Just curious for those vets of KLAX, what sort of runway configuration do they usually use, obviously wind dependent.
With a wind from the west which rwy(s) would typically be for takeoff and which for landing? Same question with a wind from the east? Calm winds? What about nighttime noise abatement procs?
LAX has 2 sets of runways that are basically parallel to each other. There are two south of the terminals and two north of the terminals. There is also a heliport but that’s not what you are talking about here, right?
The most common is landing to the west and taking off to the west.
Between midnight and 6:30 a.m. all departures are to the west (“Over Ocean Operation”), even if there is a tail wind. However, some aircraft do request departures to the east when other aircraft are departing to the west during the post-midnight hours. This usually happens when the tail component is too large for the weight of the aircraft.
See LAX Rules and Regulations and Noise Management
As Damiross says, normally LAX is in a west configuration. Typically they use the outer runways for landing and the inboard runways for takeoff. However there are many times during the day when they have a lot of aircraft landing and not many takeoffs so, during VMC, they can use all 4 runways for landing. The same happens for takeoffs also.
All transport aircraft have a 10 knot tailwind limit so during those windy times aircraft will takeoff/land in the same direction regardless of what time it is. Aircraft performance may, on rare occasions, dictate that one aircraft will takeoff or land against the flow. I’ve seen this happen once during the day, but it is rare.
John
Scroll down to KLAX, and you can listen to LAX Tower live.
You can also watch the aircraft arriving/departing/overflying on
this moving map.
And of course confirm it all on Flightware.
If interested in viewing operations at KLAX the following link provides 2 different web cams overlooking the south complex. (Runways 7R/25L and 7L/25R): (http://www.cargolaw.com/lax_webcam.html)
As many have said, landing west is the norm. I have found if you are entering from the north or west you will be routed to the northern rwys. South or east get the south 2 rwys. Also, there is consideration to be made for the size of a/c (larger to the south) and terminal destination to minimize taxiing. You can usually see a loooooooooooong line of lights doing the conga inbound to land at night. Very cool!