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| Part One: Leaving Sydney |
| Sydney to Copenhagen via Bangkok and Heathrow (YSSY to EKCH via VTBD and EGLL) |
| Due to the aircraft being a British Airways 747-400 series aircraft, the tour will take off on the longest runway at Sydney, that being 34L/16R. runway 34L is the long runway at Sydney Airport (nearly 4 km long) and is the one which points sort of north, at a heading of 335 degrees (this is where it get's it's name 34. as 335 rounded up to the nearest ten degrees is 340, and so 34L (three four left) means the parallel runway on the left side facing 340 degrees. Runway 16R is the same runway, just the other end of it. The aircraft will take off on one of these, taking the option which has the best headwind. (Air Traffic Controll will decide with one will be used). |
| After takeoff, the aircraft will track a short route called a SID, or Standard Instrument Departure. This will bring the aircraft so that it avoids inbound traffic, and avoids as much as possible "noise sensitive areas" of Sydney. It also gets the aircraft tracking along it's flightplan as quickly as possible. On the route to Bangkok, which has to head inland and across Australia towards Thailand, the usual SIDs pass Richmond (the airforce base) Depending on weather the aircraft became airborne off runway 34L or 16R the route will either be the a Richmond two departure of Deena two departure. Copies of these routes are below (note these should not be used for real life navigation as the currency and accuracy of the chart cannot be guarenteed.) |
| click on the picture for enlarged version |
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| Visit Will Tidmarsh's site at http://www.acay.com.au/~willt/yssy |
| www.fly.opasia.dk/flight-info/airports/ekch-main.asp www.ais.org.uk/uk_aip/pdf/ad/EGLL.pdf |
| How to fly there |
| Websites on the approach and departure procedures for the airports |
| Tracking outbound from Richmond, the aircraft will bank slightly to the right and head toward Darwin, probably at 35,000 feet or 43,000. Climbing to this height will take a long time, maybe 45 minutes or so. About 4 hours after takeoff, the aircraft will pass the coastline of northern Australia bound for Bangkok, entering oceanic airspace. 8 hours later, the aircraft will have trasversed the distance and will be about to land. The route goes passed many "waypoints" and the entire compliment of waypoints is (in order) Sydney (YSSY) Richmond (RIC) IDODA NONET VINAX DOTAP MILIV Tindal (TN) Darwin (DN) SATNA SOTRA GABIT BLI KOLTA ROZAX SANVL MINOS BIBRO ALGOR KAKET RYN Bangkok (VTBD) a long flight... but not as long as the next one... |
| Click here for Boeing 747-400 specifications from Qantas. |