Interesting PPRuNe thread on airports. Unsurprisingly for an aviation forum, if there is anything like consensus, it’s for Heathrow. Unsurprisingly, there’s one single, hyper-boosterish Borisland proponent, possibly even a sockpuppet. Surprisingly, the experts have some really wonderfully crazy ideas.
Why not build two more runways at LHR, not just one – putting the fourth between the existing two. It does mean knocking down and replacing Terminals 1, 2, and 3, and the West Base too.
Why not accept that LHR expansion is always going to be politically difficult, and instead build a new four-runway hub airport further west, by demolishing either Maidenhead or Reading?
But the winner for my money was the suggestion of building two more runways at Heathrow, without demolishing Sibson, by removing the reservoirs, which would be replaced by an enormous polythene bag in the Thames Estuary. If this proved expensive, the runways could be built on raised piers (in fact, a series of flyovers) over the reservoirs, which implies some sort of giant aircraft-carrier style lift to get the planes up and down from ground level.
Someone else suggested cutting one of the main runways into two shorter ones, but then that would be silly.
What do you think will really happen? I kind of assume another runway at Gatwick or Stansted eventually. Did you see Mr Diamond Geezer’s Plaistow airport?
http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/plaistow-airport.html
A sound and sensible plan, you know it makes sense.
Someone else suggested cutting one of the main runways into two shorter ones
Just do this with all the runways. It won’t affect passenger safety as long as you remember to add cats and traps as well.