I well remeber seeing the wonderful deux ponts also from the Duke of Northumberlands River area. Many a warm summer weekend aftrnoon spent betqween that river and Longford river just west of the emergency service gate by the Rising Sun pub in Stanwell . Opposite Block 79 where 09/27 joined 23R . I dont remeber seeing them departing off 27L , i could see almost all departures from my house in stanwell Vilage butas has been poinet out the Dp didnt really climb it just sort of gently eased itself skywards and so was probably just below my line of site. The C46s (Capitol??) on charter to LH also looked like climbing was a desperate struggle.
Fascinating days and while you did have to put up with a huge number of BEA Viscounts the varierty of aircraft was fantastic . If we were really lucky there were some depatures off 23R they really did seem like you could rech up and touch them from our spotting spot