Gatwick Traffic

Caz has posted the following:

Thank you again for your help! It was beginning to bug me as i kept hearing it and couldn't figure out what it meant! I have a GRE PSR 282 scanner and my father in law has just put an aerial (skyscan Airmaster i think!?) up on the side of our house for me and i now get to hear 2 way conversations which has greatly improved my listening enjoyment! I can now get Gatwick ground and Tower which i couldn't before! I also tuned in to the London FIS on 124.6 which you recommended in an earlier message and that does make quite interesting listening. I just wish i had more time to spend on it though! One more thing before i sign off, i have a couple of charts (Aerad En Route UK(L)2 and CAA England South Topographical 1:250 000) and i am desperately trying to see what flight routes go over my area as we have planes going over our house most of the day but especially early morning and i am desperate to know what frequency they could be on. I know you mentioned WILLO and frequency 133.175 in an earlier message so is it likely to be that one. Am i looking at the right sort of charts?? Sorry to keep asking but you are my only font of knowledge at the moment and i am very keen to keep learning!! Thank you again!

My reply is as follows:

I would say most of the traffic near you will be working WILLO sector, in fact the WILLO reporting point should be very close to your location and when it's busy that controller (133.175) is responsible for 'stacking' aircraft in a holding pattern around WILLO. A lot of the traffic inbound from the south will be entering the area from the LUCCO reporting point on the east side of the Isle Of Wight and from there taken eastward toward WILLO before being handed off to Gatwick director on 126.825. If not holding, the 'standing agreement' handoff altitude is FL90.

Aircraft outbound from Heathrow and Gatwick heading south out of the UK will be handed straight to WILLO on departure and should be climbed to FL170 and routed to the BOGNA reporting point which is actually about 8 miles out in the channel to the south of Shoreham and from there, handed to the next sector.

As regards charts, when I was regularly flying, the most popular chart for VFR (visual flight rules -ie. navigation by means of landmarks) was the 1:500000 scale. Commercial pilots will use the Aerad type charts and there are usually high and low altitude versions of these for a given area which detail the commercial routes and reporting points etc.