UKPPL, London is a pretty big city if we weren't flying over your house we would only fly over somebody else's. After Sept 11 we started being radar vectored onto a 5 mile final after being vectored over London anyway!
It is very important that aircraft have a stabilised approach therefore generally the more staight forward the better. This also means that the gear has to come down sufficiently early to achieve this (sorry about the noise).
London ATC are remarkable individuals who humble me every day, but I suspect that the added vectoring for each aircraft after 911 increased their workload considerably, aswell as inreasing conjestion in the holds.
Added to that how do you expect us to land on 27?
I hope that this answers your question.
Regards le loup garou
[ 14 November 2001: Message edited by: le loup garou ]
[ 14 November 2001: Message edited by: le loup garou ]