Originally Posted by Flying Pencil
Generally good but I was held at 'brooky' today for about 10 mins while ascot and heathrow sorted out my onward clearance. Gave my pax more time in the bar I suppose.
If that was you in 221 awaiting to get to Englefield Green then unfortunately the problem is that there was another one going Ascot-Runnymede-Ascot.
Given that you need 3nm standard separation off the routes/freelanes and you needed to work Heathrow tower (who get a little busy with jets at times!
) meant that only one Jockey could do it at a time.
If we had known before you got airborne, you would have been told to wait on the ground to save you getting airborne. (We understood that the Runnymede lander would be on the ground for 15 minutes but it turned out that he effectively came straight back)
I was a little confused why you were given to me holding WEST of Ascot wanting to go EAST of it - needing to go through the freelanes and the EGLT overhead. I have no idea what they are launching so you are better off with Ascot Tower. Couple that with the fact that we have to ring Ascot tower on a full dial landline and they can't ring in directly to the controller
meant that it is hard to communicate freely and you lose some slickness.
Actually, the LHR tower controller did you proud, as the deps man is sorting all the aircraft out at the hold to get the best departure sequence, and he had Police 381, the Runnymede Hotel, Hamm house to the East, a crosser, and then you all within 5 minutes! They are within their rights to say no and give the same delay as the outbounds when they are busy.
Let's do it all again tomorrow
Feedback always welcomed though.......