Aviation
One of the most common difficulties in finding suitable places for building wind turbines is overcoming concerns that they will cause a problem for military and civilian aircraft.
This is why aviation is one of the first issues to be investigated when assessing whether or not a wind turbine can be built in a particular location. To do this the views of the Ministry of Defence, the Civil Aviation Authority, National Air Traffic Services and individual airport operators are always sought very early in the lifetime of the development of a site.
All landing strips and airports in the UK have to keep certain areas around the runway clear of tall structures so that there are no obstacles for aircraft landing and taking off. The heights and locations of obstacles which may cause a problem vary between the different types of airstrips and airports in the country. Generally speaking it is a misconception that due to their height wind turbines will be in the way of airplanes since, unless they are taking off or landing, airplanes need to keep around 400m above ground level.
During our investigations of the Rushy Mead site we have discussed the ongoing work with
- Ministry of Defence
- Heathrow
- Farnborough
- National Air Traffic Services
- Blackbushe Airport
During the course of the development of this site, our aviation consultants BAE Systems Integrated System Technologies and ourselves have had discussions with all the aviation stake holders and we are confident that there are no technical grounds for aviation bodies to object to this planning application.