Not seen this elsewhere yet but looks like one of the Duxford Dragon Rapides made a precautionary landing at LCY whilst doing a London scenic tour.
One for the logbook. Good outcome but I imagine having an issue whilst 6-8POB in a 78 year old aircraft whilst low level over London was a bit sweaty. Wonder if they’ll fly it out. LCY was closed at the time.
paleale wrote:
Wonder if they’ll fly it out.
I hope they will not get the full extent of fees put onto them and may loose the airplane just for that. Landing at the nearest available in such a case is a very prudent thing to do.
Hope they will get it sorted and flown out of there soon. At least, enthusiasm in aviation circles in the UK appears to be higher than elsewhere, hopefully it extends to the powers that are at LCY.
It is surrounded by red and white safety cones, so all will be fine; a terrorist attack was narrowly averted 
Hopefully LCY is part of the Strasser Scheme and so no fee or very reduced fees will apply.
Hopefully; the fees otherwise are potentially enormous – especially at the “out of hours” rate (not to mention (mandatory) handling by the jet centre)! Would be an interesting ATC recording to listen to, especially as City Tower was presumably unmanned at the time.
Fingers crossed they can fly it out – I wonder if they will allow it – the AIP (EGLC AD 2.20, para 1) is quite restrictive:
a) No aeroplane registered in the United Kingdom shall use the aerodrome unless there is contained in its Flight Manual data and procedures for approach path angles of 5.5° or steeper and no other aeroplane shall use the aerodrome unless it has data and procedures for approach path angles of 5.5° or steeper which have been approved or otherwise authorised by the regulatory authority of the State in which it is registered.
b) The use of the aerodrome is subject to prior permission of the Airport Director. Additionally operators of aircraft are required to satisfy the Airport Director that they are able to comply with local noise restrictions applicable to the airport.
c) Extensions to opening hours (shown by the latest NOTAM) are available on request to the Airport Director or his representative. Delayed aircraft may be permitted to operate 30 minutes beyond published maximum operating hours shown at AD 2.3 item 1 by prior arrangement.
d) Operations by all aircraft shall be permitted only when the runway is dry, or if wet devoid of other than small areas of water not exceeding 3 MM in depth. Operations will be prohibited when the runway is contaminated by ice or slush to a depth exceeding 3 MM, or dry snow to a depth of 10 MM, or the reported friction measurement is reported as worse than ‘medium’ provided that this condition shall not apply if there is an appropriate entry covering operation from contaminated runways contained in the relevant flight manual.
e) The aerodrome is not available for use by single engine aircraft. Available to fixed-wing aircraft only. Recreational flying is not permitted.
f) Single pilot operations are not permitted.
g) It is not permitted to nominate EGLC as a diversion aerodrome.
h) All flights operating at London City Airport require a slot allocated by Airport Coordination Ltd (ACL). Requests for ad-hoc slot allocations should be made to ACL during working hours Mon-Fri 0830-1700 (0730-1600) by SITA: LONACXH; e-mail: [email protected]; or Tel: 0208-564 0605, Fax: 0208-564 0691. Outside these times, during published operating hours to Aerodrome Operations Stand Planner 0207-646 0083. OCS account holders can add, change and cancel slots at any time on the online coordination portal: https://www.online-coordination.com/default.aspx?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1.
i) All aircraft shall only commence start up and taxi when a marshaller is present and available to provide relevant signals.
j) When operating on the aprons, high visibility tabards must be worn and fastened.
k) Ground service crews are responsible for removal of all chocks.
I guess (a) is not applicable for a departure. (b) gives the airport a lot of latitude to impose other conditions. Maybe they will insist on a pilot familiar with the airfield (also to satisfy (f)).
Wasn’t there a diversion by a PA-28 or similar years ago? (referenced in the thread about single engine crossings of the Lea Valley).
It took off about an hour ago – fun job for whoever got to do that. I would have expected them to wait for an Easterly wind with no towers on climb-out…
CAA policy on London City transits
I imagine this flight had the “non standard flight” permission to start with, though I doubt anyone in UK ATC will come online to confirm
I very much doubt the airport was in the Strasser scheme, since Heathrow Gatwick and London City were never approached since it was “obvious” they would refuse; this was posted at the time by one of the promoters of it. In fact even Biggin Hill refused for years because they believed (as many other airports did) that a certain portion of UK GA would use the scheme to avoid paying landing fees IMHO that suspicion was not unfounded; just look at the extreme sensitivity to landing fees above £10.
You can wait a while for easterly winds… especially if the airport might be charging 4 digits One guy on EuroGA (now sadly deceased) famously landed a DA42 with a duff ECU at Gatwick but in the end the costs were forgiven.
paleale wrote:
It took off about an hour ago – fun job for whoever got to do that. I would have expected them to wait for an Easterly wind with no towers on climb-out…
Ah! My office is a few miles to the West of City Airport and I get a good view of rwy 27 departures from my desk. Sadly missed this!
Indochine wrote:
Hopefully; the fees otherwise are potentially enormous – especially at the “out of hours” rate (not to mention (mandatory) handling by the jet centre)! Would :
Rates dont seem too bad.. just over £100 for a training approach off peak without landing.. id probably fancy that! Its not much more than EGKB..
Rami1988 wrote:
Rates dont seem too bad.. just over £100 for a training approach off peak without landing.. id probably fancy that! Its not much more than EGKB..
Mandatory handling for EGLC starts from £2100+.
