Originally Posted by
pax britanica
As Discord says the ill fated Papa India would have crossed Epsom as its first waypoint out of LHR on what in those days I think was a simple Dover One departure, I think the first SIDs were in use by then. Earlier than that one could listen to LHR departure controllers issuing the whole Instrument departure for each aircraft
SIDs were already in use for Heathrow departures in March 1969 when I joined 'D Watch at West Drayton, working initially on the 'outbound' suite where a controller, designated 'DO' would pass the appproved SID to Heathrow tower when the departure was requested by them via myself and my colleagues and we would then pass the request on to 'DO',..
Papa India occured in mid 1972 when I was working in Glasgow Tower where we
did pass the entire clearance to the pilot rather than just a SID name and number.