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A380 Interesting Approach - Gatwick ....

PostPosted:Sun Aug 11, 2019 4:20 pm
by Iceman

Re: A380 Interesting Approach - Gatwick ....

PostPosted:Sun Aug 11, 2019 4:28 pm
by malcolmfrost
Gatwick has Cat 3b no dh capability, pretty sure an Emirates A380 Crew would have too. Even operating to Cat 1 limits as long as you have the required visual reference at 200 ft....
Nice video!

Re: A380 Interesting Approach - Gatwick ....

PostPosted:Sun Aug 11, 2019 4:47 pm
by kanga
.., and, of course, they had reliable and rugged Gloucestershire landing gear .. :)

Re: A380 Interesting Approach - Gatwick ....

PostPosted:Sun Aug 11, 2019 4:56 pm
by johnm
I have made similar approaches into Alderney using the LPV. It's quite weird because of a valley before the threshold of 26. I have flown the approach when I could clearly see the airport terminal but not the runway. Enter the fog with 200 ft to go to minima and pop out with 50 ft to go and hand on levers for go around and happily land in clear air. 8)

Re: A380 Interesting Approach - Gatwick ....

PostPosted:Sun Aug 11, 2019 7:26 pm
by SilentHandover
It was a CAT 3 approach, we cancelled LVP after it landed as they were no longer required. The A380 was the last approach as they were set up for CAT 3 when the weather improved such that we could cancel them.

Re: A380 Interesting Approach - Gatwick ....

PostPosted:Sun Aug 11, 2019 8:10 pm
by Awful Charlie
It's on tw*tter

Re: A380 Interesting Approach - Gatwick ....

PostPosted:Mon Aug 12, 2019 7:06 pm
by foxmoth
Enter the fog with 200 ft to go to minima and pop out with 50 ft to go and hand on levers for go around and happily land in clear air.

I have done better than that- landed at Manchester in a 757 able to see ALL the way down to landing but had to auto land as they were giving <200m, when we got on the ground we were sitting on top of the fog and could see everything but had to send the follow me away as he was sitting in it, could see very little and was getting in the way!

Re: A380 Interesting Approach - Gatwick ....

PostPosted:Mon Aug 12, 2019 8:13 pm
by Lefty
johnm wrote:I have made similar approaches into Alderney using the LPV. It's quite weird because of a valley before the threshold of 26. I have flown the approach when I could clearly see the airport terminal but not the runway. Enter the fog with 200 ft to go to minima and pop out with 50 ft to go and hand on levers for go around and happily land in clear air. 8)


Done that too - many times. It’s strange that you can see the runway from 7-8 miles out, then at 0.5 miles you hit that fog bank. Hold it steady, then you burst through the fog bank into CAVOK, with the runway in front of you.

Re: A380 Interesting Approach - Gatwick ....

PostPosted:Mon Aug 12, 2019 8:54 pm
by kanga
Lefty wrote:..

Done that too - many times. It’s strange that you can see the runway from 7-8 miles out, then at 0.5 miles you hit that fog bank. Hold it steady, then you burst through the fog bank into CAVOK, with the runway in front of you.


ISTR quite a while ago a report in Air Clues. A Senior Officer was handling pilot of a C130 returning to Lyneham. He reported visual with the runway from a very long way out and said that he'd be doing a visual straight in approach. The ATCO told him that the rvr was below IFR limits because of fog, and he should expect to need to divert, and finally ordered him to go around into the Missed Approach procedure. Captain ignored the instruction, ran into the fog bank, and wrote off the aircraft in the ensuing heavy landing.

Re: A380 Interesting Approach - Gatwick ....

PostPosted:Mon Aug 12, 2019 9:07 pm
by Josh
The fog at Gatwick can be very odd at times. I have landed early in the morning where the first 1200 m of the runway was CAVOK and the stop end was absolutely clagged out. Very odd visual picture on landing with the whole world just disappearing like a line had been drawn.

Re: A380 Interesting Approach - Gatwick ....

PostPosted:Tue Aug 13, 2019 1:52 am
by Paul_Sengupta
I've flown over the top of LAX like that...completely clear for 2/3 of the runway, shallow sea fog over the other 1/3. It was interesting watching the airliners below. I later flew out of there commercially and experienced it.

I've also landed on the half of the runway at Campbeltown which was in severe clear while the other half wasn't in fog, but was under a low layer.

Re: A380 Interesting Approach - Gatwick ....

PostPosted:Tue Aug 13, 2019 5:05 am
by SilentHandover
Josh wrote:The fog at Gatwick can be very odd at times. I have landed early in the morning where the first 1200 m of the runway was CAVOK and the stop end was absolutely clagged out. Very odd visual picture on landing with the whole world just disappearing like a line had been drawn.



This usually occurs on 26, the River Mole routes under the runway near the 08R threshold and this causes the fog to form more readily towards the western end of the aerodrome.

Re: A380 Interesting Approach - Gatwick ....

PostPosted:Tue Aug 13, 2019 10:27 am
by kanga
ISTR this was one reason why airlines wanted Blackbushe, rather than Gatwick, to be developed as the 'second London airport'.

Re: A380 Interesting Approach - Gatwick ....

PostPosted:Tue Aug 13, 2019 1:27 pm
by Josh
It was indeed 26 we were landing on at the time - that’s fascinating, thanks!