I’m not a pilot, so sorry if I’m asking the question oddly –
I’m doing some research and I’m trying to determine about how long it is from the time a plane “gets in line” to land at SNA (John Wayne Airport, Orange County, CA) to when it actually lands. I live 12 miles out (North) from the airport just south of the 91 freeway and about four miles west of the 55 freeway. The planes coming from either the west or east seem to turn south just over my house in order to line up with the southern part of the 55 and the airport. We frequently have friends who fly in, and we’re trying to figure out if we can determine which is their plane when it flies over. Unfortunately, they’re usually on Southwest, and it seems every other plane going into SNA is a Southwest aircraft.
Have you looked at SWA info under AIRPORT TRACKER/INFO at the bottom of the left panel? Check the approach plates and see if you can locate your spot.
Have you looked at charts in SKYVECTOR.COM?
There are several variables that make your question hard to answer.
Other traffic. Your friends flight may be the first to land or they may be number 3. Radar will seperate them accordingly and put them “in line” with each other so the distance from the airport one day to the next will vary by miles.
Nice day or cloudy. On a nice day the flight may use a visual approach which means if they are number 1 to land (see above) they could turn final only 3 or 4 miles from the airport. On the other hand on a cloudy day they will have to intercept the instrument approach several miles farther out.
Today they operated primarily on 19R. They brought some of the Northern CA arrivals up the Santa Ana River to just before Hwy 22 before turning them for the airport.
