BBMF Spitfire pilot - thank you
 

Thank you for holding over AA Towers before your display at Benson tonight. Next time feel free descend to roof-top height, but it was a lovely sound all the same.

And a thank you to the Hurricane pilot that flew low over the Watford/Rickmansworth area about 15 mins ago....(appeared to be LF363).....nice for Battle of Britain day as well.
However, a bit depressing as I saw it fly past the office window,
and "Aah a Hurricane says I out loud, and on Battle of Britain day as well"....

I was looked at as if I was an alien.....no one knew what I was talking about:uhoh:

Suddenly I felt very old........:{

Last Night
 

We had 2 Spitfires in formation stooging around Lee On Solent/Gosport/Portsmouth around dusk last night. Ditto on the wonderful noise!

Geeram - Don't be too concerned about it matey. As time goes by fewer and fewer youngsters will realise the significance of BoB day. This is sad, but it's a fact of life.

My son (13) knows the significance because a) his school did a term studying WW2 and he was actually taught it - a rarity these days I'm led to believe - and b) I teach him.

It was great when we were camping in Kent recently that we were buzzed by a low flying Spit (I started a thread about it) and he was able to hear that magical sound and see that beautiful plane in the sky where the Battle took place!

My dad fought so that kids could lead their lives in some form of normality and not under a Jackboot. Millions of others did as well. All we can do is attempt to educate the younger generations that they owe their relatively cushy lifestyles to the brave men and women who battled all those years ago.

Cheers.

Unfortunatley I didnt hear a merlin at all yesterday. I live in one of the most boring areas in the UK for low passes as were in the Heathrow corridor so no fun stuff going on here then. So I just cheered myself up by watching the Spit doing the f**k me low pass on the reporter about 5-6 times, classic video.

I really miss the interesting aircraft stooging around as I used to live near the Shuttleworth collection and was spoilt for choice most summer weekends.

If there is a more joyous and moving sound than a Merlin going overhead then I have yet to hear it.

At the Medway River Festival several years ago the Blenheim and a Spit were booked to augment the day's attractions. There was a large turnout. The Blenheim was first and did some lovely low passes before loping off north. As his radials faded the sound was replaced by a Merlin coming in fast from the south. The noise crashed and echoed from the buildings over the river then he appeared low and fast. He pulled up into a loop and as he went over the top the crowd just erupted. They cheered and clapped as if Bader and Churchill themselves had walked on.

Quite a moving moment :D

Kev.

<<in the Heathrow corridor >>

Out of extreme curiosity - where/what is that please?

Heathrow corridor

It's what us blokes on the ground call the boring piece of airspace around, Windsor, Bracknell, Sunningdale.
You know, that’s where the extremely boring and environmentally unfriendly sky junk fly’s.

I'm sure you have a more accurate term for it and if you would like to pass it on I promise not to disgrace these hallowed pages with my ugly and ignorant terminology.

Come, come gentlemen, the weekend approaches. Let us not enter it in ire and angst. Let us talk of Merlins and heros!

Mr Director - I understood what skunkerama meant, although living in the bit of the Heathrow Corridor (sic) away to the east I would have called it Margate, Woolwich and Westminster!! :}

Skunkerama... Did I rattle your cage, or something? I asked a perfectly civil question as I was involved with Heathrow ATC most of my life and had never heard the term "Heathrow Corridor". I wondered if perhaps some new procedure had been introduced about which I was unaware.

Sorry HD, it's just that there are some very pedantic "people" on this forum, thought you were being funny.

It's just a term that I thought fitted the area of sky that in our near vicinity. Although I realise that it probably looks more like a flattened inverted cone.

Skunk
 

The "Heathrow Corridor" is a term quite fancied by the HACAN clear skies lobby when referring to noise cones.
End of thread creep.

I also live almost under the "corner" of the Bovingdon 222 radial for 09L but often get "Mil Traffic" overhead including a pair of F3's last month, the odd Jag, Harrier, Assorted Apache, Merlin, Puma, Seaking (Even the rattling Yellow things), Herks, Spits, Hurricanes, Yaks, a Nimrod, and various holding for a Strike visit, and the Northolt Limo twin jet often. Oh Bliss, the BBMF Lanc transiting east/west both ways, so often this summer I lost count - come over this way.

Imagegear

Crikey, with that lot going over i'd have a permenant crick in my neck.

<<the Bovingdon 222 radial for 09L >>

Wow - another term I'm not familiar with! Please fill me in... Tks.

(I was a Heathrow Air Traffic Controller for 31 years until I retired 3 years ago so I am familiar with most of the Heathrow procedures but realise that things change rapidly in aviation).

As a youngster I remember a chance for the family to climb to the top of a Lighthouse somewhere around St. Eval or thereabouts ...... the only one to refuse the offer was my father .... why won't he climb?, I asked my mother? :confused: ..... he doesn't like heights I was told :(

He was an ex Spit Pilot!!! ......

I remember seeing his joy when a couple of them put on a mini show at Northolt many years ago ......

God be good to him ..... :)

Hi,

For the last year or so I've been regularly shooting (video!) at Fulham Palace for a long term documentary. Most of the time there's aircraft - clearly approaching Heathrow - passing almost directly overhead, or just to the north, about every forty-five seconds.

On some days, oddly, this does not occur. I have no idea why this is, but it'd be nice if I could find out exactly which days this tends to happen, as obviously the odd 747 going by at can't-estimate-altitude is not terribly good for recording interviews.

Sorry for the OT, but while it's being discussed.

Phil

That'll probably be when the wind changes around and they come in to land from the opposite direction....:ok:

On Monday Norwich City council held a Battle of Britain reception with a Spit flypast:ok: There were representatives from Marham and Colt and some of the old boys and girls from the RAFA - I ran into Jaise * , but didn't lend him any money

All this week City hall and the Castle have flown the ensign - don't suppose many of the locals know why but at least someone made the effort.

Phil R.. As GR said, the days you don't see the landers is probably when they're landing the other way. They land over Fulham when the wind is from the west. If the wind is from the east they land from the other way. There are complex rules about deciding when to change runways and they may still land to the west even if there is a slight easterly wind because Heathrow operates "preferential westerlies" for noise abatement purposes. If I can help further please PM me.

More BBMF & LHR Nostalgia
 

hey HD,

In days of yore (i.e. the 1980s) it was generally considered by ATC at LHR that the most expeditious manner in dealing with zone transit raffic that was remotely of historical or technological significance, or of any military connection, was for them to carry out a low approach and go-around. This was definitely approved of by those of us humble types scraping a living as Checker or Seagull, but not by every visitor to the airfield.

I was once escorting a reporter, Chris Searle, a keen aviation enthusiast. He was making a radio documentary about some aspect of our job airside. We were in the middle of the 27L holding area, well out of the way as this was the landing runway. As he was doing his stuff, suddenly I noticed 3 a/c in formation, a 4-engined piston type flanked by a couple of singles (you can guess what they were). I drew Chris's attention to this and he started enthusing about this wonderful apparition, holding the mic high as they thundered by at around 100'.

The whole thing was completely spoiled by the lady director who was in charge of the sound equipment, who complained that she would now have to edit out this unseemly interruption and start the piece all over again. Chris and I were scandalised!

I was also lucky enough to be out on the airfield when the Space Shuttle/747 combo made an approach & go-around on 09L in its way to Stansted - was that 1982 or 3???

Cheers,
TheOddOne