View Full Version : Red High Wing 2 seater in Gatwick Zone 16th June
mikehallam
24th Jun 2007, 14:54
It's raining so no flying this w/end !
Who can explain why a week ago, from my house located well inside the [Expensive to fly] London Gatwick zone, I saw a red fixed u/c high wing 2 seater a/c at 800 -1200 ft apparently in the zone ?
Was it lost and getting help, was it U.K. reg. or a Johnny foreigner, or did someone actually land a very light a/c there ?
Last time I did the latter was around 1970 in a C152 from Shoreham with a free landing card !
Mike.
Roffa
24th Jun 2007, 15:33
It's actually free to fly inside the Gatwick Zone, NATS don't charge for transits you know.
Well not yet anyway ;)
SteveR
24th Jun 2007, 18:00
Sounds like s/he was on a Zone transit. Not unusual if you ask nicely.
Steve r
Pitts2112
24th Jun 2007, 18:25
Round engine?
It's quite possible that the person was entirely legal and quite well coordinated. If it's the one I'm thinking of, it was a display, properly approved by the CAA and coordinated quite happily with Gatwick as a Special VFR clearance.
Pitts2112
Roffa
24th Jun 2007, 18:29
It's quite possible that the person was entirely legal and quite well coordinated. If it's the one I'm thinking of, it was a display, properly approved by the CAA and coordinated quite happily with Gatwick as a Special VFR clearance.
Was the weather very bad, or was it a night time display?
Unusual...
mikehallam
24th Jun 2007, 18:38
No, it was mid/late afternoon VMC. But apart from the odd rich git's helicopter, the last smaller a/c I've been aware of in many eons was the Rapide to the Ch.Is. quite a while back now,commemorating that service and once a Catalina [quite big compared].
Mike.
S-Works
24th Jun 2007, 19:50
Well I have landed my Cessna at Gatwick on more than one occasion this year and had more than one Zone transit through and close to the Gatwick overhead.
Nothing unusual at al. Ask and you shall get in my experience.....
one of these but red? (http://www.rearwin.com/cloudster.htm)
Pitts2112: Why SVFR? He was only going into a strip wasn't he, not overflying anything townish?
mikehallam
25th Jun 2007, 16:09
Doon't think any strips now inside the Gatwick zone except the man on the NW edge with old mil a/c on display.
Plane I saw ? looked at your link pix. Can't visualise round or flat engine - really it was only vis for a couple of seconds. But sounds from the Cessna man as if transits are still free, though whenever I call them up from those times I'm flying close to but round the edge of their class D dotted line, they rarely bother to reply. [No Txpdr may be a no-no anyway.]
Mike.
as someone said earlier, it was all 'proper'. I chatted to the pilot before he set off. I thought he was going to land somewhere in the zone but maybe it was just a "fly by" somewhere near Gatwick, I never actually asked if he was getting the wheels dirty or not, we were just discussing weather, clearances, etc.
The point with the clearances was that if he was SVFR he would have to be 'separated' by definite distances from the IFR stuff, whereas if he was VFR it would simply have to be safe without getting sweaty or sweary about a defined exact minimum distance. Gatwick's only Class D after all, so VFR is quite possible and in fact if vis had been under 10km, VFR would have been his only way in, but I seem to recall it was good vis even if not brilliant weather generally.
Pitts2112
25th Jun 2007, 17:00
Irv,
Not sure why it was Special VFR but that was how said pilot described it. Might it have something to do with the fact that it was a display (with appropriate CAA paperwork, the details of which I should know since I"m working on getting my DA this season)? I'm not sure that detail was really that pertinent to the discussion, but I just mentioned it out of completeness.
Your weather lesson is still standing me in good stead, by the way, as I think the same system is still hanging around to be observed!
Pitts2112
SkyHawk-N
25th Jun 2007, 17:34
mikehallam said;
Doon't think any strips now inside the Gatwick zone except the man
on the NW edge with old mil a/c on display.
There are a number within the Gatwick zone, in fact the nearest one to Gatwick is a mere 400 yards from the perimeter of the airport.
Roffa
25th Jun 2007, 17:43
Pitts2112,
It would have been pretty unlikely to be SVFR, that makes things far more difficult from an ATC point of view. If it was a display inside the Zone it may have been subject to a Special Flight notification, possibly some confusion there?
And indeed, Vallance-By-Ways strip is still available for use (subject to certain conditions), just a few hundred yards from the 08R threshold.