Originally Posted by
Craggenmore
Or it could have been Easy Switzerland arriving from Geneva or Basle...
Hehe - could be, maybe.... but are you gonna share your workings-out with the rest of the class?
I originally had a long post in mind, covering the possibilities of it being a flight into Nottingham East Midlands, possibly from any of Rome, Geneva, Basle, Cologne or Venice - basically anything that would've come in via SOVAT and SANDY on the UL613 then N57, from the central/east side of Europe (as opposed to the Spanish & Baleriacs west side).
I picked Nott East Mids because there's a STAR (PIGOT) using WELIN (and I know the KLM Schiphol-Brum trip turns at LAM for HEMEL & BUZAD which is on the same T420 airways as WELIN, so figured this might be happening here too, onto either the N57 or T420, both will get you to WELIN - but of course, Paul never mentioned it TURNING at LAM, just overflying north). The height stated (FL100) seemed just about feasible for an approach to East Mids. I ruled out Stansted and Luton on the basis that Paul said it was flying level and didn't descend...
In the end, I dumped the whole theory in preference for the Gatwick departure one, simply because in no instance would any of the Notts inbounds be going even close to "due North" over LAM (unless hand-vectored). Whilst vectoring IS a possibility, it doesn't make sense... there are airways there, and they tend to get flown! The TMA is a busy place, and ATCOs are renowned for hand-vectoring overflight traffic unless there's a real need... they have their hands full enough dealing with the CDA traffic coming into Heathrow!
So... a delayed Gatwick departure 'oop North' is still my trip of choice, personally, if only because the heading off the LAM SID is 'almost north (within 20 deg) and the height is about right, and explains the 'not descending' situation... but of course I'm open to correction, if you think you have a better one?
All a bit of fun, mind... As I said earlier, I get a buzz out of this kind of (silly) detective work... beats doing crosswords
