Having been in and out of Sydney a lot, I find this very easy to believe. The airport is straining at the limit for capacity, so they have been quite adventurous in getting planes in and out of there for some time. Particularly with the curfew limiting the hours of operation.*
Tight curfews are a bad thing, I think. There's an airport just down the road from me, Hanscom (KBED) with an 11P-7A curfew. The shenanigans you see at 10:55P with sometimes three simultaneous landings (two aircraft and one helo to the ramp) are no good for safety.
I've been picking people in the morning and I've more than once seen multiple airplanes circling the field jockeying to be the first one down final at 7:00:00 like it's a sailboat race. Now, would the neighbors rather hear airplanes flying multiple low-level patterns at mid-power from 6:45 to 7:05, or would they be better off if airplanes could come in and land directly [typically at a lower power setting and with only one approach]?
There are no races to land before the curfew starts at Sydney airport.
The curfew only affect large planes, and late arriving jets still land normally in sequence, though the airlines pay a steep increase in landing fees.
It is worth noting that the Melbourne-Sydney air route is the second busiest in the world [0] in regards to aircraft movements, and the the flight paths are over some of the most densely populated parts of the city.
The noise was intense and getting worse each day.
Aircraft that arrive early circle well off the coast and do not cause noise issues.
Agree. By the numbers, there are about 500 airports in the US with control towers (some are part-time). There are over 20,000 airports without control towers in the US.
That airport is part-time towered, so air traffic control does own the airspace but only when the tower is open. When the tower is closed, it reverts to an uncontrolled (or pilot-controlled) airport with insanely high landing fees (so few airplanes actually land and almost no one would land at 6:55 rather than wait the extra 5 minutes).
So, while it's pilot controlled, we self-announce and negotiate with the other airplanes and plan our pattern so as to be on a 1-2 mile final when the tower opens. (Think of it as the aviation equivalent of a four-way stop sign or rotary which drivers self-navigate every day.)
"Attention all aircraft, Bedford tower is now open; class Delta airspace in effect" "Bedford Tower, Bugsmasher 1234 2 mile final, Runway 29" "Bugsmasher 1234, Runway 29, cleared to land." "Tower, Bugsmasher 97Victor, 3 mile left base for Runway 29" "Bugsmasher 97Victor, #2 following company traffic over the numbers, Runway 29, cleared to land."
Meanwhile, everyone who insisted on the curfew had to hear the bug smashers circling for 5-10 minutes previously.
For each operation (landing and takeoff charged separately) during curfew: $63 surcharge (plus the normal landing fees) under 12,500# max takeoff weight. $458 surcharge 12,500# or over. After 5 in a calendar year, the 6th and subsequent double.
The sports teams and large jets that are based at the field (and so don't pay an after-hours callout fee to access the ground side of the field) pay it as needed.
Sydney is one of the airports with runways close enough together that they require special training and procedures. Nothing like SFO though.
Given how much Sydney traffic gets routed over populated areas at relatively low altitudes I can definitely sympathize with wanting a curfew. In fact the noise itself has a cute little term 'Marrickville Pause' because it's so damn loud.
For information, it's the "Petersham Pause" or "Marrickville Moment" :) There should also be the "Tempe Tumult" because you can basically reach up and touch one of the bastards at that stage.
Flying around the states I always got the impression that things were a little rickety, that SFO vid is nuts though.
Ah, that's the one. I've lived more or less under an SFO flight path for ages and used to commute down 101 right next to SFO which gets overflown constantly. Sydney was a whole different world though. Just walking sitting on a bench in Enmore Park it felt like you really could reach out and touch one of them.
Oddly enough about the only flight delay out of SFO I've experienced was SFO-SYD, a flight that gets delayed explicitly as a matter of course to avoid the curfew.
* Not saying the curfew is a bad thing