Why do they TURN ???

[Brett Somers]

Hi,

I have a bizarre question.

I live in the hills area, and often see commercial aircraft at cruise altitude flying in a North-South direction, then make a turn SOUTH-WEST. This was greatly noticeable the other day when there was alot of moisture and the contrails could be seen across the entire flight path.

Why are they turning when they do? and why would they not take a direct route ?

Anyone with info would be greatly appreciated. I can't sleep at night..

Cheers

Brett

[Nicholas Togias]

I'm really bored so I took out my charts and from what I see there is a low airway that turns south-west over Richmond towards Nyngan, Narrandera and towards Adelaide way. They may be going to these airports from northern NSW or somewhere in QLD, it may be just some standard routing to fly via this airway to Adelaide, who knows......

and for your researching pleasure that airway is W368 :p

hope you can sleep tonight!

peace out

oh.. but an airliner wouldn't be going to these airports, only Adelaide I guess

[Ken K]

Another possiblity would be the Brisbane to Hobart/Launceston flights. These generally track to Sydney via W180 from Mount Sandon (near Tamworth, then via Singleton and Calga) [or alternatively via H39 from CORKY (just south of Scone)], before turning right towards Wollongong (H65) then joining H20 (Nowra-Mallacoota).

[Owen H]

In a general way, the answer to your question is that aircraft fly on designated air routes, not willy nilly across the sky.

This is why they have to turn, as that is where the air route turns.

They don't fly direct because that air route is used by aircraft going to many places, as well as airspace issues, seperation from other routes etc.

If you are able to give a rough location of your place (eg by lat/long), then it would be easy to tell you exactly which air route you are near, and where the aircraft are likely going.

[Brett Somers]

Wow... Thank you very much for the replies. I knew I could count on this forum for the answers. Will have to do some searching for the AIRWAYS..

And thank you, i can now sleep at night knowing this..

Thanks Again

Brett

[Nigel C]

Hey Owen,

From his first post I read it that he was in the Baulkham Hills/Castle Hills district in NW Sydney.

Cheers

[Rory D.]

North-south jets via Sydney will normally be inbound to Canberra from SE QLD, or heading to Melbourne from Newcastle. Both will turn right (SW) overhead Sydney, Canberra bound usually moreso than those via WOL-Melbourne.

[Gerard M]

These would be the same ones in theory that i was seeing the other week or so making those really big contrails over Baulkham Hills that i mentioned in that other thread.
Does anyone have a website where you can download the charts. I tried to look on google but came up empty handed.

Gerard

[Noel White]

Make a visit to this site

http://globalais.net/dafifkml/

and download the add on to your Google Earth. It adds a lot of aviation information to your view of Google Earth.

Be warned that it will slow down your loading of GE so be selective as to what you want to display. Use the panel on the left side of GE to deselect the bits you don't want to show.

It will help to display the air routes that you were asking about. When the modified GE is used in conjunction with Plane Plotter, it makes that program so much more interesting.

[NickN]

Here is an image of one of my calibrated maps from PlanePlotter. You will see in this image how jet aircraft fly along assigned jet airways. Basically they are highways in the sky and in general all flights use the same airways. The only flight in general that uses a different route each time is QF63 to Johannesburg which uses a flex route which sometimes sees it fly just south of Mebourne then accross the bight, whereas other days they can be seen down the west coast of Tasmania and right down into the Southern Ocean.

http://nickfouche.smugmug.com/photos/489655613_hbuNi-L.jpg

[Tony P]

You can buy ERC charts online.
http://www.maptrax.com.au/c/150065/1/individual-en-route-charts.html

They will show you the routes.