Tuno writes:

My wife and I recently relocated to Manhattan Beach, CA, a few miles
south of LAX. Having flown in and out of LAX dozens of times in the
last few years, I'm familiar with the pattern for east-bound aircraft
-- take off to the west over the ocean, turn south out over the water,
parallel the beach about 10 miles, turn inland south of Long Beach and
by then at 15 or 20 thousand feet and who cares about your noise.

Monday night at 40 minutes past midnight, we were awoken by what
sounded like a 747 in military throttle right outside our window. I
half expected to see a fireball.

So what transpired? Do the heavies bend the rules after midnight when
nobody's looking?

During the night (midnight to 6:30 AM), LAX normally routes both arriving and
departing traffic over the ocean, unless there is a strong wind from the east
(I think "strong" means above 11 knots). Some people refer to this as
"suicide ops," because it requires traffic moving in opposite direction on the
same or parallel runways. It is done to spare local residents a bit of
noise--so the next time you fly into or out of LAX, keep in mind that your
safety is being compromised to some extent in the interest of political
correctness.

If you are south of the airport, you're going to hear aircraft no matter which
way they take off or land. Since 747s are the largest aircraft around and are
usually flying long routes with heavy loads into and out of LAX, they make the
biggest rumble when they wind up for take off. For the longest routes, these
aircraft will sit in position on the runway and stand on the brakes until they
reach full take-off thrust, and then release the brakes, ensuring that they
get the longest possible take-off roll at full thrust; they need it. Also,
the only runway that can handle a 747 loaded to the hilt is 25R/7L, on the
south side of the airport (25L/7R is temporarily closed).

I've taken long flights out of LAX like this and you can't avoid mentally
calculating the length of the runway and wondering if the pilot ever plans to
rotate. But they have no trouble getting into the air; despite the 747's
size, it likes to fly, even fully loaded.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.