London Docklands Heliport

[Hover Bovver]

Is it still in use ?? Or are there any other sites other than Vangaurd close to Excel ?

Cheers
HB

[JimBall]

If you can find who owns the land, there's a lovely short strip that was put in for Red Bull Air Race 2008. It's on north side of London City - but is not their land.

Or - the O2 rear car park has an H just visible on Google Earth. You can only land there when they aren't using the car park it's painted on. And the landowners are some Govt urban development agency.

There's a shiny new H at the north side of the O2 - but not apparently useable due to planning restrictions by Greenwich local authority,

[Tailboom]

Vangaurd is still in use, you need to contact them and then get permisision from the CAA its an excemption for a year, you then need to inform the Met police which is a right pain, I spent hours being passed around with nobody knowing who I should speak to, basically all you need is an incident no from them incase something happens and they then have your contact details, havn't been in there yet myself but we now have all the documentaion ready for when we do

[JTobias]

Hi

Yep, the Met Police thing, for vanguard can be a pain, what you need to do is simply ring the Police (NOT 999), ask them to put you through to the command centre that deals with that area/borough and simply tell the operator that you are going to be doing a flight into Vanguard and that you want them to simply log it as an incident and then obtain the number. End of.

It is important that you explain to the operator that what you are doing is a standard procedure, you are not ASKING for permission, you are simply fulfilling a CAA requirement to notify them. If you don't get any joy, put the phone down and start again. Hopefully the next operator will just do it.

Joel

[Helinut]

My memory may be playing tricks, but I recall the CAA feds warned AOC operators off Vanguard for CAT flights. I think there was a FODCOM or something similar. If I am correct, Vanguard may only be suitable for non-CAT.

[Lord Mount]

JTobias.
A few trigger phrases go a long way.
Just ring 0300 123 1212 (the non-emergency line) and explain to the operator that you need to 'create a cad message' (trigger phrase) with your contact details as you will be conducting a routine flight into the location. The 'CAD is for info only' (trigger phrase) and 'no unit deployment required' (trigger phrase) and you just need the 'CAD number' (trigger phrase) for your records. Ask the operator to pass it to the relevant 'IBO' (trigger phrase).

Throw these around and they will think you've been doing the job for 25 years (which I have unfortunately).

Still, only 157 days to retirement (not that I'm counting).

Regards

LM