Landings and Takeoffs

[AC77w]

ive been to Pearson airport in toronto twice to do some spotting at the wendy's parking lot both times. now both times ive been the planes were taking off on runway 23L. how does the ATC choose to land the plane on that runway instead of takeoff from it? i wanna go again soon but i wanna see some landings cause the plane is lower when its landing. can someone answer this for me. thanks a lot

[Chris@YYZ]

it depends on what direction the wind is blowing.

ATC wants to land planes into the wind, but planes also want to take off into the wind.

by the way, YYZ doesn't have a 23L

the runways that are 240/60 degrees are runways 24R/06L, 24L/06R and 23/05

if they were landing planes on the 24s or 23 it means the wind was coming from approximately 060 degrees

also, the wendys parking lot is across the threshold for runway 23.

[Crunk415balla]

Planes will depart and land from the same direction. You very rarely have planes depart from one end and land from the other at once. The only exceptions that come to mind are, for example at SFO, sometimes if an international flight is late(usually a heavy as they would have to go all the way to the 28s to takeoff), parked on the north side of the field, and wants to save taxi-time, it may depart from runway 10L or 10R even though 28L and 28R are active. It will just hold short until ATC can get it out.

This happens on ocassion, but its rare. I don't know how many other airports do this.

[MCM]

Usually they'll take off in opposite directions than landing for noise abatement reasons, or for if you are take-off limited.

For example, LAX uses the 06/07 runways for arrivals and 24/25 for departures most mornings, until switching around to entirely 24/25 arr and dep a bit later in the morning.

Sydney do it too under the delightful acronym "SODPROPS"

Ive also taken off against the landing traffic one evening in LA taking off on 07L instead of the operational 25R purely due to performance issues. There is usually a fair wait involved!

[MaxPower]

it depends on what direction the wind is blowing.

ATC wants to land planes into the wind, but planes also want to take off into the wind.

by the way, YYZ doesn't have a 23L

the runways that are 240/60 degrees are runways 24R/06L, 24L/06R and 23/05


if they were landing planes on the 24s or 23 it means the wind was coming from approximately 060 degrees

also, the wendys parking lot is across the threshold for runway 23.

Just a little helping hand of the runways at YYZ.

[ptbodale]

Prevailing winds in YYZ are from the West so 23 or 24 (L/R) are in use most often.