Monarch flight from Luton maybe in trouble

[Quattromaster]

Tracking an aircraft at present, a monarch from Luton to Egypt , took off, got as far as Southend, did a u turn headed up to north Essex, at 8000ft, only 155 knots, gear down, did approx 5-7 circuits, now heading back towards Luton.

Wonder what the problem is.

[Kinky]

Coming in to land now. Hope all is OK.

[Quattromaster]

115 knots over Stevenage, Christ that's slow, guess still a fair weight of fuel on board, hence a very slow approach.

[mattdaniels]

MON96?

[Simpo Two]

Surely the heavier the a/c the faster the approach would need to be in order to stay up?

[Quattromaster]

You may be right Mr Simpo, I just presumed they come in slow to limit the sudden weight on the undercarriage .

[anonymous-user]

The take off weight for most aircraft flying from Luton to Egypt would usually be well above the maximum landing weight.

Luton has a fairly short runway. If the aircraft was wanted back at Luton after a technical problem (due to available engineering or some other operational reason) then they probably had to reduce the weight before landing. This may be done by dumping fuel or holding in a race track pattern and even flying with the gear down etc.

As simpo explained the higher landing weight gives faster approach speeds. The landing speed is determined by weight and what flap setting (if there is an option) the crew decide for landing.

[Geneve]

Quattromaster said:

115 knots over Stevenage, Christ that's slow, guess still a fair weight of fuel on board, hence a very slow approach.

Do these tracking systems measure ground speed or air speed?

[IforB]

el stovey said:

The take off weight for most aircraft flying from Luton to Egypt would usually be well above the maximum landing weight.

Luton has a fairly short runway. If the aircraft was wanted back at Luton after a technical problem (due to available engineering or some other operational reason) then they probably had to reduce the weight before landing. This may be done by dumping fuel or holding in a race track pattern and even flying with the gear down etc.

As simpo explained the higher landing weight gives faster approach speeds. The landing speed is determined by weight and what flap setting (if there is an option) the crew decide for landing.

Exactly this. It was an electrical problem and thanks to their weight, they had to burn of fuel for a couple of hours to get the weight down. Luton is Monarch Engineering's main base (or until the new BHX hangar gets into full swing) and so it made sense to go back there and deal with the issue. Aggravating for passengers, but that's all. It certainly wasn't anything to get too excited about.