By George. Welcome to the land of retirement and I hope you enjoy a long, happy and healthy one. I've been retired a while but we probably spoke over the years.

Take good care...

Warped Factor and SWJ..... all I can say is, didn't he do well?

HD, I don't think he did much time at the coal face. At least you and I can rest easy. Promotion isn't everything...

Mildred

Oh, how I agree Mildred!!

Who is he then? Certainly not the Fat Jock!

Brian, see here.

Though they've got his bio slightly wrong with regards his location. It was TC, not the airport.

I was Checker for the last runway inspection of 05 ( when it was used) with 09R for departures.

It went something like this
The inspection would start off on 118.7 at the threshold of 23 ( always towards landing aircraft) at Block 78 ( as was then) it was
ATC "cHecker vacate and hold short of 09R and contact 118.5"
Checker "Tower Checker holding short 09R Block 85 and short of 05."
ATC "Checker after the departing Lufty B737 on 09r and landing sabena B737 on 05 your cleared to cross 09R at block 85."
Checker above repeated.
Checker " Checker has entered 05 and crossing 09R block 85"
Checker " Checkers vacated block 85"
ATC " Roger Checker call 118.7
Checker " Tower Checkers back with you Block 90 on 05"
ATC " Thanks Checker continue "
The inspection was then completed in the normal on/off way.

This was the only time that conflicting runways were used on different ATC frequencies as when 23 was used for landing 27R was used for departures not 27L ( 27R was used for heavies that couldnt take the 1999m runway.

exciting times especially when 118.5 the departure controller gave the following instructions at the threshold.
" speedbird 999 once you see the landing aircraft on approach to 05 in your 2 o clock position start rolling and your cleared for take off !

bet that wouldnt happen now in the age of heath and safety gurus,

Oh yes... It's a long way from 09R threshold to where the runways cross and clearing one for take-off with one on final was standard procedure. I did that with a BOAC chap one day and he said: "I'd prefer to wait until the lander has passed". I replied: "That's not the one I'm worried about; it's the one 3 miles behind him!". BOAC went.....

Was there ever much light aircraft (2-8 seaters) operating from Heathrow, Birmingham and Manchester at some point in the past?

The only reference I've seen for Heathrow was the Heathrow-Gatwick service operated by Westward Airways in 1969-70 with an Islander. Towards the end loads were so light that they chartered a Piper Cherokee, presumably taking up to 3 passengers, to operate some of these flights.

Back in the 1950s there were a number of Dragon Rapide (8 passenger) operators, including one, Island Air Services, which did large numbers of sightseeing circuits from alongside the spectators enclosure. One of their aircraft was lost when it got into the wake turbulence of an arriving Straocruiser when trailing it on approach.

Ernie Raffles used to commute to Leeds every day in his Beech Baron (?) with the callsign Raffles 1.

I thought it was a Travelair. Can't for the alzheimer's of me remember the reg. Plus I thought he was Eric. Plus I thought it was Manch. PB or AC will know.

Nurse, more medicine...

Photos: Beech B55 Baron (95-B55) Aircraft Pictures | !!!!!!!!!!!!!!


This one?

Southern Duel -

Is Jan still on the team? If so say hello to her from me.....

Jan left a couple of years ago. took the money and run ..... Im jealous ! along with a few others so all new faces and voices now with no where near as much experience.

I have my own thoughts but hey what do i know !! only 20 years in Ops !!

Eric Raffles to and from Manch. seem to recall he made raincoats as sported by the then PM Harold Wilson!
You can thank him for changing phraseology. "Behind the departing xxx line up 28R" well he did and was blown over. :ouch:
Thereafter it was "After the departing"

The person in question is the person who has now moved to Swiss ATC, I know i did his board as the examiner with Bert as the SRG inspector (Chairman). He (AB) had never seen 23, it was an interesting board with lots of prompts and questions, he did very well and passed with flying colours, we both remember it to this day.

It was a Beech 95 Travelair .. G-ASZC. I recall the callsign as "Raffles Zulu Charlie".

And I thought for the last 45 years (incorrectly I've just found) that it was Edgar.

Remember walking along the River Crane near the "pundit" on the south side and seeing C-46s parked.

He must have bought another one .....

Beech 95-A55 Baron, G-AYID, Eric Raffles

Seems he did! G-ASZC till 12/69 and G-AYID from 7/70 till 9/72....G-AYID became G-WOOD later. Can't find any pics of 'SZC...that's my pic of 'YID on the way for a fry-up in the Pan-Am canteen :)

Mr Swiss Control wasn't the first to validate whilst 23 was in use but he did it while I was Watch Training bod on X Watch, TC.

I may not have been the first but as I drove down the M4 on a rainy morning in (May?) 1983 for my approach board and saw the traffic coming from the left my first thought was s**t!

That was in the days of ILS on 23 and I have many memories, most of which have been repeated here. I do remember getting 5 aircraft within 10 miles from touchdown, using 3 miles spacing when there were departures and an Egypt Air A300 touching down at Block 85 and using the taxiway at the end as a high speed turn off (sorry, RET!).

SA

Lufthansa's?

Interesting that AB should end up in Switzerland, a country very fastidious when it comes to the matter of 'time'.
At an ATC unit SW of POL, a SRATCOH sheet was produced using 'local time'.
The clock above this sheet, also showed 'local time', as it had for 30 years.
Mr. Swiss Control changed the aforementioned clock to show permanent UTC, (because it said so in MATS Pt. 1).
During the unit's busy summer months many ATCOs plugged in very late, because ATCOs are, 'only human'.

Have 'graffiti boards' appeared in Switzerland yet? :E

If they were C46s in a Lufthansa livery they belonged to US charter operator Capitol, who leased LH several during the period 1964-69, keeping them on the US register (so US crews). There were generally two that came to LHR in and out early morning most weekdays, one from Frankfurt and one from Dusseldorf.

The river was possibly the Longford/Duke of Northumberland double river? didn't an aircraft run off 23 into it around 1950?....the Crane flows on the Eastern boundary (through Cranford) A few candidates from the 50s below but I agree more likely to be the Capitol/Lufthansa jobs
Curtiss C-46R Commando, N7848B, Riddle Airlines

Curtiss C-46 Commando, LX-LAA, Luxembourg Airlines

Curtiss C-46D Commando, N68852, Borges Tillotson Company

Eric Raffles
 

G-INFO confirms that an Eric Raffles owned G-ASZC then G-AYID and also that G-AYID was registered to him at 2 Bradford Rd, Manchester which Google Earth Streetview shows as a boarded up Victorian factory, brick-built. By chance this week my 'bed-time story' on Radio4 has been the writer Jeanette Winterson reading from her autobiographical 'Why be Happy when You could be Normal!... in episode 5 she mentions that in 1959 her birth-mother, a clothing factory worker,pregnant by a Teddy-Boy, was found a place in a 'Mother and Baby' home by her boss 'Old Man Raffles' , from where Jeanette was adopted by the Wintersons
(from the scant info on the net 'Old Man Raffles' was probably Emanuel Raffles and Eric his youngest son had the Baron registered at the family factory E Raffles &Co, 2 Bradford Rd, Manchester)
episode 5 i-player
BBC iPlayer - Book of the Week: Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?: Episode 5

I suppose I should have been more specifc. Where we used to walk (and I think it is the Duke of Northumberland's River) we crossed one river and walked between them, probably via a bridge which still seems to be there near the junction of Bedfont Road and Long Lane. they certainly were in Luthansa colours and there was sometimes one and sometimes two and these little walks (with my Uncles dog) were about 4.00 pm on a Saturday afternoon, I assume about 1963-64.

There was nothing between the southern peri road and the central building in those days (except grass and 28 L) and the C-46s were parked in clear view.

ISTR that the Capitol/Lufthansa C-46s were N9890Z/91Z/92Z.

There's a 1964 Lufthansa timetable page which includes their scheduled London C46 cargo flights on line here :

http://www.timetableimages.com/ttima...64/lh64-16.jpg

which shows that two aircraft were due both in and out in the early morning. However, it was common for certain cargo flights to be cancelled, particularly at weekends, if there was insufficient commercial load, or if there was the opposite, to run extras.

There were a range of Capitol C46s leased to Lufthansa over time in the 1960s. My records show regs N9890-3Z, and also 66326, 68966, 7923C, 5076N and 1312V. Capitol generally just kept the reg of the previous owner for its secondhand purchases, which these and nearly all of the rest of their fleet were.

Lufthansa C-46
 

Nice C-46 photo in post#1 and other 60s stuff in #13,14,19
London Airport in colour - Key Publishing Ltd Aviation Forums

Dave G
I pretty much grew up in the area you are talking about and the rivers are indeed the Colne and the D of N Canal. Apparently the longest stretch of parallel waterways in UK (?)They once ran from the SW corner of the airport all along the south side before heading off towards Bedfont. Most of the way there was path between them. They were diverted when 28L/10R was extended beyond its original length at block79 if I remember the airport geography correctly and the perimeter road had to be diverted requiring new bridges. Later on when the T4 to 10R southern holding point was built they disappeared into a kind of tunnel.
Back in the day though the river bank west of the emergency access gate opposite the pub in Stanwell Rising Sun?) was great place to spot on a nice day especially if on easterlies. With Deux Ponts , CV990s etc breaking up the flow of BA Viscounts and Vanguards who couldn’t love it. (Mind you at 59 I am feeling the effects of watching or hearing all those VC10s depart from about 300m away) Bit different in winter as the wind swept across the Tundra that was LHR Southside pre cargo centre.
What’s this got to do with C46s ? Well living where I did I had a great view of anything coming off 28L and remember the excitement of seeing the C46 for the very first time – would have spoiled the day had I know it would be a fixture for 4 years. It really seemed to wallow and struggle aloft even for a piston prop but needless to say it made it every day. ( No surprise that they fell out the sky seemingly monthly in Andean S America)
Moving on a decade and all that was left of the big props was the Kar air DC6 which rumbled gorgeously out at 7 every morning until LLHR stopped providing Avgas and the wonderful sound of four straining pistons was never heard again in anger at LHR .
Apologies for thread drift

PB

Almost. Air Atlantique popped in very occasionally with their DC6s, either doing cargo charters or subbing for somebody else, into the 2000s.

I too remember the Kar Air DC6, which routed home through Manchester. It was finally sold in early 1982, having done this trip several days a week to the end, and I remember it could be seen occasionally climbing over Manchester city centre at about 0900 on its last leg home as I walked in to work there in the early 1980s.

Rivers of Heathrow...not far from RWY23 :)
 

Unless they've been renamed the Twin Rivers, now forming the Southwest boundary of Heathrow,(both artificial and their courses moved at least twice ) are the Longford River and the Duke of Northumberland's River. They are both drawn from the River Colne. The Longford River runs on under Hanworth Air Park , past Bushy Park to Hampton Court (its purpose) where it joins the Thames. The Duke of Northumberlands River runs into the Crane near Hounslow then divides off again in Twickenham for Syon Park(its purpose) then into the Thames.
The lower stretch of the River Crane was recently sacrificed by Thames Water engineers when a 2 metre valve on a Sewer from Heathrow jammed shut (31 Oct 2011) and they were unable to remove by road tanker sufficient of the backed-up effluent.The lower 7 miles of the Crane was seriously polluted killing approx 3,000 fish.
Wikipedias available for all rivers mentioned.

30YO
you are indeed quite right it was/is the Longford River not the Colne.
Longford being another of the 'lost villages of Heathrow though it rmians quite 'villagey' to this day in spite of being seemingly adjoing the 09L threshold
PB

Yes, Longford's charm was preserved by the Colnbrook By-Pass, I think...we used to live in a Victorian cottage backing onto the Longford River in Bedfont called Longford Villa when I worked near Heathrow.
I think an HP42 broke through the culvert that carried the Longford under Hanworth Air Park damaging its undercarriage in the Thirties

Heathrow Construction 1946, Britain from Above
 

Reviving RWY23/05 thread [good as any :)]....Britain from Above have just posted Aerofilms photos of the infant Heathrow in a batch of 6,000 new images featuring many airfields either side of WWII.
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