I'm sitting out in the back yard sipping on a nice glass of rosé, having just taken Alina for a nice long walk. It's pretty hot here, which I'm not a big fan of but Liz is. Although since she's working nights right now, sleeping during the day when it's thirty plus is challening even her love of the hot weather.
One of the things that Liz's Uncle Peter asked about the other day when he came around was did we get a discount on the house because it is under the flight path? Well, this got me thinking. And googling.
First up, the astute reader may remember this Uncle Peter from
all the time we spent with him at his place in northern England. That means that he doesn't normally live here. So, to get here he could have swum, taken a boat, or, like most of us would have done, taken a plane. He chose the latter and arrived a couple of days before Christmas. Business class, actually, which sure would have beaten swimming.
Unlike many better thought-out cities, the airport in Sydney is smack-bang in the middle. Well, the middle of the coast-line anyway. (Aside: We turned down a flight to Europe stopping over in Japan this time because even though the airport is called Tokyo, it is actually three
hours away from the city itself. In that case we as the travellers, not residents, wanted to be close to the city quickly).
So, this means that unless every single flight is to take off over the water (thereby ignoring the vast majority of the runways' capacity), a reasonable number of people are going to be living under the flight paths.
A fair bit of googling later, I arrived at
this Air Services Australia site where there are some truly useful reports. There's also the
community forum with useful information.
However, let me summarise the points as they apply to us:
- 8% of plane movements in Sydney last month went roughly over our house.
- That means 92% didn't, a sizable majority of which went north over Leichardt and the inner west. These are the other, "trendier" places we were looking to move to.
- The long-term target for the number of planes which go over our house is 15%, so we are currently running well short.
- However, the vast majority of the planes that do come over here do so in the early morning, late evening or on weekends. ie. when we are at home and sometimes entertaining.
- This does leave room for the rest of the day when we typically aren't home for the rest of that 15% to be moved into. Hopefully.
When we came to meet the previous owners of the house, we had a chat and a beer and watched a plane came over then. It was a little alarming, but we still thoroughly stand by our decision. We got a great deal on this place and it's "only a stepping stone", so who knows where we will be in a few years time.