I'm a pilot, I don't fly much these days and the plane I did fly were small single engine Cessna one's. Not the jets we see and hear in our sky's of Sydney these days.
I still have friends who fly and some fly the planes I see outside my window, and hear over head.

I always wondered why when they have all that sky to fly in, do they have to use that bit above my place and why so low.
Are flight paths so hard to workout, and why are they so close to the ground.
I've spoken with my full time pilot friends and they explain that the modern jets of today need to be at 10 thousand feet at 20 km to come in at 3 degree angle of decent to the airport, so cool but why!

But why still over my house and so close to the ground, maybe we need to talk to the manufacturers because if they could put on the air breaks and change the decent slope to 15, 20 or 30 degree angle of decent they would save all of us from noise and make the chances of one dropping on our head less.
Real estate prices would sky rocket, but also more important lives would improve for a lot people. What would be the cost for a stepper decent.
Drinks could slide off the tray table on decent? When you think about it why would it cost any more, it's couldn't be the going down hill bit as how much could it cost to glide down hill.

Still were descending in a jet at 30 degree how do we slow down, well we do have air breaks and engines that can reverse or at least slow down.

In my little plane we were taught that a wind milling prop is like having a flat disc in front of the plane and we would have to feather the prop to increase our glide slope in a emergency, when the engine stops.

So if a little plane with one engine can descend down at 45 degree why can't a big jet.

By Damien Huxley.
Updated Monday 8 Dec 2008