Any real pilots who fly into Gatwick?

[ols500 43]

Hi I'm looking for a real pilot or someone who has extensive knowledge of London Gatwick. I fly into EGKK a lot and always do an approach at 2000 for 26L as indicated on the charts, however when I use Flight Radar 24 I see all the real planes turning much later and establishing there approach at 3000/4000 feet. Please could someone tell me why no real aircraft follow the 2000 feet approach? And general info on Gatwick's approach because it is really confusing me!

 

-Thanks Ollie Seaward.

[skelsey 765]

Hi Ollie,

I am not a real pilot but I may be able to help you. 

At Gatwick, as with most major airfields, all inbound traffic is radar sequenced to final approach. In this instance the radar controller will be issuing speeds, altitudes and headings to position aircraft on the approach in the most efficient sequence.

Achieving this means that aircraft will hardly ever fly the charted procedure as the radar controller will be using the flexibility afforded by the Radar Manoeuvring Area in order to move the traffic around. As the aim is to fly a Continuous Descent Approach without any level flight essentially after leaving the stacks (below 6000 ft) the controller will aim to turn traffic on to the localiser at a height corresponding to the position of the glide slope so that the aircraft can continue an unbroken descent on the glide (whilst also maintaining the most efficient spacing, which at Gatwick will be something like six miles or so apart to allow departures to launch in between arrivals).

As things get busier the point at which aircraft are turned on to final trends to stretch further out up to a maximum of roughly 15NM. Obviously the further out the aircraft establishes the higher it will be in order to be on the glide slope - at 300 ft per NM it follows that an aircraft establishing at 15NM will need to be at around 4500 ft AGL whereas one establishing at 10NM will need to be around 3000 ft AGL.

Hope that helps! 

[ols500 43]

Thanks, I didn't know ATC vector the big airlines into airports, personally I thought it would be the other way around. The small aircraft need vectoring because they are less advance and the airlines can just plug in a STAR and only need to talk to ATC on final for landing clearance. Thanks for clearing this up -Ollie :)

[skelsey 765]

No problem! It is not an issue of navigation (any instrument-rated pilot in an IFR equipped aircraft should be capable and indeed is expected to be capable of flying almost any SID/STAR/IAP - the specific equipment fit of a particular aircraft may preclude certain P-RNAV SIDs and STARs but in the UK at least alternative conventional nav procedures are still very much available) but one of air traffic management and separation. Although schemes like Point Merge may one day change things, at the moment there is simply no substitute for a skilled radar controller who can arrange the blips in to the most efficient order (bearing in mind that may not always be the order in which they arrive when you take in to consideration wake turbulence spacing etc), especially considering that at most airfields (and particularly places like Heathrow and Gatwick) there is a requirement to safely merge arrivals from multiple directions and (particularly at Gatwick, and all other single-runway airports) space the arrivals accurately in order to get maximum utilisation out of the runway (to allow departures out without excessively reducing the landing rate).

VFR traffic is a different kettle of fish and is rarely if ever vectored (because apart from anything else the controller has no way of seeing clouds which the VFR pilot is not permitted to enter).

[rhumbaflappy 113]

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