Heathrow Airport Nostalgia

[a300boy]

I was never a big fan of the 727 if I'm honest. They always liked they were under powered on take off.

How can you say that Mr Aviador it was the queen of the skies !
The under powered bit was mostly because of the Pratt and Whitney JT8 engines being noisy so we had to reduce to a 1.65 Epr power setting at 1000 ft to meet the noise limits around airports we used which was like going up Garrowby Hill in 3rd gear.
We also carried 189 passengers plus bags on the 200 series and regularly took off at Max take of weight to the Canaries from Manchester which was about the max range of the aircraft with reserves.
When I joined DHL and we were flying parcels around at much lighter take off weights I could not believe the performance of this beautiful aircraft.

 

[Silvercity]

How can you say that Mr Aviador it was the queen of the skies !
The under powered bit was mostly because of the Pratt and Whitney JT8 engines being noisy so we had to reduce to a 1.65 Epr power setting at 1000 ft to meet the noise limits around airports we used which was like going up Garrowby Hill in 3rd gear.
We also carried 189 passengers plus bags on the 200 series and regularly took off at Max take of weight to the Canaries from Manchester which was about the max range of the aircraft with reserves.
When I joined DHL and we were flying parcels around at much lighter take off weights I could not believe the performance of this beautiful aircraft.

I remember Dan Air had 100 and 200 series. There was another UK airline that had them for a short while called Sabre. But the rest of Europe had many.

 

[a300boy]

Yes and most of Sabres crews and aircraft were ex Dan Air.

 

[Elmdon80slad]

Does anyone have any photos from the queens building, I was there from 1979 through to about 1986 must have visited about 50 times over those years, the day would start by getting the coach down then a dash up to the top of car park 3 then a dash over to the queens when it was opening, then a day spent on the roof gardens till about 4-5pm and a mad dash down to the central station to catch the coach home.

E.

 

[Seasider]

Do you mean photos of the Queen's Building or taken from it, ie Airliners?

 

[Elmdon80slad]

Do you mean photos of the Queen's Building or taken from it, ie Airliners?

Both really, just to get a feel for the old place and what it was like having a day out there.

E.

 

[Seasider]

here are a few from the mid 70's:











View attachment 9577

 

[Silvercity]

I wonder why Sabena had used a 707 there unless it was just for extra capacity. I met my nan and grandad off a Tunisair 727 when I was a kid probably in the 70s they had been on what was the new destination of Tunisia for their hols, how times have changed for that destination.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Many thanks for that, Seasider. It brought back a lot of memories.

In the 70s and 80s before domestic videoing became widely used I had a cine camera and took a number of sequences at LHR at various times in the 1970s. I wasn't a spotter but the cine film was taken when various relatives/friends used LHR so it's a bit personalised. I transferred all my cine to video in the 1990s but it's all on analogue tape which is very difficult to put onto a computer I believe.

The last time I used my cine camera at LHR was in 1990 when we went to Switzerland for our 25th wedding anniversary. Went to Zurich on a BA B757 and came back on a Swissair A310.

I can't remember ever using the Queens Building for cine shots - I can't ever remember going there. I used the open top storey of multi-storey car parks which even then was supposedly verboten but the rule didn't seem to be strictly enforced at that time.

 

[Jerry]

Great photos!

 

[Elmdon80slad]

Thank you kindly for the photos.

E.

 

[Silvercity]

Great photos, loving the memories .

 

[Gene Hunt]

Hi all,

I'm trying to identify a few locations from a 1970's TV show called The Sweeney. In one episode, part of Heathrow features. I think it was somewhere along the south side. I can see a Pan Am hanger and a few other red brick built buildings. Can anyone pinpoint where abouts these were? I can post a couple of images from the show if that helps.

Many thanks
GH.

 

[KARFA]

Hi all,

I'm trying to identify a few locations from a 1970's TV show called The Sweeney. In one episode, part of Heathrow features. I think it was somewhere along the south side. I can see a Pan Am hanger and a few other red brick built buildings. Can anyone pinpoint where abouts these were? I can post a couple of images from the show if that helps.

Many thanks
GH.

If you post a few images I might be able to spot which hanger it was.

 

[Gene Hunt]

Here you go...

View attachment 12719View attachment 12720

 

[KARFA]

The first one I can't tell, but there isn't any hangar like that second photo at LHR so I suspect it was't filmed there.

 

[Elmdon80slad]

It was indeed at Heathrow, it was over on the south side towards Hatton Cross, further along from it used to be the Hunting Bizz Jet hanger, both were still over there in the late 70s possibly very early 80s.

Hope this helps.

E.

 

[Elmdon80slad]

A five-minute series of shots at Heathrow in 1958 - 'London Airport' as it was usually known then.

The sequences appear to be discarded rough cuts from a Pathe News item about the airport, apparently concentrating on youngsters spotting. There is no sound.

The colour film shows a host of airlines from that period, and most seem to be turbo-props, although I think I spotted a piston-engined Douglas DC 3 in the background at one point. There might have been other piston-engined aircraft that I missed. This was the early days of the Boeing 707 but I saw no jets in any of the shots.

In those days airports were far more inclined to cater for spotters or simply those fascinated to observe airliners at close quarters - it has to be remembered that the majority of people had never flown then and to watch aircraft departing and arriving to and from 'foreign parts' was something of an adventure to many.

One sequence shows signposts to the Queen's Building where a commentary on the airside activity used to be provided, and to the Airport Tours Booking Office.

The first minute of the video is taken up with shots of youngsters in a rooftop playground at the airport. The main aircraft action begins after that.

Brilliant find - so takes me back ok not as far back as that but for me my first visit was in 1980 on the Queens Building - Loved it as a kid I was blown away with my first few hours there.

 

[blotbuc1]

Brilliant find - so takes me back ok not as far back as that but for me my first visit was in 1980 on the Queens Building - Loved it as a kid I was blown away with my first few hours there.

Takes me back to my first visit as an 11 year old In 1960. A Wallace Arnold day coach trip from Leeds with my uncle who had fired my interest in aviation. Going around the perimeter road to view take offs and landings and the engineering hangers. Then time on the roof of the Queens Building for spotting. I remember the commentary and the 707s had definitely arrived by then! A very long day but still vividly remember it.

 

[Kevin Farnell]

My first visit to Heathrow must have been in 1971. I would have been 7 years old and we were staying near London in our caravan. I remember going to London Zoo to see a baby Polar Bear named 'Pipaluk'. We also had a day at Heathrow where I saw my first B747. Actually, there were 3 of them. 2 x Pan Am and 1 BOAC. I believe that BOAC were on strike (surprise, surprise!) at the rime so it didn't move, but one of the Pan Am B747's departed. I got photos with my Kodak Instamatic camera (actually, my Dad rook them). I still have the photos somewhere and I still have the camera including it's box and polystyrene packaging.
A few years later (from the age of 11), it became a birthday treat for my Dad to drive me and a few school friends to Heathrow for the day. Unfortunately, my birthday falls in February, which meant it was dark by about 4pm. The first time we went, my birthday present was a Sharp airband radio and I was absolutely ecstatic. On the same trip, I saw Concorde (G-BBDG) land for the first time.
There were many other highlights. VC-10's, B707's and the Soviet airliners to name but a few. Happy days!

Kevin