London Heliroutes - Why no H1, H6 or H8?

[manfromuncle]

Does anyone know why?

[AlanM]

Yes :)

[Bravo73]

Oooh, you tease, Alan. :E

Can I hazard a guess? They used to exist but don't any more. (Due to either a) new airspace above or b) new things being built underneath.)

Am I close?

[AlanM]

......Closeish... :)

Anyone flown into Royal Ascot....????

Or remember flying along such routes that used to follow the M4 east into Londinium H2 all the way??

Bravo - a bit of everything.... inc losses of separation against 27R vs the old H2 east of LHR.

Come in Heathrow Director - we need a history lesson! :ok:

[ATCO Two]

H1 used to follow the A3 within the London CTR if I remember correctly, and was depicted on the old "light box" SVFR map that sat on top of the stand-alone console in the Approach Control Room on the 6th floor of Heathrow Tower. This console which was separate from the main bank of radars, was used by Thames Radar from 1987. The map box was a present from Farnborough ATC to Heathrow. I wonder where it is now?

I was actually responsible for naming H6 and H8, which as Alan says are temporary routes from Ascot to and from Battersea. Temporary deregulation of the airspace around Ascot is seen as the way forward, so possibly H6 and H8 will not be used in the future.

H2 used to extend from the Airport Spur along the North side of the M4 via Osterley to Brentford, but one day an RAF helicopter decided to fly Eastbound on the South side of the M4, and met an Air France Airbus coming the other way on 27R! Route H2 was hurriedly closed!

[ATCO Two]

I imagine that H1 was superseded by the building of the M3 motorway, which provided a solid line feature for navigation, and enabled the establishment of H3. H3 is more convenient, direct, and being within CAS, safer for traffic routeing from the South West into Battersea,

[pitot212]

I was lucky enough, oh ‘ang on I mean old enough to have flown down H2 along the M4 in a R22HP!!!, and if I remember correctly it was actually written down in the ANO as being the only line feature exempt from the right hand rule.