Bad experience at Gatwick as a VFR C152

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A few days ago a loaded up Gatwick in a C152. APP, TWR and GND were all online and LON_C_CTR was also on. I asked for vfr clearance to the the north and GRD said he had to get it from London. So in the time I had loaded on APP had gone offline which was fine and I waited for about 30 minutes to get my clearance and finally got to taxi. The GND control was very understanding and was a great controller. When I got to the hold and contacted tower they said they had to get my clearance. I explained that I got it from GND and read it to them but they just said I was lying and that GND can’t give VFR clearance and only tower can. I said that I definitely got my clearance not wanting to wait another half our which they said negative I have have to get clearance from London, the rules say only tower can give VFR clearance in the UK. Anyway told him I was disconnected and after 30 minutes on the ground decided not to fly at all.

Don’t know if this is just my fault for flying in Gatwick. Just seems like a joke waiting for an hour for clearance because tower wanted to give it to me too. Just confused if the tower controller has to give the clearance or if ground can.

I’d recommend sending feedback to VATUK. Their own site has VFR procedures for Gatwick, although it’s not specific about who the “active controller” is in the case of departures.

It’s not your fault for flying at Gatwick because even in the real world it has VFR procedures. I suspect the VATSIM controllers just don’t see much VFR traffic there, even helicopters.

I’m actually now tempted to fly VFR to or from Gatwick. Although my aircraft of choice would be a DC-3.

EDIT: If you want to do some VFR through busy London airspace, there is a real world published procedure to overfly Luton. See the VFR Operating Pack. I have done this on VATSIM and after getting “errr… standby…” it sent the controllers into a mad rush to look up the procedure. :smiley:

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:slight_smile: Troublemaker!

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If I was intending to make trouble I’d take a Spitfire. :smiley:

No, you would spit fire

I’m not sure this is any relevant to the post, but I recently had an experience of a C152 VFR at Gatwick (I landed, after flying locally from North Weald), and was gladly able to land and taxi to GA parking.

From what I remember actually, there was only a ground controller, so I was making traffic calls and landing intentions on UNI. The ground controller was perfectly fine with GA traffic - it always makes me worried in case some controllers are not familiar with GA aircraft, but I guess they have to cover it in exams.

I often feel like I’m the person coming in and disrupting all of the big jet traffic - although I love VFR GA flying, it’s all I do on the network, and all I’m going to do.

Of course, I don’t have much dealings with big airports such as Gatwick - if anything I enjoy just giving the controllers a bit of exercise with Zone Transits as I fly around - and most of them are perfectly fine with that.