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Comment by mmaunder | Hacker News Reader

The thing that’s unique about this airport is that it has parallel runways, which is very common, but the R runways (right side on approach) do not have right traffic. They also have a left traffic pattern. So two planes taking off at the same time will both make a left turn. Very unusual and very dangerous if you happen to have that situation.

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Thank you. Looking at the satellite picture, the runways seem to be sufficiently separated for simultaneous departures and the article did not have a lot of detail. It seemed to be implied that the aircraft were at risk of colliding, but I was unable to see how that was likely. If both runways make left traffic (why?!), that certainly explains it.

It’s really odd. If they use the 09 runways and the 27 runways (depending on wind on any given day) then you have left traffic in the pattern on the north or south side. It could be some weird compromise with the neighbors about only having traffic on one side at a time. I really have no idea. But noise abatement in urban areas is a big deal so if it’s not geography the I’d guess it’s noise. I’m just a private pilot so maybe an ATP here can weigh in. I’ll ask around.

For a counter example look at Centennial in Colorado (KAPA) which had a similar setup and is my home field. They always have right traffic on one of the runways.

The airport in Bangalore is 30miles from the city. It is literally in the middle of nowhere.

There are few settlements nearby ofcourse, however no high density or large group of people or high rise buildings etc.

There shouldn't be any need for noise abatement

My guess is there is something in right traffic that they aren't allowed to fly over, or there is terrain/tall buildings potentially making it dangerous in inclement weather

I had a quick look at the departure charts and they seem to be avoiding an airforce base.

Thanks for that, I was wondering what the layout was since the description seemed incomplete. These sound like minor things, but they are really critical and require coordination.

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