Aircraft runways at Heathrow - a possible solution ?

Completely impractical

1 you would have to close the bottom runway while building the upper one so that bit defeats the object before you start as you have reduced the airport capacity by having to close the bottom runway

2 even if it were possible the cost would be horrendous

3 would not be aloud

4such a fire sprinkler system does not exist

5 if there were a crash on either runway how would emergency services rescue people you would have to close both runways

I think mosy people would acknowledge that Heathrow is in the wrong place. Most flights come in over London - a very densely populated area - which causes noise problems and the risk of an incident. Because of the number of people, London also has a disproportionately large number of MPs, and as most London people don't want more noise and most MPs want to keep their jobs, expanding it seems unlikely. That said there was a suggestion a couple of weeks ago (referenced below) that the two existing runways be extended and then split in two to provide four runways. This would probably be safer / cheaper than your suggestion.

Giving a new runway to Gatwick seems more likely. Stansted is not at capacity and spending billions on a new airport in the current economic climate is probably not going to happen.

As far as I know, most landings are not automatic even though some aircraft have that capability. As for the building a runway on top of another one, I am not a big fan of that idea because most landings are manual. Too much room for error. It is good that you have been thinking of solutions to Heathrow's problems though.

The thing with Heathrow is that they are running out of room to grow and there are so many residential houses near the airport that there are rules against landing before a certain timeframe.

I have heard of propositions of building an airport over a body of water so you have an airport on a man-made island, but I am not sure what impact that would have on local wildlife.

Heathrow is proposing to build a third runway either to the south-west or north-west of its current site at a cost of between £14bn and £18bn.

Colin Matthews, the airport’s boss, said it would require only £4bn to £6bn of public subsidy to upgrade surface transport links and insulate local homes, compared with an estimated £30bn bill for the taxpayer if London Mayor Boris Johnson gets his way and a new hub is built in the Thames Estuary.

Heaththrow airport is the 3rd busiest airport in the world. It brings a lot of money to the uk , so the government would probably knock down homes, to expand the airport.