this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2024
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Mildly Interesting
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They have air traffic control. They only let the planes cross runways with clearance when the runway is clear. Parallel runways are very common and it isn't a problem. Aircraft movements are well coordinated.
CLT, Charlotte-Douglas International in North Carolina, is a Class B airfield, in layman's terms it has the most severe air traffic control it can get. It's a whole other level above Raleigh-Durham or Piedmont-Triad. Huh, I've been flying in North Carolina since 2001 and I just now realized that all of our airports are hyphenated.
Charlotte-Douglas has four runways, three of them parallel. The airline terminal, cargo terminal and a few other major facilities sit between runways 36C and 36R, on either side of runway 5. A few other facilities including the general aviation ramp and the Air National Guard ramp sit on the East side of the field off of 36R. 36L is kind of way off to the West. I don't know at a glance of the airport diagram if they can do simultaneous approaches to all three runways but I have to imagine they can do simultaneous approaches to the outer two.
Wait what? Is KCLT the only bravo in NC????
Yep. RDU, GSO, FAY, whatever Asheville is are all Charlie, and Wilmington is a class D with a TRSA around it because the coast hasn't joined us in the 21st century.
I have heard too many ATC recordings of where the landing plane has to go around because the crossing plane is too slow.
And you say well coordinated, but people still land on the wrong runway, and people still land on taxiways…
But I digress, I think my airports just don’t have enough traffic to support parallel landings
Parallel landings has special requirements. Most airports cannot do parallel landings and instead use one runway for landings and one for takeoffs.
Aviation has a very low reporting threshold. Every minor breach of procedure or a near miss generates a report. The FAA estimates 16 million flights per year, with a total of 1760 runway incursions in 2023. A tenth of a percent incident rate is not bad.
Imagine how the statistics would look if we held automobiles to the same reporting standards.