Author: SiteComms

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Our personal Airspace bubble

Each of us live inside our own personal Airspace bubble but how do we know what’s going on in that bubble and whether or not that activity could disturb the quality of our lives?

In the context of this article an Airspace bubble is a 1 mile radius from a specified point such as our home, holiday location or outdoor leisure space.

This article focuses on the impact and assessment of commercial Aircraft within our personal Airspace bubbles. Firstly, we need to understand the terms such as impact and assessment before interpreting any results. Our Assessment ignores all aircraft above 26,000 feet as above this height the noise, and possible pollution, is less likely to disturb our lives. Likewise, we also ignore aircraft that share our bubble for less that 7.5 seconds as it implies any noise would not be around long enough to create a significant disturbance.

Experience has told us that real disruption is not caused by individual aircraft operating within our Airspace bubble but it’s actually the repetitive nature of multiple aircraft at regular times that has the biggest impact.

To summarise our assessment of disturbance is based on all flights that regularly share our Airspace at the same time for periods greater than 7.5 seconds and are below 26,000 feet. Therefore, our assessment could say for a location; “between 8pm and 11pm on a Friday, Saturday and Sunday there is an 80% chance you will hear and/or see aircraft within a 10-15 minute period. The disturbance classification for this location, across all time periods, is: Frequent“.

Having an understanding of the facts you can now make a personally decision about whether this situation meets your life style criteria.

We all have the right to know and to make informed decisions.

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Homebuyers – time to lobby for an extension to the Local Authority Searches so they document local aircraft corridors and flight paths.

Part of the process of buying a new home is for the buyer’s solicitor to perform a Local Authority search. But why? The conveyancing solicitors will say it’s to inform and protect the Homebuyers from any material surprises such as; flood plains, gases, landfill, historic land usage and permissions, planning issues, and detrimental long term town plans.

However, what the current Local Search does not include is any reference to the existence of Aircraft corridors, flight paths and known flight holding stacks within the area. Why?

One of the reasons “why” is because Local Authorities and District Councils believe they are powerless as they don’t own or manage the flight paths and corridors. Your local MP will also echo this sentiment too. So who is responsible and is the required information available?

The answer may surprise you as it’s not the airports themselves but a government agency known as NATs. NATs is responsible for the movement and positioning of aircraft whilst in UK airspace.

Experience tells us that the flight corridors and paths, created and managed by NATs, are very difficult and costly to change once established. So if you find yourself in a situation where you are being disrupted by aircraft it will be almost impossible to change and you will get little sympathy from the Government agencies . Meaning, it’s best to find out about the existence and usage of flight corridors and paths prior to purchasing a property. I.e. be informed! But how?

Unfortunately the “how” is not at all straight forward as although the flight information is available to the Government bodies there are no policies, guidance or standards about how the flight information should be presented to the payers of Stamp Duty.

Our objective is to lobby the UK Government departments to they can make the required changes to the Homebuyers Local Authority Searches to document the existence of local aircraft movements and flight corridors and paths. We believe the public have the right to know.

If you are interested in joining us on this journey then please leave your comments on the contact form below.

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Aircraft disruption above our heads

Finding out what’s going on in the sky above your house or flat in the UK is almost impossible as there is no usable public information about aircraft flights and subsequent potential disruption.

Solicitors, Estate Agents and Home Buyer surveyors won’t know either. Aircraft flights are not in scope of Local Authority and even the airports and government authorities such as NATS, if asked, will provide a very blended superficial summary for the entire area that will not be specific to your plot. We think this is wrong as we deserve to know, hence the need to escalate with our MPs.

Software Apps such as flight trackers will not provide the required information that’s specific to your plot.

Thanks to the new Aircraft Traffic Assessment service it’s now possible to avoid that sinking feeling when you realise you have just purchased a new home that is subject to frequent or low level over flights caused by arrivals, departures and flight holding stacks.

However, the the noise and visual impact of aircraft can be very subtle and it’s easy and unfair to dismiss an entire area. Just 0.5 mile in one direction or another can make a huge difference to the scale and type of disruption.
  

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Articles, and associated comments provide additional insight about the aircraft sector and why noise and environmental issues are historically lightly regulated.

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Arrivals Flight Holding Stacks

The Aircraft Traffic Survey service is showing a growth in the use of the 90 second Arrival Holding Stack for flight separation which is a process used by NATs to prevent “bunching” when Arrival flights transition from unregulated airspace into the regulated airspace which is below 6,500 feet.

Understanding the existence of aircraft Arrival routes and Holding Flight stacks is very important when deciding on the area in which to purchase a home as the existence of flights means some form of disruption. It’s not something to discover once Stamp Duty and Solicitors costs have been paid.

Flight Arrivals, unlike flight Departures, are less regulated and are used at any time, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The Operational Management policies for flight Arrivals are totally owned, designed and managed by a Government body know as NATs. The NATs Air Traffic Controllers are responsible for the physical routes and altitudes taken by the individual aircraft when travelling within UK airspace. Some Air Traffic Controllers are based in regional centres, and others are seconded to the individual airports. NATs also subcontracts roles and responsibilities including the Air Traffic Controllers to 3rd party service companies. This structure makes change very complex to implement and over extended time frames.

NATs have created a number of Arrival flight holding stacks over the UK that are typically located 30-40 miles away from the destination airport. Their design resembles 7 oblong shaped circuits arranged vertically, the lowest being 7,000 feet and rising to 15,000 feet. The circuits are 10 miles in length and 6 miles wide and take around 4 minutes for an aircraft to navigate although many aircraft are “pulled” from the stack by NATs after 90 seconds by performing a tight banking manoeuvre.

Holding stacks tend to have a single entry point and multiple exit points and often hold 5-6 planes at the same time and as one aircraft exits another enters. Additionally, because they occur at above 7,000 feet they are very lightly (not) regulated for noise and air pollution even though the aircraft traffic volumes can be very high e.g. 30-60 planes per hour.

When is an Arrival Holding Stack used?

The NATs Air Traffic Controllers will decide and instruct the pilot when to pass directly through an Arrival holding stock or at what altitude to join the stack. Factors that can increase the usage of the stack include;

  • delays at the destination airport i.e. reached full capacity (highly likely)
  • flights arriving before the airport opens (highly likely)
  • flights arriving early (highly likely)
  • flight separation (highly likely)
  • bad weather (unlikely)
  • emergencies (unlikely)

Fortunately not all plots and homes are impacted in the same way even though they are in the same geographic area. This is because aircraft disturbance can be very localised. The overall impact is identified and assessed by the new Aircraft Traffic Survey service.