I was alerted to this development by a report in The Times entitled Airport Technology Signals End Of Delays In High Winds.
This is said on the NATS web site in a page entitled Air Traffic Partners Win Innovation Award.
The accolade was in recognition of ‘Time Based Separation’, an aviation world-first introduced in March to cut delays at Heathrow.
During strong headwind conditions, aircraft fly more slowly over the ground resulting in extra time between arrivals and delays for passengers. Time Based Separation, developed by NATS and Lockheed Martin with support from Heathrow and British Airways, uses live wind data to dynamically calculate the optimal safe spacing between aircraft in order to maintain the landing rate.
Its introduction is on course to halve headwind delays at Heathrow and thereby significantly reduce the need for airlines to cancel flights. The judging panel described it as an “outstanding achievement.”
As someone who many times has landed light aircraft in high winds, and in one case where the aircraft in front had problems, this is more significant than you might think.
And it looks like the problem has been solved, by applying some clever methods in the calculation of plane separation.
It is one of those developments, that will have all sorts of different positive effects, for passengers, airlines and even local residents.
The latter could benefit, as one thing you don’t want to be under, is a large jet airliner, that has to perform a go-around, caused by a less-than-perfect approach.
I actually also think that certain types of people do not make good and safe pilots.
How many pilot suicides have there been in recent years? These guys should have been psychologically tested and not let anywhere near a plane, except perhaps to clean the toilets.
There have also been cases of emotional pilots having fights on take-off and others trusting in God to get them out of a sticky situation, they should be trained to handle!
Just read the Wikipedia entry for an airline you might use for travel and if you don’t like it, book something else. It might be more expensive, but what the heck!
Also never confuse cabin service with flight safety!
Remember too, that the most dangerous part of any flight, is getting to and from the airport, in either your own car or some dodgy rental or taxi.
If you can avoid it, never fly to and from an airport without a direct rail connection.
I am a sixty-eight year old widower, who has recovered fairly well from a serious stroke and who lives alone, a couple of hundred metres from Dalston Junction station, which is just within my walking range with a small wheelie case.
My passion is travel on both trains and planes and I regularly fly somewhere exotic within the EH 111 area, take the trains back across Europe staying in good hotels in the best cities and then write about it in my blog called The Anonymous Widower.
Gatwick is my airport of choice, as getting to Heathrow is difficult from Dalston, as the Piccadilly Line is only for masochists and Paddington was built in the wrong place for the East End.
As a Freedom Pass holder, to get to Gatwick at the present time, I buy a return ticket at the machine at Dalston Junction from the Zone 6 boundary to Gatwick for under a tenner. I then usually go to the Airport with just a single change at the step-free station of New Cross Gate.
Thameslink when it arrives in 2018 will obviously be good news for Gatwick Airport, as it will put millions more people within an hour of the Airport.
That is unless you live along the East London Line. According to the Thameslink web site, there will be no connection between stations from Norwood Junction to New Cross Gate to Thameslink, so to get to the new sewrvice, passengers will have to take alternative arrangements. For me that will mean taking a bus to London Bridge.
On the other hand, I am looking forward to the expansion of your Airport station, as when it is complete, it will mean that getting to see my friends on the South Coast will be easier and your station will probably be my chosen interchange.
That is provided I can get to the Airport easily from the the East London Line.
Those planning Thameslink seem to have forgotten that East London exists.
The Sunday Times has a wonderful travel idea today entitled London to Oz in 22 no-frills flights.
Why not?
And I’d stay in all the best hotels along the route, for perhaps two or three nights. I must go back to the Taj Mahal in Mumbai for a start!
I wouldn’t stop at Australia, as I’ve never been to New Zealand. Would it be possible to island hop to Hawaii and then on to San Francisco, before coming back across the Atlantic by some form of working ship? Cargo Ship Voyages might know one!
My late wife said she married me because she knew life wouldn’t be boring!
I would be open to all suggestions about doing this trip with someone else!
Their only qualifications would be that they were adventurous, intelligent and slightly on the point of being certified.
Anybody, who didn’t travel light should not apply!
I’m going away for a few days on Thursday and my aim originally was to fly to Hamburg and then take trains along the coast to Amsterdam.
So I tried to book a flight on the German Wings web site.
I couldn’t, as when I tried to put my address into the booking form, I couldn’t find the UK, United Kingdom, Great Britain or England in their list of countries. Don’t the Germans know, they lost the Second World War?
I thought it might be finger trouble, so as I was watching one of my least favourite football teams getting a superb thumping at the time, I tried once for each goal.
In the end, I gave up and booked Eurostar to Any Belgian station, as you can’t book it to Hamburg yet.
It used to be easier, as you could book a train to Any Dutch Station, but for some reason the Dutch stopped that convenient ticket. It’s now much easier to book tickets to Switzerland than The Netherlands.
This morning, I needed to do my winter clothes shopping. It was only a number of standard items from Marks and Spencer. I usually, buy one example of say the trousers or jumpers I want and then use the code on the ticket to buy more if they fit.
So after logging in, doing the purchase with a new Amex card and arranging delivery to my local store, the process was completed without hassle in a few minutes.
Why can’t all travel sites, be as easy to use as shops like Marks and Spencer, John Lewis and IKEA?
incidentally, I now use Amex a lot on the web, as they seem to have brought in a geographic security based on your Internet connection. The sites ask if they can use your Internet location and I suppose now, they can link that to my physical address.
It looks like a clever way to check on-line purposes. If my card and delivery address tie up to where my Internet connection is located, there must be a high probability, that I am making the purchases. I suppose, it could be someone, who has access to my house getting hold of the card, but then I would be suspicious if products I hadn’t ordered ended up on my doorstep.
Banks and credit card companies should use tricks like this to secure on-line purchases, as anything password-based is likely to be derailed by the forgetful mind, unless it is written down. Which then breaks the security.
The fourth picture shows the area where I was standing on the walkway across the Barbican.
It is a good place to see any flypast that is going over Buckingham Palace, as the pilots use the three distinctive towers to line up for their trip across London. This Google Map shows Central London.
Flypast Route Over London
The Barbican is illustrated by the red arrow and Buckingham Palace is at the bottom left hand corner.
The procedure used by the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight was explained, when one of the pilots was the guest of Test Match Special on BBC Radio.
When asked what you do if there is an engine failure, the pilot stated that there is only the Thames.
I don’t know where I got the quote from, but I once heard that Betrand Russell had said.
Necessity may be the mother of invention, but pressure is the father of genius.
What we need to do, is accept that Heathrow will eventually get that third runway, but that we’re going to delay it as long as possible.
In the meantime we apply restrictions on Heathrow, so that it becomes a much better neighbour. The report recommends these restrictions, if a third runway is built.
No night flights between 11:30 pm. and 06:00 am.
No fourth runway ever.
A restrictive noise envelope around the airport with a noise levy to insulate homes and schools.
An independent noise authority to regulate flight paths.
Possibly adding a congestion charge for cars around the airport to o cut pollution levels.
Any additional capacity doesn’t breach European Union air quality limits.
I would go further.
It wouldn’t be a possibility of a congestion charge, but one would be applied all along the western side of the M25 and on any road near the airport, so that roads could be improved to take non-airport traffic away from the airport.
Even more restricted short term parking at the Airport.
I would make night flights more restrictive, but I would relax it somewhat for aircraft that met very much quieter noise standards.
I would also legislate to impose these conditions by December 2019. I have chosen this date, as that is when the full Crossrail network is scheduled to open to Heathrow.
But no sticks work without carrots to get idiots to do what you want, so how about.
Crossrail is currently planning to run 4 trains per hour to Heathrow, but not to Terminal 5. Crossrail should be upgraded to call at all terminals and provision should be made to increase the frequency if necessary.
Development of Old Oak Common station, with direct services using Crossrail from Heathrow to the Midlands and the North.
Accelerated development of alternative rail routes into Heathrow from the South and West.
Extend Crossrail from Abbey Wood to Ebbsfleet International, so that passengers have one-change access to Eurostar.
A free return ticket to anywhere on Crossrail for all passengers.
If we got the balance right, I suspect that it would accelerate innovation on the part of airlines to provide new and more efficient services for passengers.
We also mustn’t underestimate the effect that Crossrail will have on improving the efficiency of Heathrow and possibly in the reduction of vehicular traffic and air pollution in the region of the airport.
Crossrail though will have a very big negative effect on Gatwick, as why if you had the choice would you use the airport, given that Heathrow will have the better links to Central London.
These images tell the story of my trip out and arrival in Krakow.
Rarely, in all my years of travelling, have I arrived in a foreign city, where it has been so obvious as to how to get to the city and then to walk to your hotel.
Admittedly, I was using the maps on my my phone to get vague directions, but usually, there was a street name or map to guide me, as I walked from the bus station to the Saski Hotel.
If I printed a Google Map before I left home, I wouldn’t have even needed to use my phone.
And at the Airport, Information told me where to go in perfect English.
Many take a taxi from Krakow Airport to the City Centre, but it’s so easy to get a bus from outside the terminal and then either walk or get a tram from the main bus station.
What this blog will eventually be about I do not know.
But it will be about how I’m coping with the loss of my wife and son to cancer in recent years and how I manage with being a coeliac and recovering from a stroke. It will be about travel, sport, engineering, food, art, computers, large projects and London, that are some of the passions that fill my life.
And hopefully, it will get rid of the lonely times, from which I still suffer.
The Anonymous Widower 