There is no plan for a 4000 metre runway. The idea is to cross subsidise low fares that will induce people to make the trek to Richmond with higher fares for those who want to use Sydney. The existing 2134 metre runway will be worked as hard as possible for single aisle shorter range flights. Badgerys Creek may even be turned into a nice flat part of a long and winding freeway from Prestons to Richmond via St Marys. My homework report has been filed on Plane Talking.

It will of course make no difference to congestion at Sydney Airport but keep intact the inglorious record of consistent transport related planning failures in the Sydney Basin.

Ben Sandilands still has it wrong whatever blinkered process the military went through to assess the worth of the Richmond site 20years ago. Also, at that time access to the University land was probably considered difficult or perhaps impossible. Windsor Road, was also probably held to be sacrosanct. Both these assumptions are now easily challenged.

Not only have I done my homework, I had discussions some years ago with the then Dept of Planning when the opportunity arose. I do not work for anyone with a vested interest in the site or the industry - in fact, I don’t work for anyone.

Why are you not using your name, Bakerboy?

Just to say - yes foggy out t/here, Hawkesbury river between RAAF base and Windsor and alot of space between.

Windsor Rd is dual carriage way highly engineered to serve much higher capacity - only some land developers at Pitt Town 20 km north west of there.

And finally Faulkner and Albanese of Defence and Infrastructure respectively are both essentially inner westie Sydney Left Faction long standing whingers about KSA, as they should be.

I wonder.

The railway line has already been duplicated in parts and relatively recently electrified. Dismissing the Sydney train experience by referring to the Chatswood-Parramatta project makes as much sense as saying, “It will never fly, Orville.”

The usual reasons given for not having a commercial airport at Richmond are flooding and fog. Flooding is relatively simply fixable by more culverts under a raised airstrip, by angling any filling and by compensatory works. The volume of filling would not be significant when considered against the studies of flood storage in the early 1970s for the Council. There is a roadway already largely in place for flood escape in any case - it just on the other side of the hill in Windsor.

Fog is no more an issue at Richmond than at Badgery’s Creek or almost anywhere else in the Sydney Basin.

Noise is not likely to be an issue as the flight path would be over sparsely inhabited country in both directions for kilometres.

I am not expert on the meshing on the flight paths with KSA or Bankstown, but from first principles, one would think there might be limited issues.

Anyway, the article is so far off the pace that Ben Sandlilands really ought to print a retraction. It is poorly researched and not up the Crikey standard.