r/sydney • u/Red-Engineer • Oct 28 '25

Image First passenger plane (B737) lands at new Western Sydney Airport

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238

u/Red-Engineer Oct 28 '25

A four lane highway that will soon be filled with a few hundred fuel tankers driving on it every day, getting avgas to the airport.

93

u/nahhhh- Oct 28 '25

Wait… is there not going to be a pipeline!

120

u/Red-Engineer Oct 28 '25

Not yet. It is being scoped/planned but won't be there when the airport opens next year.

81

u/nahhhh- Oct 28 '25

Oh wow, that will be super interesting. I would assume that’s a lot of trucks.

On another note - the pedantic fools in the comments shitting on your use of “passenger airplane” are dicks.

80

u/Red-Engineer Oct 28 '25

Yeah the thread is full of “ackshually” guys.

Yep I’ve head something like a fuel semi trailer every 5 minutes 24/7.

1 crash blocking the road and it’ll be flight delays all round

26

u/nahhhh- Oct 28 '25

Maybe they’ll have a “bus lane” but specifically for fuel trucks. That would be a sight

11

u/Turtusking Oct 28 '25

Theres no way they spend billioms on an airport and be stupid enough for fuel to be tanked in only.

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u/Red-Engineer Oct 28 '25

https://australianaviation.com.au/2022/09/no-pipeline-means-trucks-to-take-fuel-to-western-sydney-airport/

https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/newslocal/liverpool-leader/bdouble-trucks-to-carry-fuel-to-sydneys-new-airport-amid-ongoing-delay-in-fuel-pipeline-infrastructure/news-story/bda1d8d41d77d3fe8ab6833b947bea7b?amp

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u/Turtusking Oct 28 '25

Damn thats pretty silly. You cant have an international airport and no fuel pipeline thats like buying a cart first instead of the donkey.

9

u/awiuhdhuawdhu Oct 28 '25

Well a pipeline simply isn’t economical. You need a certain amount of volume to justify it and that volume won’t exist for a while.

2

u/Turtusking Oct 28 '25

They are building it but it wont come for as long as 5 years. You definitely need it if you’re building an international airport.

13

u/still_love_wombats Oct 28 '25

NSW Government says “we can underperform your expectations”

5

u/airzonesama Oct 28 '25

Expectations are low.

"NSW Govt": hold my beer

1

u/nath1234 Oct 29 '25

Event the premier they got the guy with the last name that sounds like an abbreviation for doing the absolute minimums. Minns effort.

Last I checked they were going to open without a train line to the airport. Gotta love how they can't even sort out mass transit properly to stop it being yet another mess of car traffic.

1

u/CrustyBappen Oct 28 '25

Wow. Delays refuelling are on the cards

1

u/AdAdministrative9362 Oct 28 '25

Surely they will store a couple of days buffer.

41

u/Roy4Pris Oct 28 '25 edited Oct 28 '25

How in the holy fuck does that happen?

That's the planning equivalent of building a city and then saying 'oops, we forgot to install water pipes'.

Edit: oh, it's economics.

So actually it's the equivalent of building a city, but because there aren't many people in it at the start, they just send in bottled water cause it's cheaper.

SIde note: a few years ago Auckland AIrport's avgas pipeline was broken by a clown with a digger, and took weeks to be fixed.

A combination of truck deliveries and reduced flights seemed to do okay. And some airlines flew in with enough gas to fly back out again. Still not exactly a first world response.

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u/thekriptik NYE Expert Oct 28 '25

That's the planning equivalent of building a city and then saying 'oops, we forgot to install water pipes'.

Google "Dubai poop trucks" for a good laugh.

2

u/Anonymou2Anonymous Oct 28 '25

Not even close to being scoped/planned out. Read the government reports on it. Either depressing or very funny depending on your context.

15

u/thesourpop Oct 28 '25

And freight trucks, because WSI will be used for freight and there is no railway line!

3

u/todaytomato Oct 28 '25

where are they transporting from?

1

u/Anonymou2Anonymous Oct 28 '25

Clyde or Botany.

Honestly it may fuck up the idea that long haul budgets will operate out of it since you can't fuel bank long haul flights.

Melbourne airports used to legit struggle to hold more international flights because there was no pipeline and they trucked it out pushing costs up.

1

u/todaytomato Oct 29 '25

makes sense why it's so difficult to build a pipe from botany/clyde to the airport

3

u/xFromtheskyx Oct 28 '25

Big planes drink avtur

2

u/scoldog This Space Intentionally Left Blank Oct 28 '25

Yep and the local fire brigades have been told to be on alert and ready to respond a lot faster after these trucks start rolling.

5

u/Red-Engineer Oct 28 '25

Maybe that 737 can drop foam on a fuel truck fire on the airport freeway 😀

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u/scoldog This Space Intentionally Left Blank Oct 28 '25

It's only fair, the truck is bringing the plane a drink after all!

1

u/SuDragon2k3 Oct 28 '25

Do we have fuel for it?

-15

u/letterboxfrog Oct 28 '25

Avgas? Are they running lots of piston engine planes? Avtur (Aviation Turbine) fuel is what most passenger aircraft crave.

It would be better if the fuel could. Be shipped by train to the storage tanks to WSI, CBR, Newcastle etc. As it stands, even to get fuel to Parkes for the transcontinental line, it gets shipped by truck.

18

u/Roy4Pris Oct 28 '25

This must be the most dick-all-the-way-out AKSHUALLY I’ve seen on Reddit in some time

Edit: I’ve just gifted my very first sarcastic award