Did some flying in London today. ATC was awesome. First flight was a transition over EGLL in a spitfire. Very enjoyable looking down at the busy field.
Second flight was EGLC to EGBB. Again, great ATC service. On left base into EGBB approach went offline. The aircraft in sequence with me maintained good spacing. Much appreciated.
Tower sequenced and cleared a few to land, including me, then went offline. Aircraft in front of me was in short final and landed without issue. I heard a takeoff announcement when I was on short final and responded with two quick “final” position reports. Saw the aircraft line up on the rwy and I had about 1nm to go. Added some s-turns hoping to avoid a go-around since I figured chaos was incoming if I tried to get back in the pattern. Luckily the departing plane got moving and maintained several hundred yards ahead of me. Close one that shouldn’t have happened. Too impatient to hold short for 30 more seconds.
Taxi’d to parking and watched the next inbound. A heavy on short final met with the same situation I had but the aircraft on the runway just held position. The heavy landed on top of him…
i was in london earlier today i wonder if i was there the same time you were :) all ik is that i never land when someone is on it, i go around, but i hate it, just adds time to the flight…
So I flew a pattern in the Spit at EGHH and as I turned base and aircraft was inbound, no announcing or anything, so I just continued inbound and when I touch down a 737-800 goes blasting through me!
Exactly. I would have gone around but at decision height I decided to continue because the plane on the rwy started to roll. Plus a go around would have meant another attempt with probably even more chaos.
