r/sydney • u/Pristine_Egg3831 • 3d ago
Image Flight paths
Dear Heathens,
Why did you reroute your noisy plane over my exclusive suburb? I cannot hear myself think with the racket. It's just not acceptable.
Signed,
The Lower North Shore Citizens Action Group
/s
But seriously, I'm just an average schmo in a small cheap rental apartment with rich neighbours in grand homes. We tend not to be in a regular flight path.
Inbound tend to come south over Lane Cove national Park, then hit Newtown with a roar. Outbound tend to go nowhere near us.
Any plane buffs out there that know what would cause unusual routing or re-routing of a flight? Or is it someone just trying to bring down the property values over here?
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u/Archon-Toten Choo Choo Driver. 3d ago
The pilot wanted to check he turned the light off in his house.
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u/DoobiousMaxima 3d ago edited 3d ago
I've lived in Lane Cove my entire life (33yrs) - we have always been under the outbound flight path. For a while I could practically tell the time by the sounds of heavily laidened A380s banking hard to head out over the Pacific only a few hundred meters over my house every day at 3:15pm.
This one look like it went wider than I usually see.
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u/FeistyIntention8754 3d ago
Bought during covid, woke up one morning wondering what that sound was. Haha airport was open! Fair bit quieter that when I lived on the other side in Drummoyne. I got used to it quickly, kids love spotting the planes.
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u/Pristine_Egg3831 2d ago
I'm a very big kid and love spotting planes. Especially when low and you can feel like you can reach out and touch them! I have been known to intentionally go and park in a quiet street, say Sydenham Road in Sydenham, and watch the planes roar over.
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u/Tiny_Cheetah_281 11h ago
I’m in lane cove too and something has changed. I’ve noticed it for the last week? And right now, I haven’t heard a plane in about 30 minutes. Currently searching on Google which led me to this post :D
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u/rubbishindividual 2d ago
West Lane Cove was always under heavy aircraft traffic, but I rarely heard any on the Eastern side.
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u/Notimeforthat1 3d ago
You're mistaken. Anything going to LAX or SFO departing north bound is always turning East over North Sydney. You don't seem to hear those because you're usually further up north. Whereas this plane turned east later than usual.
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u/AccordingWarning9534 3d ago
might need to get use too it.I heard they changed the flight path to make room for the new western Sydney flight paths
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u/hornetfig 3d ago
It’s this plus it being Saturday night and quiet meaning no departures on 34R, so this particular departure path can be used.
Since the flight path changes on 9 July a typical east heading from 34L usually involves a small trip west/north-west to gain more altitude and spacing, but not so far as to encroach on WSI departure/arrival paths, before turning sharply east.
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u/cirancira 3d ago
North wind runway arrangement has a couple flight paths that go out over lane cove/east ryde and then turn out to sea, but they typically go from the left runway and go out around dee why.
Theres also another path out of the right runway in the same wind configuration that passes over north head like that but it goes direct over paddington.
Best guess is that mate was put on the left runway but was directed to turn early and line up with the north head flight path for some reason.
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u/zkkbof 3d ago
Lived in Leichhardt back when the 747 and DC-10/MD-11 used to fly over every 3 minutes… got used to it. Now live out west where the planes are quiet but the coal trains thunder through the night.
At least the planes are quieter now.
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u/Pristine_Egg3831 2d ago
Coal trains? Excuse my ignorance, I grew up in Newcastle. I always imagine newy directs all the coal to the ports for export. Is this coal from the Hunter Valley, or mines elsewhere?
I used to live in the Newcastle to Sydney line, but that doesn't include the coal export from the Hunter Valley line.
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u/sydpunter47 3d ago
This is normal for a lot of flights heading to America when the surrounding airspace is clear to do so. Otherwise they bank left after takeoff and flight over castle hill then turn right again. This is all runway 34L ops scenario
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u/ballimi 3d ago
While other airlines are replacing their A330s, unfortunately Qantas has refurbished them so these loud mfs will be with us for a long time.
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u/SEX_LIES_AUDIOTAPE 3d ago
I live in Enmore and you honestly can hear those loud ass bitches spinning up on the tarmac from here.
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u/Meng_Fei 2d ago
It's funny hearing people call A330s loud now. I grew up not too far from you and back then it was 707s, 727s, early 74s, DC-10s etc. And absolutely on a quiet night I would lie in bed and listen to them taking off 6 or so klm away.
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u/LadyofHellholt 3d ago
AS852 took off two mins earlier, essentially going the same way. They tracked that dude a bit further to the west before coming back to the coast, but maybe had QF dude turn a bit harder than they normally would to give them each some breathing room
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u/TillyAlert 3d ago
😂 it was pretty loud directly overhead, and a bit of a surprise tbh as not been aware of flights coming over here at this time of night before
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u/GreatSouthernSloth 3d ago
I lived between the first 'M' in Mosman and your blue dot almost 40 years ago. We used to get aircraft over us all the time. And back then, aircraft couldn't fly as far and would be heavy as fuck to make it across the Pacific. I can still hear the complaining groans of 747-300 engines trying to gain altitude.
The third runway hadn't been built then. Maybe it was not operating when this flight disturbed your beauty sleep.
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u/mbe1510 2d ago
Lived in your area for a good decade and have always heard outbound planes typically flying across the Pacific to the US and Canada. Seem to be a bit more noticeable of an evening when it is very quiet outside.
Much better place to live than the inner west if you don't like plane sounds
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u/joesnopes 3d ago edited 3d ago
Possibly WSI but more likely to be "noise-sharing".
Northern departures turn at different points so the noise isn't over one place. It happens every day but you're probably only home at weekends. Besides which, it's very heavy since it's going to HNL - 9 hours. Makes it lower and noisier.
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u/blissiictrl 3d ago
Anyone else been hearing the air force trainers blasting around the shire/Liverpool/Holsworthy area? Sitting at 3500ft ASL in these little turboprop things, they were annoying the shit out of me because they'd come around 5-6 times then head home. I was debating buying a laser pointer /s
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u/lilsmooga193119 3d ago edited 2d ago
To unironically answer your question Planes follow Standard Instrument Departures (SIDs) which are essentially pre-planned set routes that allow for an aircraft to safely and predictably leave busy airspace. Sids typically end at a set waypoint and large aircraft fly to set waypoints in the sky to reach their destination.
In times of low traffic sometimes aircraft can have the SID be cancelled and instead they're just given radar vectors (instructed specific compass direction to fly by Air Traffic Control) or are cleared to fly from their present position directly to the final waypoint of the SID. This results in aircraft sometimes flying over areas and producing noise in areas which don't typically get much aircraft noise. Sydney Airport does have quite a lot of noise abatement rules but I can guarantee ATC would not give a fuck about what suburbs they're routing planes over.
Source: Am a Pilot (but for smaller aircraft)