Light single into Gatwick?
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Down at the sharp pointy end, where all the weather is made.
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Slight thread creep...
ps the bowser would probably be refused entry to airside at Gatwick as it is not a clear plastic container of 100ml or less...
He was eventually allowed through having decanted the water from his bottle into his 10,000lit tanker. Barmy or what?
TheOddOne
Join Date: Jun 2003
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Gatwick does have a lot of quiet periods, among the very busy ones.
It could easily take slow GA. They would need some sort of slot system, a bit like Friedrichshafen (EDNY) when visiting the AERO 2007 exhibition. One books slots on their website and - Germans being organised - you can buy them with Paypal for a few Euros.
The trouble is that nobody in the business is interested in doing something radically different, when they get £1000 or whatever from every jet. It's the can't-do culture that's the problem, and equally it's the American can-do culture that keeps things going over there.
If I was running an airport, I would sell landing fees on the web, payable by CC or Paypal. Why have pilots queing up to pay landing fees? It's a waste of their time.
It could easily take slow GA. They would need some sort of slot system, a bit like Friedrichshafen (EDNY) when visiting the AERO 2007 exhibition. One books slots on their website and - Germans being organised - you can buy them with Paypal for a few Euros.
The trouble is that nobody in the business is interested in doing something radically different, when they get £1000 or whatever from every jet. It's the can't-do culture that's the problem, and equally it's the American can-do culture that keeps things going over there.
If I was running an airport, I would sell landing fees on the web, payable by CC or Paypal. Why have pilots queing up to pay landing fees? It's a waste of their time.
Join Date: Sep 2005
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Now having done my PPL in Florida, I flew into daytona international, Orlando sanford and quite a few other regional airports, not ONE of them charged a penny (or is that cent?) 
......
Still can't decide what my favourite big airport experience was....
"Number two to land for stop and go after 747, caution for wake turbulance" at Sanford, then doing a short feild landing in a C150 (on a 10,000ft runway!!!
) followed by a short field take off 
, or flying radar vectors into Daytona in the sunset over the daytona oval for a touch and go amonst lots of big traffic 
...
Both sets of controllers were helpful friendly, and the ones at Sanford even had a sense of humour, advising me that I had "approximatly 9000' of runway for take off, was I happy with that or did I want to taxy back to the threshold ?"... My instructor and I were in bits laughing!! ... The best thing is we got treated as equals to the big boys, and we were not considered a burdon, and NO fees at all!
Infact the whole uk GA operation could learn a lot from the USA's model, the night lighing at most airfields could be operated by radio, so even if the airport was "shut", you can come and go as you please...
Anyway, well done on the Gatwick landing,, must have been great fun and challenging at the same time... Maybe when my numbers come up I will have a go
...... Still can't decide what my favourite big airport experience was....
"Number two to land for stop and go after 747, caution for wake turbulance" at Sanford, then doing a short feild landing in a C150 (on a 10,000ft runway!!!
) followed by a short field take off , or flying radar vectors into Daytona in the sunset over the daytona oval for a touch and go amonst lots of big traffic ... Both sets of controllers were helpful friendly, and the ones at Sanford even had a sense of humour, advising me that I had "approximatly 9000' of runway for take off, was I happy with that or did I want to taxy back to the threshold ?"
... My instructor and I were in bits laughing!! ... The best thing is we got treated as equals to the big boys, and we were not considered a burdon, and NO fees at all!Infact the whole uk GA operation could learn a lot from the USA's model, the night lighing at most airfields could be operated by radio, so even if the airport was "shut", you can come and go as you please...
Anyway, well done on the Gatwick landing,
, must have been great fun and challenging at the same time... Maybe when my numbers come up I will have a go
Join Date: Aug 2006
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Wow! Things have changed a bit . .
I was bringing a well-equipped - it had radio - Percival Prentice back from Brussels to Biggin one evening when, upon calling London they said "be advised Biggin is closed, call Gatwick on 123,4" which I thought I out to do since a couple of months previously I had landed after hours at Biggin and just managed to get off the airfield before P C Plod turned up on his LE Velocette.
The overnight stay at Gatwick was only 15/- which, even in those days was reasonable and the following morning I was able to bask in the luxury of having one of Dan Dare's 4B's exhaust de-ice the aircraft; their stands were opposite the GA park.
The only difficulty as I remember was the seemingly interminable waiting out in the boonies as every time I thought I might be able to go, "hold for the taxying Britannia". Eventually, complaining of incipient plug fouling, I was allowed to make a VFR departure back to Biggin. Those inverted DH engines did not like long periods of idling.
Not a lot to do with the general tenor of the thread but it was a "light single into Gatwick".
GQ.
I was bringing a well-equipped - it had radio - Percival Prentice back from Brussels to Biggin one evening when, upon calling London they said "be advised Biggin is closed, call Gatwick on 123,4" which I thought I out to do since a couple of months previously I had landed after hours at Biggin and just managed to get off the airfield before P C Plod turned up on his LE Velocette.
The overnight stay at Gatwick was only 15/- which, even in those days was reasonable and the following morning I was able to bask in the luxury of having one of Dan Dare's 4B's exhaust de-ice the aircraft; their stands were opposite the GA park.
The only difficulty as I remember was the seemingly interminable waiting out in the boonies as every time I thought I might be able to go, "hold for the taxying Britannia". Eventually, complaining of incipient plug fouling, I was allowed to make a VFR departure back to Biggin. Those inverted DH engines did not like long periods of idling.
Not a lot to do with the general tenor of the thread but it was a "light single into Gatwick".
GQ.
If LGW gets sold by the Spannish, then perhaps more enlightened
owners would welcome more GA business ???
owners would welcome more GA business ???
Light single into Gatwick?
Has anyone flown a light aircraft into Gatwick before?
Comments/experiences would be appreciated.
Has anyone flown a light aircraft into Gatwick before?
Comments/experiences would be appreciated.
Departure was announced by a friendly lady in the terminal as "Bureimi Airways Flight No 1, boarding now."
Still, that was 1967. More gaps in traffic then, I guess. Good controllers too.
PS I don't know about Gipsy Queen, but I solved the Prentice oiling-up while idling problem by doing the mag check only when well into the climb after take-off. OK over land, but always a nervous moment over water.....and mine was well equipped too; it had a 4 channel radio behind the pilot's seat, and I had 70 crystals for it. Changing frequency meant changing crystals by feel, and re-tuning the aerial with a bulb and a piece of wire, also by feel.
Join Date: Sep 2004
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Lgw Atc
More gaps in traffic then, I guess. Good controllers too.
Well done Contacttower for making it work for you, it's a lot of effort and I'm sure everyone made you welcome.
TheOddOne
