LHR nostalgia
Forgive me if a thread like this is already extant and I've missed it. It was triggered by two excellent threads about the Conc and the Tripod on the 'Tech Log' forum.
My family moved to Isleworth in the mid-1950s. Our house was near the OM for 28L so airliners were continually droning over our heads. A goodly proportion of them were BEA Viscounts so the whine of Darts was part of the soundtrack of my youth.
In those days the LHR Central Area consisted of three buildings: The Queen's Building (admin), the tower and THE terminal (later named 'Europa', later still the more prosaic 'Terminal 2'). The two narrow bore tunnels alongside the road access tunnels connecting the A4 to the Central Area were intended for cyclists (and pedestrians!), which is how we plane-spotters got there. The car park was just a cleared area of hard standing adjacent to the QB. A Dragon Rapide flew joyrides for 10 shillings a throw.
A common myth today tells of the unreliability of large piston aero-engines in the 'old days'. We spotters watched hundreds of propliners fly over us on final approach. A feathered prop was in fact an event rare enough to be worthy of comment.
The following is an edited version of an article I sent to 'Touchdown' (the magazine for retired BA staff), which they published on their Letters page:
<<My junior school was located even closer to the OM, which meant that airliners passing overhead were flying approximately 1300 feet above ground level. Most of the children paid no attention to the machines droning over the school – they made little noise apart from the very occasional jet, such as the RAF’s Comet 2s, Air France’s prototype Caravelles and Aeroflot’s Tu104s.
We plane-spotters watched them all, noting down registrations of course. Even indoors we could identify aircraft types by the timbre of their engines. The crackle of Wright Turbo-Compounds was the signature of Super Connies, while Merlins meant Argonaut or York.
One spring morning in 1958, during break, we spotters in the playground identified a distant approaching aircraft as either DC4 or Argonaut (the airframes were virtually identical). Unusually it was flying much lower than normal. As it got closer the narrow frontal area of its engine nacelles told us ‘Argonaut’ and soon the growl of Merlins confirmed the identity. By now, other children were taking interest. The noise of kids at play gradually subsided as one by one they stopped their games and stood rooted to the spot watching the BOAC aircraft roar past, the eyes of a couple of hundred temporarily silent and motionless children following its progress. I estimated that its height was about 500 feet. The aircraft did not appear to be in trouble. All four props were turning and it was not descending. I noted the registration, of course, but sadly this snippet of data has since escaped my memory. We all watched as the aircraft sedately flew on towards Heathrow and gradually the other children lost interest and resumed their playground activities.
There was no subsequent reference to the incident in any of the media and I wonder if perhaps the crew of the Argo were just having a bit of fun. In those days Captains had more latitude about how they flew their aircraft. A repeat performance today would probably result in a no-biscuit interview of the crew by their managers.>>