Red plane on Flightradar24 over Manchester.

[Cheeseandlobster]

Are there any fellow Flightradar geeks on here? There is a red tui plane over Manchester right now squaking. Any idea why?

Flights are definitely lower. We are on the flight path - in-between Manchester and Liverpool so both lots of planes. Always commenting on the school run how low the planes are. They never were.

Around the turn of the century, 20-25 years by the looks of it.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aviation_Herald#References

Not everything makes it to avherald, and I'm afraid while ideally the details of every minor or major incident that happens in flight would be shared worldwide by airlines etc the reality can be somewhat different due to cultural and worries about data sharing, litigation etc.

A great video from MT Aviation and an impressively steady landing from the pilots! I’ve had many standard flights come in to land way poorer than that.

Random question for you all - if you were a passenger on that flight would you continue your vacation?

@3monkeybars was your pre covid scary flight Prague to Bournemouth by any chance? Redirected to Brussels to land? I was on that flight 😱

The first picture from my honeymoon is of a fire engine racing alongside us, taken through the plane window. Someone unfortunately had a miscarriage just after we had set off from London to South America so the plane flew round Ireland dumping loads of fuel then landed at Shanon airport which had a long enough runway for the plane.

Flights are definitely lower. We are on the flight path - in-between Manchester and Liverpool so both lots of planes. Always commenting on the school run how low the planes are. They never were.

We’re on the flight path for Birmingham and I’ve noticed how much lower planes seem to be coming in over us now. If this makes sense, the height they’re coming over at here is the height I used to see them at when flying over my friend’s house which is 6 miles closer to the airport.

My PiL, no longer with us, lived in a bungalow in Heald Green, so were very close to the runway.
As they passed over their property, the planes were very low. The airport paid for roof repairs (and possibly contributed to the triple glazing). This may still apply and be of use to some of you.

I've been on a flight which almost landed but had to quickly go back into the air. The Captain came straight on the intercom and said that someone was "pratting about on the runway" so he decided to play safe. This was in the early 90s at Bangor in Maine.

For those of you who are concerned about such matters, Jerry of Big Jet TV (Storm Eunice van man) did a stream a month or so ago from Gatwick where he went in the simulator with the very lovely and calm Captain Zane Dunning of Virgin. They were "flying" a Boeing 787 Dreamliner. First Zane talked Jerry through taxiing then Jerry took off, did a circuit and landed - that bit was very funny. Then the training pilot in the back changed the parameters and Jerry flew in a crosswind. Finally, they put in the Storm Eunice conditions. Zane talked through a TOGA - where you come in to land but take off again climbing quickly. Rather than being nervous, it reassured me that crew train rigorously every 6 months for just such events. Link to the stream:

Some of these stories are really scary. Engine failure?? I always understood that most aircrafts have 4 engines and can operate quite safely with 3. Is that not correct?

I think a lot of newer aircraft are bigger/there are more, bigger planes in use and they look as if they're lower in the sky. Always thought that about the big Emirates planes flying over Cheadle when we lived there, they were so noticeable.

A good few years ago I was on either a BA or Caledonian flight into Heathrow that went round again instead of landing first time. The noise was horrendous and it felt as though we went up again almost vertically. The pilot was super cool about it.

@bendmeoverbackwards not for years. Most modern aircraft have 2 engines. They can take off and operate safely with just one. Only a few currently flying have more than 2: passenger planes are Airbus A380, A340 and Boeing 747. In the USA, I think there is the odd DC8 still flying. They all have 4 engines. There are also 3 engined cargo planes: MD11/DC10 still fly.

My daughter flew to Japan in April on a Boeing 787 Dreamliner. It only has 2 engines but she flew non-stop for almost 16 hours. Qantas fly one regularly from Heathrow to Perth Australia, non-stop.

That’s interesting thank you. I keep meaning to book myself onto a fear of flying course, I’d love to be more relaxed on flights. I think if understand the science, I might feel better.

Fascinating reading, this thread. Just shows why flying is so safe compared to other forms of transport.

Thanks for the tip @Iloveartichokes but as we’re not within the designated area for aircraft noise, it won’t apply to us. I’m worried that the flight paths/heights have been surreptitiously shifted in the wake of covid and we’re being gaslighted by the airport. I know the number of flights have increased and planes are flying lower because I see and hear them (18 separate incidences in the space of an hour early this morning). Yet the airport authorities insist that I only believe that’s the case because I’ve forgotten what it sounded like pre pandemic. Absolute bollocks.

Not these days..

Most current airliners in operation/being built are twin engined ( but can operate on one engine within certain limits mentioned upthread).

There are a few 4 engined airliner types still kicking around ( a few A340s, A380s, possibly a handful of 747s, some other smaller stuff .) but they are getting thin on the ground (?in the air?).

Relative safety is a long argument, probably beyond the scope of this forum, but the modern twins have very impressive levels of systems redundancies that some of the older 4 engined types can't match (in terms of robustness of electrical systems, hydraulics and other stuff) so it's not quite a simple case of 4 engines meaning the aircraft is automatically twice as safe as a 2 engined type.

Also a 4 engined type down to 3 engines can't always just automatically carry on regardless "quite safely", there can start to be limitations on it's operation.

@WeAreTheHeroes

"I think a lot of newer aircraft are bigger/there are more, bigger planes in use and they look as if they're lower in the sky. Always thought that about the big Emirates planes flying over Cheadle when we lived there, they were so noticeable."

I suspect that's what's behind a lot of the observations...

Air Traffic Controllers, and the ATC procedures planners have made massive efforts over the years to keep aircraft as high as possible on arrival until as late as possible and get them as high as possible as soon as possible (departure) for reasons of fuel consumption, emissions reduction and noise control.

I grew up in Sale. When the winds were easterly, planes used to come over us after they took off. They were quite noisy on the climb out, especially back in the day of BAC 1-11 and Tridents. When winds were westerly, planes would fly over our garden then turn over Sale Water Point which is a VRP (visual reference point) then out towards Stockport. That has changed over the years.

For noise abatement, planes climb to a certain level quickly (3000 feet or so) then climb more slowly. So in the past, if one climbed steadily to 20000 feet and you lived 4 miles away, it would be much higher than now when it would be lower and climbing more gently. It put a lot less wear and tear on the engines and is less noisy for the residents.

At Heathrow, they vary the take-off and landing runways weekly and swap at 3pm unless they are using 09 (easterly winds) due to noise abatement. At Manchester, since the 2nd runway opened, then reopened after Covid, planes are going to be at a slightly different height and trajectory depending on which runway is in use.

When I lived in my last house in Exeter, we were 2 miles from the end of the runway. Our neighbours moaned like mad about the planes (ironically there were hardly any and even fewer now). The estate was built in the mid 90s - the airport opened in 1937. I loved it and often listened in to ATC on my scanner. One flight came in over our house but just as it was about to land, the Captain shouted "Going around". The ATC asked if everything was ok and the Captain explained that due to really heavy rain, he couldn't see the runway surface clearly and wanted to wait it out. He was advised that a clearer patch of weather was coming through shortly, asked about how much fuel he had, and sent 10 miles away to do some orbits at 4000 feet to wait for the clear slot. he landed safely 20 minutes later.

"I loved it and often listened in to ATC on my scanner."

🤐

I know 🤣👍🏻

This sounds really crazy but when I lived in London (Hollloway Road) I used a clock radio as my alarm. On a very still summer morning it would sometimes pick up air radio. My boyfriend at the time said I was wrong and it was just the local taxi firm until one morning we both heard a pilot talking about “on approach” and how ever many knots he was going at.

It happens. In a lecture theatre abroad when I was at uni the radio mike the lecturer used would often pick up a bus driver's radio when they drove past the building.

How do you listen in on your scanner? I think that would be so interesting as long as it didn't interfere with the plane's communication obv.

Is that the one where they have to close the road when the planes come in to land?

Such a cool thread!

I love listening to ATC - but didn’t know about flight tracking.

I was recently the only medical professional on a long haul flight that had a medical emergency. The crew were helpful in a v v basic way (never get seriously ill on a plane, you’re fucked, trust me) but left it to me to decide if we needed to land! I was assured the captain would follow what I wanted.

as it was, we almost landed twice but made it to our destination. So I’m assuming the plane I was on would have been red on the flight tracker?

Our neighbours moaned like mad about the planes (ironically there were hardly any and even fewer now). The estate was built in the mid 90s - the airport opened in 1937.

We live near the easternmost 'London' airport. There's been some sort of aeronautical activity here for over a century, but to hear some folk go on about the way the airport blights their lives, the place can only have been built some time since they bought their house and the runway positioned specifically to spite them🙄.