Hoodie said:
The story, as I heard it, was that a film crew wanted to take footage to commemorate something or other, so organised with a lightie owner to provide an aircraft to do same.
A Jodel was provided, but with pilot, talent, soundman and cameraman on board it came to grief on take-off with a main gear collapse (post groundloop?), Blacking the airport and making GA's name mud there for many a moon.
Yup, you're quite right it was in 1990. The late, great Roy Castle was attempting to break the wingwalking World record by flying from Gatwick to Paris atop Vic Norman's Stearman. Off went Roy to be followed by the Jodel, which did as described above and the incident did indeed black these sorts of 'fun' activities from LGW. Glad I was off duty that day. As Ops staff, we were always keen to support such adventures, but Snr Mgmt took a dim view to the airport being shut for 3 hours. I never landed at Gatwick during my career there, but I did manage to get down to 50' in a 172, paid for by the Company, when we were evaluating a new track keeping system. I was under pain of death or dismissal not to touch the runway, such was politics around GA at the time.
We'd pull out all the stops to help anyone that needed it, but woe betide anyone who 'arrived' without a slot. Stick to the rules and you can get a lot!
The OddOne