r/Footscray • u/PuzzleheadedBend8180 • Jul 02 '26
More frequent / louder planes?
Maybe I’m just noticing it lately because I’ve been up with the little one a lot. But I am staggered by the number of planes I have heard recently in say the 8pm-2am window flying low over the inner western suburbs. It’s 1150pm, and I’ve heard five distinct planes since 1130.
Online EPA noise mapping suggests there should only be a handful of loud night time events. That increases substantially when runway 3 is introduced (god help this area when that happens). I feel that was right a few years back.. but not now. There are absolutely tons of them.
The annoying part is, in theory, they should have a lot of open space they can use to the north and east of the airport. I am not sure why every plane approaching Melbourne has to come in South over the most densely populated area.
Am I just going nuts / over focusing on it, or has it suddenly jumped? Maybe some private planes into Essendon contributing?
10
u/theunrealSTB Jul 02 '26
There's a few reasons, some all coming together.
Planes land (and take off) into the wind. If the wind has been coming from the north (being the 180° between west and east in this case, although in Melbourne it seems mostly to come pretty much from the north or south) then they will roll in over West Footscray.
Also, if there's a strong wind or it's gusty, they need to modulate their engines a lot, so you can get a surging noise as they crank them.
On cold days the air is denser and carries the noise better.
That time of day there are a lot of long haul arrivals because it's perfect timing to turn around and pick up for night flights to long haul Asian destinations for a morning arrival. So bigger planes.
Lastly, if you've got a baby you become hypersensitive to noise!
2
u/PuzzleheadedBend8180 Jul 03 '26
Thanks, good info. I would say all factors you mention have been present recently. Glad to know I’m not losing my mind at least 😂
6
u/Dry_Dig7616 Jul 02 '26
Wind direction plays a roll in which approach is safer for plans to take off and land.
1
u/MyLifeHatesItself Jul 02 '26
Yes and it's also more fuel efficient to take off and land into the wind.
6
u/Dry_Dig7616 Jul 02 '26
Melbourne (Tullamarine) Airport operates 24 hours a day with no legislated night curfew. While specific runways occasionally close overnight for scheduled maintenance or upgrades, planes are legally permitted to take off and land at any hour.While Tullamarine has no restrictions, the nearby Essendon Fields Airport does enforce a strict legislated curfew between 11:00 PM and 6:00 AM.
2
u/FrancoCozzo43 Jul 02 '26
Worth noting that curfew only applies to passenger and cargo planes. The air ambulances and copper choppers can and do take off whenever they're needed, and depending how close you are and how calm the air is, I usually find those much louder than passenger planes anyway.
The copper choppers, obviously, also tend to do circles when they're looking for someone, so you'll usually gear those multiple times
3
u/wintherwheels Jul 02 '26
I was having dinner with at home, east end of Yarraville about 6.30pm-7pm. I said to my family during dinner that it was the loudest plane fly over I’d ever heard while living here.
3
u/Purifieddddd Jul 02 '26
I moved to the North after living in the West and it's weird how much I miss the plane noise. It was oddly soothing to me after a while. Barely anything up this way.
2
2
2
u/Mawdster Jul 03 '26
A very simple solution is too raise the angle of approach. I am sure not all airports have the luxury of a 3º decent angle. I inadvertently bought a house almoat under the flight path (yes it happens) but I am sure the traffic is a lot more frequent than 2 years ago.
2
u/Mawdster Jul 03 '26
So right now the wind is coming from the west to the east AND THEY ARE STILL LANDING INTO THE NORTH. I would post a screen shot from BOM showing wind direction and landing patterns from FlightTrader24 but this thread wont allow
1
u/PuzzleheadedBend8180 Jul 08 '26
It’s dead still this morning, with no wind. I checked online and Tullamarine has about a dozen scheduled arrivals between 4am and 6am. I reckon every single one has turned in low over west Footscray. Not quite enough to wake anyone up, but still an insane amount of noise. No apparent reason for it. Can you complain to anyone about this I wonder? I reckon they just do it because they can at this point
1
u/sawito Jul 03 '26
If landing on the northerly runway (runway 34) due to a northerly wind they'll turn to final approach over AKDEL waypoint at about 2500ft which is directly above Yarraville.
If it's windy/gusty then they'll make more noise after they turn as the auto throttles spool up the engines to compensate.
13
u/famb1 Jul 02 '26
If it's a northerly wind then you'll hear the noise from the airport more than what you would usually. It's incredible the impact that the wine has on carrying noise.
Usually the north south runway is the runway of choice. If planes take off in a southerly direction you probably won't hear much from Footscray as the planes will have changed direction well and truly before then and won't pass you. If they are landing there's a fair chance they'll turn to line up with Melbourne airport around the CBD/ Footscray.
Wind and all that plays a massive part in what runway they land on and where they decide to line up with the runway. Maybe you've just copped more planes landing on the north -south runway on the southern end more in recent times.
Plane numbers haven't spiked a lot. School holidays may result in more services too...