Australia's $5BN Mega-Airport in the Middle of Nowhere

Sydney is one of the most popular cities in the southern hemisphere it's home to the world-renowned opera house the beautiful Harbor Bridge and if you've not been to Bondo Beach you've almost certainly seen it on TV nearly 40 million people travel through the harbor City's main airport last year and can you blame them the good news for Tourism Australia is that more and more people are expected to travel to and from Sydney in the coming years the city's overall population could climb from 5 to 7 million people just don't tell the current residents all of that points to a city that's doing pretty well for itself but there's one rather alarming catch Sydney airports can't cope and with the threat of serious overwhelming at the city's biggest Aviation port a big expensive fix to the problem is currently under construction one that's haunted political debates in Sydney since the 1940s say hello to Western Sydney Airport 5. 3 billion Australian or roughly $3. 6 billion US worth of brand spanking new terminal check-in desks and Landing strips and while it's promise of 24/7 travel has Commercial Appeal that isn't Landing with nearby residents but with the city in desperate need of help is this multi-billion dollar development really the answer and can it help rescue Sydney from an aviation nightmare [Music] Sydney's airport is a true veteran founded in 1919 it's one of the oldest in the world and its hangers have had a bit more than just a liqu of paint since the 1990s there have been several Renovations over the years notably $425 million was thrown at increasing capacity in the leadup to the 2000 Sydney Olympics the existing terminals were extended and refurbished and new rail tunnels were constructed using a tunnel Boring Machine like this but while all of this was going on you couldn't exactly shut down the city's key airports the answer was the development of a steel and concrete structure that was quicker to install and meant less time on site it also required fewer towering cranes which are pretty difficult to use on an airport it's clear that various challenges have been navigated at Sydney airport over the years but it does have one pretty significant limiting factor and it's this on one side is botony Bay and the remainder of the footprint is surrounded by housing thanks to various suburbs there's no room for expansion and all that housing leads to flight path issues residents living nearby haven't been too impressed with planes flying over their homes at all hours and so much like a teenager that has school in the morning the airport now has a curfew every night from 11:00 p.

m. to 6:00 a. m.

thanks to an Act passed in 1995 the problem is that overnight flights are becoming pretty industry standard for a lot of major operators and without metaphorically flipping the bird to the nearby suburbs Sydney airport is kind of stuck between the sea and a hard place it's nearing capacity meaning without help Sydney's Aviation dilemma is only going to get worse potentially setting up a breakdown in the humming engine behind Australia's economy this airport moves over 500,000 metric tons of imports and exports every year along with countless workers and business people who've grown the southeast Pacific into a hub for Tech and business in in fact for the last 30 plus years the richest Australians have been building massive generational wealth and funing a portion of it into a growing asset class Fine Art according to a deoe estimate last year the overall art and collectibles wealth held by ultra high net worth individuals across the globe could hit nearly $2. 9 trillion by 2026 and you can be a part of it using the QR code on screen you can unlock the high-powered world of art investing thanks to today's video sponsor Masterworks their art investing platform has distributed back a total of more than $60 million in investor proceeds including principal across their 23 exits right now low prices in the Art Market are demonstrating a rare entry opportunity Masterworks recently posted another profitable return from selling a basar painting for $8 million earlier this year and with paintings typically ranging from $ 500,000 to $20 million Shar sometimes sell out in minutes but since so many of the BLM subscribers have signed on so far you can skip the wait list and start investing today with the QR code on screen the link in the description or by heading to masterworks. io here around 30 Mi west of the city's Central business district and Sydney airport eventually it'll welcome a staggering 82 million passengers a year but before that construction needs to be finished and can you believe that some of the first workers on site back in 2018 turned up purely for food and a good time herds of sheep and cattle were needed to help clear the nearby 1,800 hectares of Bushland an area twice the size of Sydney airport this has been one of the biggest earth moving projects in Australia's history 26 million Cub meters of soil and rock have been shifted to level the site using 300 pieces of Machinery now to put that into context the world's tallest building is the Burge Khalifa The amount of concrete poured for that amounted to an impressive 330,000 Cub M just over 1% of the amount of ground moved for the WSI sights with all that hard graft out the way the funbit could begin contractors started lay in the runway taxiways and apron areas obviously it's crucial that this infrastructure can withstand the load it's facing with Planes full of people landing and taking off here from 2026 it's why 4.

5 million tons of high quality crushed Sandstone have been laid under the surface to provide a stable Foundation the runway itself is 3. 7 km long and in time a second Runway of the same size is going to be added it'll run parallel on the other side of the terminal now you might be wondering wondering why there's no intersecting path a Runway passing through the current landing strip in case of variable winds and that is where years are waiting for a site has paid off you see the winds here have been studied for decades and they were so predictable that it was decided they wouldn't cause too many issues the terminal building itself spans four levels spread across 110,000 squ M it's a bit of a unicorn as is the whole site constructed from the ground up it's the first airport built on a green site in Australia for more than 50 years up above an aluminum box section ceiling has been treated to look like Timber it follows the curves and undulates to the actual angles of the Blue Mountains the roof uses light filtration inspired by the Australian bush to mimic the experience of standing underneath a eucalyptus tree canopy actual angles are created using a spine so there's a central spine and the actual blades are spaced diagrammatically so you actually get Space where natural light through the skylights that are above the sled ceiling there are then catwalks above that to allow for maintenance changing of lights and servicing throughout the ceiling space a step up from there the outer roof is made up of 32,000 tons of fabricated steel and more than 44,000 sare M of sheet metal now usually that might mean a lot of joints from which pesky leaks could crop up but not here two of the largest sheets of their kind in Australia each 75 M long were rolled on sight and hoisted up using a custom lifting frame lifting a 75 M sheet just the logistics of using a spreader beam just the exclusion zones as associated with it the engineering of the spreader beam that's actually supporting the sheet in a temporary case so it doesn't Bend or Flex while it's being craned into position um taking into account the wind loads the Cran loads and Associated impacts as oppos for that shoting was quite a challenge on top of those the roof is then topped out with 6,000 solar panels to help power the terminal and surrounding infrastructure now if you're Eagle eyed you might have seen the Metro terminal Link at the back of this graphic a new 23 km line is being constructed as part of a major overhaul of travel in the city there'll be six stops connecting Western Sydney to its new airport in time that'll then connect to ex existing Services stretching far and white all of this helps contribute to a city on the up and its newest airport which is now more than 80% complete is part of the party but that's just stage one in time this site will see major expansion going from this to this the terminal building will be developed further additional parking is going to be added more space will be created for Airlines to Dock and there'll be that second Runway the way fuel is brought to the site is is also being reexamined too as things stand it's fed about by good oldfashioned trucks but in the future we could see a dedicated fuel line set up for Western Sydney all of this will come but patience is needed going with hell for leather and doing it all at once risks opening a huge travel Port ready for nearly 100 million people but with demand starting at only 10 million and that would become extortionately expensive of course a flashing new airport of this size will never sit well with everyone Weston the airport will operate 24/7 and residents nearby have voiced concerns about the potential flight paths there are worries about the world heritage status of the Blue Mountains too something the WSI team isn't too concerned about those aerial routes aren't confirmed yet so we'll have to see what happens in the meantime construction will plow on a plane has now landed on the runway for the first time and further tests will continue over the next year and a half and while with each passing day we're nearing that grand opening it's been a long and expensive journey to get here well we've got crane drivers Multiplex crane drivers that grew up as uh they're in their 50s and 50 years old and they grew up as a kid um hearing about an airport many didn't believe that it would be one day they'd be living there and living in times where it was built and um the next thing they're a crane driver on the project the Bader's creek site was proposed way back in 1986 it wasn't until it was put forward again 28 years later that it was finally given the green light but massive strides have been made a first International operator Singapore Airlines has agreed a deal to fly to and from WSI and after a lifetime of waiting Sydney's hero is nearly here the answer to its Aviation nightmare this video was sponsored by Masterworks you can learn more about that at the link below don't forget that we're inspiring the next generation of Builders through our invest M into brick borrow a fantastic Lego subscription service you can learn more and get started today over at brick.