As mentioned already, landing on R23 didn't officially stop until 2002.

I lived right under the R23 flightpath in Greenford, from the early 60's right up until the last use in 2002 (in two different houses, but both under the flightpath)

As a kid I used to spend hours sitting at my bedroom window watching the line of aircraft coming in from the north-east.

Don't ever recall any take-off's on 05 though, and certainly never saw a landing on 05 during my time on site building T4 during the summer of '81, and back there again through 1983-4.

I did a few take-offs and landings on 05 when I was an ATCO there - always a bit scary!!

While idly perusing Google Maps' aerial view of the current Heathrow, I was delighted to discover that the southern part of the original apron (top centre of the photo, with what looks like a lone DC-3 parked) is still intact, as is the taxiway that used to connect it to the runway.

The current Northern Perimeter Road runs along the line of the old parallel taxiway at that point, and the apron is the tarmac area roughly opposite the Renaissance Hotel's main car park.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.gmf...ba9353ccba.jpg

Does anyone have some pictures of the old BOAC building 221? It was on the north side and used for the crew reporting offices up until Terminal 3 was built.

GE historic imagery goes back to 1945 although I think it is more like 1950. There are several old airliners visible on the north apron.
Who can identify them?

I used to cycle from Watford and through the tunnel when it was first open and spend the day on the roof of the Queen Elizabeth building,I seem to recollect there was an announcer detailing all the movements.I was about 13/14 at the time.

Alas no, but I remember it well. My girlfriend (now my wife) worked in BOAC Flight Ops Planning, next door in Building 224.

If only BAA had portrayed the third runway as a "safety realignment of 23" rather than a "new" third runway, they would have gained about 20 years over the HACAN lot.



Article in Propliner magazine, quite a while ago, by someone who was in Ground Control in the 1950s, described these arrangements. The apron coaches were operated under contract by London Transport, using the vehicles which also did the run to Central London, or the previous generation of these. It was regarded as easy work compared to regular bus driving, so tended to be staffed by the most senior drivers, close to retirement. They would hesitantly pick their way across and around the live taxyway, and found this new-fangled radio thing in the cab a bit beyond them, or even the stand numbers. In winter rain and fog, with aircraft landing lights blaring at them, let alone props whizzing round, there were a number of interesting encounters.

In reply to the original questions, Heathrow looks much as always - a huge building site with its own airfield!

HD you are dead right. I wonder if there has been a day in the life of LHR since say 1960 when there wasnt a large (lets say equivalent to a 6 story office block or bigger) going on somewhere on the airport or failing that something akin to a pretty large piece of roadworks.

Its abi of an irony that the original LHR was one of the few UK Gov projects that started out with a huge amount of excess capcity for movements and a huge amount of development space for longer runways (the 09/27s) and terminals . Of course that couldnt last and so from some point, in the 80s, maybe expansion on a strategic scale, was wilfully ignored.
What no one in politics seems to understand is that airports are all about scale and connectivity and ideas like 'runways in the SE of England being effectively interchangeable is nonsense. No one would look at growth on the London to Manchester rail route and say lets build an extra line to Leeds-they are all in the North and can be substituted.

So once you have a big hub airport you have to expand it - improving capacity at a secondary airport is no use at all nor is building new airport miles from anywhere going to work because you have to move tens of thousands of people and build ultra expensive new rail links through congested suburbs to reach it causing as much disruptionsthe airport itself.

In all the years I visited I always wondered 'will they ever finish building it?'

Chevvron,

Not Green Line route 713, that IIRC came through South Wimbledon from Dorking ( ? ) on its way through London to Dunstable or was it Luton? It was paired with route 712.

I think yours may have been 703 or one of the other numbers before 710. My Green Line history book is somewhere in a cardboard box along with all my bus and aeroplane books from the 50s!

You're probably right; its so long since I lived in Chesham I can't remember.
By the way, I cancelled my Arsenal direct debit several months ago and they've now sent me a Silver membership card; what should I do?https://www.pprune.org/images/icons/46.gif

chevvron

Continuing our thread drift - I got to the top of the Red Membership several years ago to be told I was being upgraded to Silver. I said I was never going to use the extra benefits, particularly as I hope never to go to London again and asked to remain on the Red list. Not possible they replied, so I cancelled my membership. Now they are trying to get me to rejoin! BBC Breakfast this morning - G reveals he is an Arsenal fan! Top man!

Back to LHR - hindsight is a wonderful thing but what a shame that somewhere like Blackbushe didn't become the capital's main airport.

The usual government interference. Shortly after the US Navy spent loadsa money developing a European airbase at Blackbushe, Gatwick opened but because of its horrendous weather record (compared to Blackbushe, which had always been a 'No 1 Div' for Heathrow traffic) no-one wanted to move there so the decision was made to close Blackbushe in order to force the independent airlines to move to Gatwick.
The US D of D even offered to fund an extension of Blackbushes main runway to 10,000ft and build a parallel 7,000ft runway, but to no avail; Gatwick was there and people were gonna use it!