Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Murph]

I have always had an interest in commercial aviation. The sheer size of the planes, and the power of their engines, the hights, and speeds one atteins while in flight etc... Needless to say I always have an eye at least half peeled for planes flying overhead, trying to determin where they are coming from, and where they are heading, usually based on my position, and the great circle route. So this spring I moved to Anyang, and my apartment is directly under the flight paths of inbound planes, and outbound planes to and from Gimpo Airport, and in watching the planes over the past couple of months I have made an observation that puzzles me. More than 90% of the time planes follow a predetermined inbound path, and outbound path. They are almost as predictable as a Swiss watch. On a busy day inbound planes come in at the rate of one every couple of minutes, and they all follow the exact same path to within a few hundred feet. They fly over the same buildings, and maintain the same height, and speed etc... They look just like ducks in a line, and the same is true for the outgoing planes.

Here is the part that I don't get. It seems that every couple of weeks or so air traffic control goes crazy for a day ( a random day of the week at that.) Suddenly planes are coming and going from almost every direction, and there doesn't seem to be any altitude spacing between inbound, and outbound planes. It's almost like amateur day at the flight control tower. From the roof of my apartment I have even witnessed on more than one occassion large commercial planes vering very sharply to avoid a mid air collision. I am talking about a few thousand feet apart from each other, however given the speeds that these planes travel that's much too close, and should never happen.

Then just as quick as things go haywire, they seems to return to normal where planes are following predicatable flight paths again, all following each other within the slightest of margines, properly spaced etc...

Does anyone on here have any idea why this happens. Does it involve weather? Perhaps the military taking up certain airspace for a day? Less qualified airtraffic controllers?

[rendragmc]

What you're observing may not be what it appears. Flying into large airports can be "controlled chaos." Most of the time, you'll follow a standard route into and out of a busy airport. What you're observing could just be a busy rush hour, or a change in weather so the runways are turned around, or even a closed runway impacting operations. It could also be that the airport isn't very busy and are allowing planes to take a more direct path to the runway. There are lots of possible explanations. How do you know they were avoiding a midair? Yes sh*t does happen and planes have to alter their path to make up for someone's mistake, but that's rare enough that you will likely never see it, especially more than once. Planes may be turning sharply on final to create space between them and the preceding plane; that happens routinely at larger airports with planes stacked up for miles. This can be at the request of ATC or the pilots. Flying a few thousand feet from another plane, as long as the weather isn't bad, is commonplace in busy airspace.

That being said, I have no experience flying in Korea, but my guess is that there's a logical explanation for what you're observing.