Could anyone see the fireworks on LHR approach?

[brockenspectre]

At 2320BST I imagine there aren't too many a/c on their way in to LHR but was just wondering if anyone in the air around London at this time could see the fireworks/beacon at Buckingham Palace?

:D

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

No reason why they shouldn't... every year on Nov 5 we receive comments from aircrew about the rockets, etc. Best yet was this conversation between a Lufthansa flight making along approach to 27R (written without access to the approriate R/T tapes!!) and one of my colleagues:

LH: "What is the reason for all the rockets tonight?"
Heathrow DIR: "It's to celebrate Guy Fawkes night; many years ago he tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament"
LH: "Hmmmm.. we can see that he did not succeed!"

[Young Paul]

There were fireworks all over the UK that day - as there often are. However, I suspect for anybody overhead, the Buck Pal ones would have been pretty impressive (1500' below, if LHR was on westerlies?)

I have also heard LH ask about fireworks towards the end of October, to which the response from Heathrow was that it was near Hallowe'en and Guy Fawkes. Interestingly, the reason was the Hindu Diwali festival - and W. London was a lot more lit by fireworks than anywhere in the UK is on Nov 5. It's amazing that something which was so dominant in W. London should have been so invisible to the Western Europeans .......

The most impressive fireworks I have seen were on July 14th flying across France in the mid evening (10 pm local). Every single village seemed to have its own display.

The scariest firework experience I had was on the approach to the northerly runway at MAD on St. John's Day. At about 500', a large firework exploded audibly (!) about (I guess) 400 metres away and at the same altitude from the aeroplane I was in.

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

Young Paul... more like 3000 feet below and probably slightly higher than that....

[Young Paul]

Yeah, maybe. I suppose that we're about 3500 feet there (10.5 nm final?), but looking at the fireworks my hunch was that the more daring ones were getting close to 1000'.