give less room for evasive action such as sudden engine failure where the plane may bank suddenly.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1338653/Close-encounter-landing-passenger-jets-San-Francisco-airport.html

t0mm13b

Pilot - "Oh look, there's a horse outside - shhhheeeeyyyyat, evasive manuevre".... crash bang wallop

Neigh....

Manic Moran

Very common here in the US. Sometimes you're going to get one runway used for landings and one for take-offs, which avoids any concerns you have at all for collisions, barring wrong-runway landings or the occasional go-around. Alternatively, you can get both runways used for both, depending on the requirements for where aircraft are going to and coming from on the ground.

Collision is fairly unlikely as, firstly, the runways are going to have different traffic patterns: For example, the left runway will have a left pattern, the right runway will have a right pattern.

Things get a bit more complicated when you have more than two runways. Amsterdam, for example, has three, so you have to worry about a straight-in approach for the central runway.

Or it can get even worse, DFW has five parallel runways, two pairs, with a fifth one on its own. That last one is really for G.A., not commercial airliners, so has a different pattern. You can imagine that of each pair, one will be take-off, the other landing.



Usually airports with close parallel runways are going to be large Class B types, so the aircraft are also under very tight control which also reduces the risk.

Before reading the article, I was going to suggest SFO as a perfect example of making the most of tarmac space: SFO has two sets of parallel runways at 90 degree angles, they intersect in the middle.



I've stood at the shorefront a little South of there and watched all four runways in operation at the same time. At the time 10 was used for takeoffs, and 1 for landings. As soon as an airplane landing crossed the intersection, the aircraft lined up on 10 would get the 'roll' instruction. That said, I did also see an aircraft take off on 1L during a gap in landing traffic.

Of course, sometimes parallel runways can cause some confusion...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fej9EWWLSsw

NTM

ian_m

t0mm13b wrote: »

Pilot - "Oh look, there's a horse outside

This horse?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljPFZrRD3J8

Tenger

As Manic explains very well above.....there is no problem with parallel ops. In terms of 'incidents' both sets of pilots would have done a pre take off/landing safety brief where they would have verbally confirmed the correct 'evasion' procedure. i.e. if I'm inbound to the right hand runway I would pull up and right to avoid any problems.

As a pax into SFO I logically knew that it was safe but was still a bit perturbed to see the MD-11 getting closer and closer to the B737 I was on.......

SFO also gives great photo ops:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pointnshoot/5177029869/

Cessna_Pilot

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

Reading this article in a UK tabloid about parallel take offs and landings. Is this widely practiced in airports?

I would have thought that this would give less room for evasive action such as sudden engine failure where the plane may bank suddenly.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1338653/Close-encounter-landing-passenger-jets-San-Francisco-airport.html

Must be a seriously slow week for news in the UK!!

donkey balls

I remember a few years back departing KMEM on our company aircraft Mem has three pararel rwy we lined up on the center one with an A300 to our left and a B727 to our right taking off at the same time.:D
Also while in the US flying we used to go down to SFB with our instructers man that was a blast coming in to land having a B378 on your starboard side landing at the same time and us in a little warrior.:p

We had ops in ATL as well I remember looking at the station ops directory i think ATL had something like 5 pararel RWY and two other ones could be wrong must look it up.

Manic Moran

The new one in Dubai has six parallel runways.

Also while in the US flying we used to go down to SFB with our instructers man that was a blast coming in to land having a B378 on your starboard side landing at the same time and us in a little warrior.

John Wayne is a great little airport for that. You have 172s and 737s all intermingled on the taxiways and runway.

Only problem is every now and then approach will put out a call saying "Cessna 123 cleared for landing, make best speed, 737 on approach behind you". That, and you need to be careful that your little propjob doesn't end up in the backblast from the jets on the tarmac.

NTM

pclancy

Lol best speed in a 172 is what 110? That must be worrying!