Alan,
Mike I thought I had mentioned that above the Easterly SID graphic.
The two southbound SIDs you've drawn to me are the SAM and MID. The CPT dep, if it were to fly the SID rather than be given headings, makes a sharp 180deg right turn on dep from 09R and goes WOD then CPT. It may be vectored on that track or it may be taken a bit further south depending on the arriving traffic.
englishal,
It's not a case of "Fun to fly over LHR", although it may be a for a few times, its a case of getting from A to B in the most economical, most direct route. I gather that many GA pilots in the UK are simply "bimblers" who are happy to go up for an hour and view their house again from 1500'. There are some though who would actually like to use an aircraft as a means of transport, and these VFR corridors would allow this (lets apply this to Class D zones as well).
I'd argue that there's next to no time to be saved for anybody by just having a corridor over Heathrow. Whether you fly round the zone to get from A to B or use a corridor there's a fair amount of dog legging to be done and any time or mileage saved is almost insignificant.
The only corridor that would make any sense to me is one that starts south of Gatwick and ends north of Luton and so would represent a true time and hassle saving route for anyone on a significant cross-country rather than just a bimble in the London area.
BEagle,
FOS to CHT. Northerly at 1500 ft LTMA QNH, southerly at 2000 ft LTMA QNH. But I haven't checked any Rule 5 'glide clear' problems that might cause.
That would really be a non starter, especially if you want it to be Class A and SVFR. There's no acceptable separation there from easterly arrivals or westerley departures and missed approaches so the airport would pretty much stop with anything on that route (as it does when folk try doing it without a clearance occasionaly)
Any route would really have to go directly over the airfield.
slim,
The way I look at it, small planes were here before jets and all this surface area just gets in the way, however I recognise that there has to be some to protect large airports. If LHR didn't have such a huge surface area then it would be moot as we would just fly around it.
The London Zone has been reduced in size over the years, it used to extend at least a couple of miles further east and west a number of years ago.
It is unlikely to reduce further to the east nor to the north while Northolt is open. To the south even some modern jets barely stay inside CAS as they depart. If there was to be any reduction it would probably only be possible by another mile or two to the west.
What the Zone needs is a re-classification from A to something else more multi user friendly.
WF.