David Lock

OK it's pretty bad at Gatwick at the moment but in the last couple of years Gatwick seems to have to close at the slightest hint of a snowflake when most other London airports stay open.

Why is this?

dl (whose family use Gatwick a fair bit!)

Jamie

Very busy airport and snow = Shutdown

Leslie

Depends how well equipped they are to clear the snow away. Maybe they don't expect much like that so have not got the vehicles to clear with.

Les

FlightMan

Combination of poor snow clearing equipment, only 1 runway and the sheer quantity of the stuff this time round all conspired against them.

The new owners, GIP may want to spend a little less on tarting the place up, and divert some funds to airfield ops!

FlightMan

I was at a meeting there in March when the COO said he was going to "spend big" on new snow equipment to make sure the airport stayed open in snow, "like we do in the US"



i guess he didn't write that cheque after all!

Moley

iTrader: (9)

They said the snow was falling almost as quick as they could clear it.

It isn't just the runway itself, it's the surrounding area aswell.
I'm 2 minutes from Gatwick, and the local council don't seem to have made any effort with the gritters. (apparently they didn't send any out untill Wednesday lunchtime, but was too late by then)

SwissTony

iTrader: (19)

Because it is the most southern of London Airports, hence it closed the first because that is where the snow is. Pretty easy to work out.

But must agree we are completely ****e at dealing with any 'inclement' weather in this ****ing useless country.

Wurzel

iTrader: (1)

When I was out in the Falklands we had the worlds best runway clearing machine, torrential rain and heavy snow was no match for the chinook that used to fly up and down the runway

Leslie

Wonder how he feels now!

Les

Leslie

Very handy

We used to get the Chinook wind in Canada east of the Rockies. It is an Indian word for "Snow Eater" they used to tell us, the snow just evaporated when it arrived without melting first. You could see an arch of clear weather under the cloud over the Rockies when it was on its way to us. It was always a strong wind and when we were doing slow flying exercises in the Harvard you could see the ground going away from the front as the aeroplane was going backwards in relation to the ground! That felt a bit queer.

Watching a Harvard doing that from the ground was a bit eerie since it appeared to have come to the hover like a helicopter.

Les

scunnered

iTrader: (1)

When I was in the RAF, they used an old decomissioned jet engine strapped onto the back of a water tanker. It had a snow plough at the front and a potassium acatate based liquid de-icer in the middle and this fan shaped jet exhaust at the rear, to dry it all off. It woud keep any runway open in the harshest of conditions. I can't understand why the civilian airports do't use the same thing.
I'm booked to fly out of Edinburgh airport to Malta on Saturday afternoon, so long as it doesn't have more than a couple of snowflakes on th runway.

tony de wonderful

Maybe it's cheaper for Gatwick to lose the odd day when we get freakish snow/ice, than invest in espensive snow clearing equipement which probably only gets used on average a few days every decade?

David Lock

OK - I've got to ask......

Is runway heating completely out of the question? Yes I appreciate it would be expensive to install and run but it would more or less guarantee that one of Europe's major airports would stay open in all minor snow events.

I believe there is only one runway and with modern epoxy sealants heating strips could be installed in stages overnight to minimise disruptions.

dl

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Gatwick and "Europe's major airport" shouldn't be in the same sentence, let alone paragraph LOL

In the end of the day Landun, has four airports in its locality. It can afford to lose a few for a few days....makes you lot realise what few airports we have to put up with in the North/East.

FlightMan

And how many of these would it take to keep an airport the size of Heathrow open? Remember its not just runways, but taxi-ways, stands etc. And what about the surrounding roads? No good having clear runways if the staff are all stuck at home.

FlightMan

Yes.

David Lock

http://www.icax.co.uk/Solar_Runways.html

FlightMan

Quote from the website.

All BAA's London airport runways were closed in the first days of February 2009 by heavy snowfalls. Air traffic could have continued to flow if Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and Luton had used Interseasonal Heat Transfer to keep their runways clear of ice and snow.

Gatwick and Luton are BAA airports, and weren't in Feb 09 either. Doesn't inspire any confidence that this company has an expertise in aviation.

The time, and cost of installing this would be astronomic. As i said below;

Remember its not just runways, but taxi-ways, stands etc. And what about the surrounding roads? No good having clear runways if the staff are all stuck at home.

FlightMan

And for those that are moaning that airport closures don't happen abroad, as they're geared up for it and we aren't.

All of Switzerland’s major airports are now open again, heavy snowfall forced most of them to close Wednesday evening. The airports in Lugano, Basel and Bern reopened this morning—as did Geneva’s Cointrin airport, which had been closed for nearly 36 hours. Zurich’s Kloten airport was able to stay open throughout the worst of the weather, though dozens of flights were cancelled because of problems at other airports.

David Lock

Fair enough - just asking that's all But I used the expression "minor snow events" as I appreciate that there will be shut down in some situations when even local roads are closed but A23 and major roads and rail shutdown is pretty rare.

And I don't see why cost should be "astronomical"? Wouldn't it be just a case of a diamond tipped drill running up and down rhe runway, dropping some cable in 4" deep and sealing with epoxy? Expensive yes but it must cost a lot closing the place down.

Or prisoners with brushes

dl

tony de wonderful

I think the energy costs would be insane, we are not talking about just stopping the ground from freezing (like football pitches do) but being hot enough to melt snow which is ABOVE the surface and could be several inches deep.

Try putting snow in a pan and trying to melt in on a stove...take ages, doesn't conduct heat well.

David Lock

There wouldn't be any snow on the ground if someone switches it on when it starts snowing? dl

Anyway I think I have lost the argument so no more

dl

markjmd

iTrader: (11)

That IS a hell of a lot of snow

tony de wonderful

Sounds a bit dodgy?

Fresh snow is about 10% the density of water I believe, so 150,000 tons equals ~1,500,000 cubic meters of snow.

If we assume that is spread as an even 30 cm (~12 inches), it would cover 5 million meters squared which is 5 square kilometers?

Does Gatwick have 5 square kilometers of runways and taxiways?

Leslie

They still use those with old decommissioned jet engines. The trick when doing the job was not to go too slow with the towing vehicle since the tarmac would melt and burn!

Les

Leslie

It was possible to keep large RAF airfields open but as you say-the approach roads were a problem.

|Les

Leslie

I reckon the UK's lights would dim when it was switched on with the amount of power required.

Les

tony de wonderful

I think a de-icing reticulation system would be better?

FlightMan

If your interested in runway works, and what is involved, this is a good place to start.

http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/33/CAP781.pdf

They're a bit more than strips of tarmac.

Snazy

Just an observations....
Now we have snow again, London City Airport and Heathrow are reporting disruptions... Gatwick is fine at the mo (so they say)

So is not always Gatwick