I logged LH 727s there 1960-64, but they were probably there some years later.

BEA Daks, or Pionairs as they used to call them, were 1950s and the latest I logged one was 1960, although some were to be seen in the liveries of other airlines until some years later.

Aaahh.. thoses big stairs, not Panam SuperStairs perchance? They used to ferry them across to the Panam hangar and a colleague of mine used to sing:
"Here he comes, SuperStairs, going to the hangar to collect some spares".

Well yes, 'modellers licence' again having a BEA DC-3 and a Lufthansa 727 together which never would have met! The last BEA DC-3 service was indeed on 10th May 1962 between Islay-Cambletown-Glasgow and the first Lufthansa Boeing 727 service into LHR was in May 1964 (not before!). Since that photo was taken, I have since added Starways and British Westpoint Airlines DC-3s to the collection, which would be more authentic.

oooppss... sorry. You are correct about 727s. With my poor eyesight I was reading my logs for 720s.

Just an an 'ad on' to this, I am working on a book marking the 70th anniversary of Heathrow next year. Does anyone have any original prints of the official aerial views showing the BEA and BOAC engineering bases in the '50s and '60s that they would be kind enough to scan to include in this?

AK, how is it you haven't aged in 5 years ;)

Have you looked at the photos in Ian Anderson's book?

Jethro Tull…?

No, the author of "Heathrow: From Tents to Terminal 5"

A different sort of living in the past. :O

Bloody depressing is when you smile at reading some guys whose posts make reference to your era of music, then you realise why you shouldn't call them 'old guys'.:O

Minesthechevy

That era of music will live on forever and not "in the past". You need to be "Thick as a Brick" not to appreciate it. I may have listened to some of it in your company.

Back to the subject thread. Back in July '87 I remember being involved in the planning of the 10/28 to 09/27 changeover. We hoped it wasn't going to rain on the night when the runway painted designators were changed and I believe it was dry. What a relief.

In those days the red/white holding point signs didn't have the designators, they just stated "Runway Ahead" so these didn't have to change. Nowadays all airport runway holding point red/white signs are required to show the runway designators, also some yellow/black info signs have runway numbers, so when magnetic variation changes require runway designations to change then there's a lot more for an airport to do than just repainting the runway numbers.

Time to listen again to "Aqualung" I think. Brilliant album

From Tents to Terminal 5?

With a title like that it must have flown off the shelves.:zzz:

This discussion is deteriorating rapidly. So I'm going 'Up The 'Pool', 'Teacher', please give my regards to 'Dr. Bogenbroom'.

Off-topic but here's a pic of them swapping the RW28 designator to RW27 at London City.... ;)
http://www.navjot-singh.com/uploads/3/1/7/4/3174873/9630477_orig.jpg

Musket90.. were you Chef1, 2 or 3?

HD - Affirm

We must have spoken many times on the wireless!

Take care and GL.. Brendan McCartney (Ex A Watch ATC).

Yes I'm sure. Great times, great memories '87 to early '93

ATB
DMac

ge, that's fabulous. :D

For those that didn't click through:

http://www.navjot-singh.com/uploads/...30477_orig.jpg

There's nothing going on at the other end of the runway so presumably it became Runway 10/27!!
With the shadows to the east, it must've been a saturday afternoon.

No way. That's an RAF Chinook, must have been a weekday (though not a Friday afternoon, obviously). :O