Where are the Aircraft?

Aviation Impact Assessments are intended to inform planning authorities about the potential impacts a proposed development may have on aviation activities.

Consider new structures intruding into protected airspace around an aerodrome, noise impacts on new residential development creating adverse planning outcomes, building-generated windshear, or glare from a solar farm. There are many factors to examine.

To properly define and assess these impacts, it is essential to understand where aircraft are in time and space, which is why we usually include flight path analysis in our assessments.

Noise impacts cannot be modelled (or mitigated) unless we know the types of aircraft involved, the runways they use, their flight paths, and the times of day or night they operate. It is also important to remember that a person considering living near an airport is unlikely to understand the theoretical modelling used in planning systems intended to enable development that is compatible with noise-generating land uses. They experience aircraft noise in the real world.

Representing actual (or likely) flight paths is therefore essential for understanding and communicating this issue.

An aerodrome’s protected airspace is defined by a reference aircraft and scope of operations (are there instrument approaches or runway lights?), the circuit direction, and the surrounding obstacle environment. Some runways, particularly at uncertified aerodromes or agricultural airstrips, only operate in one direction. We need to understand this information to determine whether a new tall structure would adversely affect aircraft operations and what mitigation measures would adequately address any identified impacts.

Changing flight paths to accommodate a new hazard or introducing new or different flight paths (for example, if a new runway is commissioned or an instrument approach procedure is published) can result in consequential impacts that should also be assessed. Once again, impacts can only be properly identified and mitigated if we understand existing aircraft operations and flight paths, and how they will change.

Without a four-dimensional appreciation of where aircraft are likely to be, the full scope of potential impacts may not be properly defined. This could lead to planning authorities making uninformed decisions that affect the safety, efficiency and regularity of aircraft operations, or the amenity of the surrounding community.

To find out more about what a detailed and thorough aviation impact assessment should include, contact us.