Fedex Radar recording

Andrew Gideon writes:

On Sat, 24 Jun 2006 20:13:21 +0200, Thomas Borchert wrote:

I
had the privilege of writing a magazine story on an average night in
Memphis. It's quite a scene.

Nobody outbound? Where to they put all those aircraft on the ground?

Remember that FedEx started with the model of each aircraft making
exactly two flights a day -- to Memphis, wait while packages are
unloaded, sorted, and reloaded, then back to their city. So all the
arrivals had to occur before all the departures.

It's gotten much more complicated, with more packages sorted remotely
for shorter trips, but I'm not surprised there's still a tendency for
a lot of planes to arrive, sit around a while, and depart from Memphis.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, , http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/
RKBA: http://www.dd-b.net/carry/
Pics: http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/ http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/
Dragaera/Steven Brust: http://dragaera.info/

"David Dyer-Bennet" wrote in message
...
Andrew Gideon writes:

Nobody outbound? Where to they put all those aircraft on the ground?

Remember that FedEx started with the model of each aircraft making
exactly two flights a day -- to Memphis, wait while packages are
unloaded, sorted, and reloaded, then back to their city. So all the
arrivals had to occur before all the departures.

Before *all* of the departures? No one else uses the airport? Or, at
least, no one else uses the airport while the FedEx airplanes are arriving?

It's gotten much more complicated, with more packages sorted remotely
for shorter trips, but I'm not surprised there's still a tendency for
a lot of planes to arrive, sit around a while, and depart from Memphis.

Sure, but *no* departures? No one?

Sure seems unlikely to me. Data filtering seems more likely than there
being *zero* other air traffic during the FedEx arrivals (especially over
that long a period of time).

Granted, with the crappy weather depicted, there would be fewer than normal.
But for the airport to essentially shut down except for FedEx seems a little
odd, even considering it's their hub.

Pete

"Peter Duniho" writes:

"David Dyer-Bennet" wrote in message
...
Andrew Gideon writes:

Nobody outbound? Where to they put all those aircraft on the ground?

Remember that FedEx started with the model of each aircraft making
exactly two flights a day -- to Memphis, wait while packages are
unloaded, sorted, and reloaded, then back to their city. So all the
arrivals had to occur before all the departures.

Before *all* of the departures? No one else uses the airport? Or, at
least, no one else uses the airport while the FedEx airplanes are arriving?

No, I wouldn't think so; I mean of their planes. But, late at night,
they were probably 95% of the use of that airport, too.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, , http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/
RKBA: http://www.dd-b.net/carry/
Pics: http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/ http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/
Dragaera/Steven Brust: http://dragaera.info/

"Andrew Gideon" wrote in message

Nobody outbound? Where to they put all those aircraft on the ground?

The storm related video is of a specific, truncated time span, meant to show
the storm disrupted arrivals. Of course there are outbounds, but the nature
of FedEx ops is that almost everyone arrives, then later everyone leaves.
If you go to Jay's video site
http://www.alexisparkinn.com/aviation_videos.htm there's another clip
there that shows a full 24 hour span of FedEx ops.

Andrew,

Nobody outbound? Where to they put all those aircraft on the ground?


Inbound from 6 to about 8 pm. Put the aircraft on the Fedex ramp.
Unpack all, resort the packets, reload the aircraft, outbound from 2 to
4 am. After that, the ramp is empty again until 6 pm.

There are exceptions, of course, but the major push is inbound during
that time in the evening, very few outbounds. And the opposite is valid
for the outbound push. They even have flying spares, read empty DC-10s
flying from Seattly and Indianapolis to Memphis. In case an aircraft
can't take off for technical reasons, the spare will go there and pick
up the load.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)