Mysteries, Chemtrails, Aerosols :: Mysterious NZ

[Crakka]

Maybe someone with a knowledge of flightpaths in the Auckland region can answer this. I saw somewhere recently something saying that generally we don't get flights taking a direct path over Auckland City. However, lately we seem to be getting heaps of lower altitude commercial national & international aircraft flying directly and almost directly overhead here at all hours of the day on a very regular basis. These are mostly roughly W-to-E or vice versa with slight variation obviously. Some flights seem to be very regular eg. one or two around midnight every night (a rare time when I'm nearly always near a clock to be able to tell the time!). Also on some days, weekends in particular, regularity is such that there'll often be 2 large aircraft in the sky at once within small distance of each other plus mumerous smaller aircraft.

So the question is - have flightpaths changed so that more air traffic is flying directly over the greater Auckland area now? If so why? Has there been a recent general increase in air traffic? I wouldn't have assumed so given the economic situation. Or am I simply noticing it more these days? Personally I'm pretty sure it's not the latter as it's more the increase in "hearing" more loud aircraft noise overhead that's alerted me to this change in my area and this certainly has increased in regularity from early morning to night.

[info4]

Hi Crakka

We live out west as well, but I can't say that I have noticed what you have observed. (We are tucked away in the bush but do see/hear them from time to time for landing and takeoff).

Some time ago I helped with the supplying details of flight paths for Air NZ a/c to Myst NZ to help create the Myst NZ, NZ Flight Vector Map.

I presume you have seen this?

There are aircraft that do overfly Auckland on there way up to the islands that have departed from Wellington/Christchurch (but of course this is south to north) and have been observed to leave a great trail behind them (photos here on the site somewhere). We have seen them ourselves.

Whether there are more than normal I'm not sure but I would need to look at Flight Explorer for a time and see/observe.

My thoughts on the lower altitude ones maybe that they are being repositioned for a easterly or westerly landing due to the winds of the day at the airport.

Example coming from Aust and need to land east to west would require the aircraft to travel over Auckland to reposition for a easterly landing (I think I got that right).

I have seen this many times as they do seem quite low.

What height do you estimate those west/east flights are?

These ones are quite hard to track on Flight Explorer as the altitude isn't always correct (what it is reporting).

Anyway i will look at F/Exp for a time over the next week or 2 and see what if there is something "different" to what I have observed before

[Crakka]

Thanks info4. Pretty hard to estimate heights but it ranges. Seems like some days are busier than others and it seems to be when winds are from either direction but again not something I specifically checked. You've given me some good info there though to think about (no pun intended!). Cheers.