Well, I haven't checked this thread for a while and so many nice comments about my Heathrow model. Alas, it's currently 'wintering' (brrrr!) and dismantled in the garage,waiting for me to do more to it, which I will when it gets warmer and the days are longer, as I hate working under artificial light!

Here are some more of my model airliners on the layout. Many of these you can't buy commercially, so I have repainted some models and got a friend to make some 1/400th scale decals for them, giving me Cunard Eagle Airways, British Eagle, Cambrian, Starways and many more for the '60s era.

http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n...eeto/Eagle.jpg

http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n.../Vikings-1.jpg

http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n...ianfleet-1.jpg

http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n...Vanguards2.jpg

No, I never worked at Heathrow, just had an urge to have a good record of
the wonderful times I spent on the Roof Gardens 'reggie spotting' with my Dad in the '60s. You could take photos without a telephoto lens, we had good summers then, no terrorist threats...life in Britain was good then!!

Nostalgia ...............
 

Reading these posts is throwing me back over 50 years, for what its worth, I started spotting at LAP (as was) around 1954, down the far end of the black Nissen huts that comprised London Airport Passenger Terminal, (the posh bit, nothing else was), but a land of magic to a young lad to go down the far end of the huts and emerge on the apron with the ladder stairs for the kites and sit under them. You could watch the connies etc., taxi in and turn in front of you before shutting down.

They were digging a big tench across to the centre and later filled it in to roof it over, we then moved to the roof gardens in the Queens Building, this was nicely situated on the corner of the aprons and taxiways, very good for photos and spotting, the commentator - Stan, vertically challanged and a smashing guy with his assistant Elizabeth, used to give a running commentary on the aircraft arriving and play classical music, an education in itself. No need for security then!!.

I joined BOAC in 1957 as cash office junior (took a cheque for £7 million to the Bank of England in the chairmans chauffeur driven Jaguar to pay Vickers for the fleet of Viscounts for the BOAC associated Airways - BWIA, etc.), moved to the photographic unit for 2 years - took a whole load of personal A/C photos over these years. Joined BEA in 1961 on office work, moved onto the hangers in production control around 1965 working on the aircraft, covered Viscounts, Comets, Tridents 1,2,3, Argosy, BAC1-11, Vanguards, Merchantman freighter conversions etc. Achieved my A,B & C, gliding certificates with the ATC and had about 30 hour power flying. Another education!!.

Is'nt nostalgia wonderfull, it skips over all the nasty bits and leaves this happy glow. If its of any interest, I have recently started scanning my old B&W negs, try on www.abpic.co.uk enter Brian Doherty then photographer then search, could be a while to complete, theres still approx 800 negs to load!! - with apologies for meandering from the thread.

Cheers Entaxei :ok:

Brian,

Thanks very much for adding to the wonderful memories. My first ever visit was in 1960 with the school and from then on, I was 'hooked'. Indeed the atmosphere on the roof gardens of the Queens Building and Europa Building was magical. The spluttering pistons engines, the whistling turboprop Viscounts mixed in with the 707s and DC-8s provided the 'background music', whilst the commentator announced information about arrivals and departures with Glen Miller music in between! You could never recreate such a mix, but I aim to do just that on my 1/400 scale model with all those background sounds! It'll be the nearest thing I can get to bottling nostalgia!

I've just checked out the Air-Britain site and what an incredible collection of photos you have uploaded. Did you ever take any in colour?

Why 3 runways NW/SE at Heathrow
 

The central one was part of the original triangular 3 runway RAF style layout....what is now 27R/09L was laid that close to the A4 road (in the RAF layout) because the Perry Oaks Sewage works couldn't be moved quickly...these were expanded to the Star of David '6' runway civilian scheme again avoiding Perry Oaks, making the central runway NW/SE redundant eventually buried under the Central Area Terminal

Have fond memories of visiting LHR - Hatton Cross, on a number of occasions in late '60's whilst working for RCA Aviation Div at Sunbury on Thames. Particularly when Pan-Am flew their very first just-delivered 747 there for an inspection by interested parties - which included me, in July 1969 or thereabouts. First impressions and comments were "They must have assembled it in a hangar as it couldn't possibly have flown here". Photos in AW&ST came no where near in conveying the immense size of the beast. Heck the 707 was king back then.

"what is now 27R/09L was laid that close to the A4 road (in the RAF layout) because the Perry Oaks Sewage works couldn't be moved quickly."

At first the Air Ministry came up a plan of a triangle of 3 runways including overrunning the sewage works, but Middlesex County Council refused, because it would need a replacement sewage sludge works building and a sewer linking it to Mogden near Isleworth, in wartime in the run-up to D-Day :: after a volcanic row the Air Ministry saw sense and had to change its plan.

233Sqn wrote:
> The white "square building" on the corner of the hangar was the original
> Great West aerodrome control tower

233SQN wrote:
> No Completely different.... This tower was on the North side and was built
> as part of the military expansion, but continued in use into the civilian period.
>The original control tower attached to the Fairey hangar wasn't really a control
> tower at all.... more of an observation area and flying control, and was in the
> middle of the airport

Fairey's pre-1944 grass airfield also had a cluster of small buildings by its east edge, at least up to 1934. One pre-war map marks "Radio" by them. They started as the farm buildings of Gamble's Farm, which Fairey bought as part of its airfield. (Similar happened with pre-war Ringway south of Manchester: it included Firtree Farm on the south side of Yewtree Lane, and they kept its farm buildings as airfield service buildings.)

Are any of you old enough to remember the old Heathrow farming and market gardening village before the airport came in 1944?

Heathrow (hamlet) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Heathrow 1962
 

Reading this thread about the early days of Heathrow reminded me that I had some photos that I took there in 1962. They can be viewed at Flickr: rnewark2001's Photostream
From memory, I think I was using a Minolta Autocord 6x6 twin lens reflex. Roger

rognjac1
 

Pic of the tunnel walk way brought back memories of walking back to Queen's from the "Peg" after lunch, too far over to the Silver Wing club !!!!:E

Hi My father remembers landing a Tiger Moth there in 1945/46


Gordon

Just found this thread - it's brilliant. Took me right back to the summer (around 1960) when my late Dad took me to London for a week. We did the museums etc. and spent a lot of time in the viewing patch on the N side, close by the statue of Alcock and Brown. He blagged us in to the (IIRC) 'Green Dragon' whcih I think was the staff canteen towards the eastern end of the N aprons. Recall it was full of guys in oily overalls. Guess they were from the BOAC Brits outside, along with early jets and the Panair do Brasil Connie which I eagerly 'spotted'.
I took distant photos of the Air France Connies which operated the Paris shuttle, the Aer Lingus Connie, and a BOAC DC-7 freighter with BEA cargo titles.
In later years, overnight coach trips to Farnborough saw us walking through the tunnel to the central area for brekkie, before bussing onward to the Show. It was a bl..dy long walk too !

Who have probably by now travelled farther being dragged around various locations at Heathrow than they did across the Atlantic. :)

Gosh, I remember those red-eyes from way back, Dragonflies at Blackbushe, cocooned Comet I's ...

Went yesterday, managed 2 hours before I got bored.

Heathrow - The Lost Hamlet

And see this link for what Heathrow looked like in the 1930's.

How did Heathrow used to look ?
 

I haven't been through the entire thread but thus far I have not seen reference to the BEA Viscount (G-AMOK) which suffered an incident on the disused 15 Central in 1955. In low visibility the aircraft was instructed to line-up on 15R as it taxyed along the northern taxyway. On reaching 15 Central the crew mistook it for 15R and lined up on it. During the take-off roll the aircraft crashed into WIP along the runway resulting in just a few minor injuries to the aircraft's occupants.

Thereafter the stub that was left of 15C was known as Waites Alley, after the Captain of the Viscount.

Was it ever actually called "15C" ? In other words, was there a time when Heathrow had three operational 15/33 runways ?

I'd always been under the impression that the original 15R/33L (Runway No 3 in the "RAF" schema) was replaced by the new 15R/33L (Runway No 6) to make room for the Central Terminal Area at the same time (late 1940s) as Runways 4, 5 and 7 were added.

Can't say I actually know the answer to that one Dave. The only occasions that I heard mention of the runway during my time at Heathrow Tower during the 60s it was referred to as 'Central'. I'd love to know just how much use the runway got as I gather it must have been de-activated already around 47 or 48! Whatever, I always consider Heathrow to have been a seven runway airport!

Well technically it was, in the sense that the runways were numbered from 1 to 7, even if they were never all in use at the same time.

I must admit that when I first worked at Heathrow in the 70s, I could never understand why 10L/28R was Runway 1, but 10R/28L was Runway 5. When I eventually did some research into LHR's history, all became clear.

RAF Runway No. 3 was designated 16/34. It was decommissioned after 2 years of use (1945-47) to make way for the civil 'Central Area'. 'Waite's Alley' was never a 15C/33C, it was the northern stub of 16 which was painted over as 'taxiway'. The word remains visible on Google Maps. Loads of stuff on all this (and the 1946 ten-runway proposal...!) in Philip Sherwood's book 'Heathrow-2000 years of history'.

"The [16/34] runway....had to be built to keep up the pretence that the airport was needed by the RAF...Its construction was opposed by BOAC because it was entirely unsuitable for civil aviation and it was subsequently abandoned...That this runway might eventually be redundant to the civil scheme was known when construction commenced...the period of use of the redundant runway will be less than two years. Its cost will have been £350.000 [at 1946 prices]"

So why was the redundant 16/34 runway deemed unsuitable for commercial use? A runway is a runway isn't it and usable by any aircraft?

This was the 1957 aerodrome chart.
LAP - as it was then known - still had a green ident flashing beacon.
First based there in 1960. The staff car park for the Queens Building became the subsequent site for Terminal 1.

http://i1198.photobucket.com/albums/...throwChart.jpg

Heathrow Past
 

Queens Building seen from the 1955 Central Control Tower
Air Aero 1920- (2 Folders) - Hosted by Google

T2 (Europa) Terminal interior looking NE
Air Aero 1920- (2 Folders) - Hosted by Google

T2 (Europa) Terminal interior looking SW
Air Aero 1920- (2 Folders) - Hosted by Google

T2 (Europa) Terminal from the 1955 CentralControl Tower
Air Aero 1920- (2 Folders) - Hosted by Google

View of Northside apron looking East from 1946 Northside Tower
Air Aero 1920- (2 Folders) - Hosted by Google

View of Spectators Enclosure ca. 1951 looking West from Northside Tower
Air Aero 1920- (2 Folders) - Hosted by Google

Only the cars have changed :) ?
Air Aero 1920- (2 Folders) - Hosted by Google

Northside apron view ca.1946, Bricklayer's Arms? (later The Air Hostess) and row houses visible on the Bath Rd (A4)

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3360/4...2509468b_z.jpg
Lancastrian G-AHBU by Stephen Greensted, on Flickr

You could see more military types at Heathrow in its first few years, e.g.
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5098/5...19487c03_z.jpg
WE139 by David Whitworth, on Flickr

and Air-Britain : Air force Heathrow 1952

Air-Britain : Air force Heathrow 1953

Air-Britain : air force heathrow 1954


Air-Britain : air force heathrow 1956

Air-Britain : Air force Heathrow 1958

I found that the older man who used to run the snack shop in the Precinct Centre arch in Manchester University (UK), in 1943 had been a motorcycle dispatch rider, and he had to take a message to Heathrow when it was still countryside before the airport came, and he went to the Great West Aerodrome there (about half a mile each way, all grass) , and there he shook hands with King George VI.

Old Technical Block 'A' Hatton Cross Heathrow
 

I used to work in the old Technical Block 'A' in Hatton Cross at Heathrow and have loads of Really Happy Memories from then and wonder if anyone else out there remembers this place. I specificially remember my fun days in my purple triumph spitfire which are well collectable now though mine is sadly long gone, and there was one other girl there who had one also except hers was in
yellow and I wondered if she is still around and if she also has the same Happy memories of there, and how she is now, Would Love to hear back, Dawnx.:)

Great thread ...... I used to cycle from Ruislip Manor via Hayes and spent many hours/days "spotting" at Heathrow in the late 50's , just wish I had kept my spotters handbooks! The sights and sounds of Constellations, Stratocruisers, Vikings, Ambassadors, Yorks, DC 3's 4's 6's, Comets, Caravelles, smoke trailing 707's (and the horrible shrill Darts on the Viscounts as witnessed from the top of the Queen's Building), will remain with me forever.

63/64 I worked for a year in the Met Office at SATCC (where the controllers worked in pitch blackness at their radar screens) on the North Side Bath Road. My boss was Reg Needham, lovely gentle pipe-smoking man with a modern Triumph Herald, my transport very soon upgraded to my brother's 1927 Austin 7 ....

Scotbill that chart proves it. LHR was nicknamed the Star of David.

I don't think that the Airport itself was so nicknamed (what constitutes a recognised nickname, anyway?) , but that pattern of all-embracing runway directions was certainly colloquially known as a Star of David pattern.

2 s

TBA is still there, of course (it's a listed building, so it probably will be for ever). My abiding memory of it is how big it was and how long the walk from the front entrance to the canteen (my usual reason for visiting as a change from the runway canteen or Hatton Cross).

That, and almost getting run over on the roundabout by a mad woman driving a purple sport car ...

There is a superb new hardback book just published by The History Press entitled "Heathrow in Photographs -celebrating 70 Years of London's Airport" by Adrian M. Balch. It has colour photos throughout of many of the airliners seen there from its opening in 1946 right up to date. A lovely Christmas present for any Heathrow nostalgic aviation enthusiast. Check it out in WH Smiths, Waterstones and on Amazon!

I'm sure that the designers thought they had found the optimum solution for the location of the terminal buildings - right in the middle of the runways. Little did they know how unsuitable that would become!

Two questions:

1. What is the Air Station on the chart?

2. When did the last diagonal runway close?

Can't help with the first question (there are actually two "Air Stations" on the chart), but the last cross runway (05R/23L) was closed in 2002.

Here's the 1968 landing chart:
http://www.vc10.net/div/LHR_1968.jpg

A30yoyo
Re. the photo of Lancastrian G-AHBU in your post #143. This crashed and was destroyed at Belfast whilst engaged in the Northern Island to mainland Britain 'Milkrun' on 3rd October 1947. Further details on PPRuNe here:
http://www.pprune.org/aviation-histo...-tales-12.html

Boeing 707-351C - Northwest Orient Airlines | Aviation Photo #0718299 | Airliners.net
airsmiles #141....34/16 (edit... not L/R) was closed because it ran right through the planned Central Terminal area
Jhieminga #154 23R/05L was closed soon after your map was released to allow building of T3 piers for the 747 (which entered service in1970) but 05R was certainly still used for a couple more decades on occasion...see top link

Heathrow actually had two runways designated 16R/34L (at different times). The first of those was closed to create space for the CTA. The replacement 16R/34L (later 15R/33L) was further west and is the one along the line of which Terminal 3 Pier 7 was built. Both the older one (just) and newer one can still be discerned on present-day aerial photos.

Runway 05R/23L survived for another 30-odd years, as per my previous post, until 2002.

India Four Two #152... the double triangle or 'Star of David' runway pattern evolved because Middlesex County Council would not or could not move the Perry Oaks sewage plant to permit the E-W runway to run through the middle of the site....accordingly the main runway was laid much closer to the A4 road (the 09L/27R we have now, corrected per DaveReidUK) with crosswind runways 23/05 and 34/16 making up the first triangle....the second inverted triangle allowed a second E-W runway to pass to the south of the sewage plant (the latter finally removed a half century later to permit T5 construction.)

The County Council's intransigence turned out to be of benefit in the end.

With a runway through the middle of Perry Oaks, it would have been very difficult to construct a second parallel runway either to the north or south with sufficient separation to allow even semi-independent operations on both.

I think you mean the present 27R/09L, more usually referred to as 09L/27R (the convention with runways is to put the smaller number first).

Re the purple sports car woman . I was hit by mauve Spitfire in my Mini Clubman at the Hatton Cross A30 junction going north. She was in the centre lane ansd iwas in the LH one and she just drove into me as she assumed I was turning into the airport.

I heard from the insuarance loss adjuster, ex copper, (her hubby was a lawyer and he sent me a very nasty letter trying to make me admit it was my fault) that she was a bit too well know for driving incidents (as Dave Reid points out -has to be the same woman) for that to have any credibility.

Dawn, a close friend of my wife's from those days (they both worked at Speedbird London radio) also possessed a shiny red spit.

Talk about memory flashing back on a prompt