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Post by Jeff on Nov 28, 2023 18:33:26 GMT
I only remember 801 and 802 which I think we're the 747s, what a lovely scheme that was
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Post by chrisj on Nov 28, 2023 20:25:13 GMT
Whilst the darkness prevails these posts are becoming nightly memory trips ( and education for any youngsters ) . Where to start ? Seaboard DC8s - What about the Connies ? Also the TCA ones had a distinct squeal from the nose wheel when turning . Note for the young , TCA now Air Canada . For me , pre my first spotting trip took me through the airport on a 90B bus to Richmond for ice skating . The road used to take the route from Harlington Corner into the airport , passed the runway end where the round-about is by BA hangars , the bus would go left for a few hundred yards then right about where the BA engine detuner is now . Along this stretch there were a number of BOAC Argonauts parked up out of use . By the time of my first spotting trip they had gone or only one or two left . Like most at that time ( 1959-60s ) When I got a camera it was basic and no telephoto lens , so as I scan my old negatives the aircraft are not over large nor too sharp in some cases , but they are a record of the times . What does stand out is the vastness and emptiness of the airport . No terminal south side , just the hangar for Hunting Clan , Pan Am and PIA . In the central area was the black hangar covered in advertising . This I read was from the days when Fairy owned the airfield there and remained because of a dispute over land ownership ! In those days no security fences so I can recall quick trips around the old black hangars last used by Eagle because sometimes some exotic frame was hidden away there . Would not get far now ! First Gatwick visit was mainly for the Sudan Viscount which arrived late saturday and stayed over . You could view from the terminal restaurant and the windows along side gave very good views of landing or departing traffic . Later the viewing enclosure was 'discovered' where some ball games took place during the often quiet spells . the ball would get onto the light aircraft apron at times but not a problem as there was only a few two foot high posts with a rope between . Some Sunday afternoons were spent racing along the railway track to get into the back entrance of RJ Colies yard for a rummage among the many frames there . AHhhhhh ! Finally (?) mention was made of a sand pit at London Airport . One day a couple of us came across the old ground viewing enclosure . It was totally abandoned and no one bothered us . Location was to the right as you come out of the tunnel into the Central area . It was right next to the taxi way with minimal fence . Of sand pits , some while back following the passing of my mother , I was sorting through old family photos and found one of me in the viewing area of Northolt when it was being used as London's airport . Unfortunately the picture quality is not good so I can not read the movements board behind me . It is like the old cricket score board with individual plates for each letter or number - all moved by hand ! time to rest the grey cells .. Chris
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Post by graham on Nov 29, 2023 12:49:01 GMT
I was a bit too late to see Connies and the like Chris, although there were still plenty of props at LAP when I first started visiting. Viscounts and Vanguards of course, the very occasional DC-7 and Convair but also Il-18s and then there were the Loftleidur CL-44s but I don't recall if they were to be seen at LAP or GAP. Still plenty of Britannias at GAP from various operators. There was usually a surprise at GAP to be seen, the various US based cargo operators who went in and of course, you were just as likely to see a Piper Aztec parked on the apron as you were an airliner. As far as biz were concerned, not much choice back then, Lear Jets, Gulf 2s, Sabreliners, Jetstars and Jet Commanders plus our home grown HS125s.
One biz that sticks in my mind was Seagram Whiskey's Gulf 2 which if I recall was N777SW, it was always in and out of LAP.
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Post by dave on Nov 29, 2023 14:11:04 GMT
hi, the gray matters been disturbed with this thread, so my results are, PAA's B.727 back and forth to Berlin?, TWA's B.747 SP's always looked a bit odd, and 4x RAAF B.707's in 1981 again i think on fridays, also did TWA use C.130's? to transport spare engines about europe...
regards, dave...
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Post by keefyboy on Nov 29, 2023 14:43:03 GMT
I can well remember the Air France Deux Point?? (excuse the French) being regulars at LHR in the late 60's - a very odd looking aircraft and typical bizarre French. There was also an odd looking TWA plane that had a jet engine on top?? IIRC corectly it was used to deliver spare engines for knackered TWA jets??
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Post by davebasing on Nov 29, 2023 14:52:34 GMT
Speaking of Seaboard, amongst those on my first spotting visit to Heathrow back in 1960 was Seaboard & Western DC4 N1221V. As Chris said, in those days you could walk virtually anywhere, around the hangar areas etc. I graphed the BOAC & the Transcontinental Argentina (LV-GJC) Britannias that way. Chris also mentioned the old black hangar in the centre of the airfield which you can see in the grainy and scratched old photos I took of the TAP Connie and the Vanguard (G-APEE which crashed in the middle of 28R on a foggy night back in October 1965 killing all 36 on board). Note the advert on that hangar for BOAC offering US flights for £114 and six shillings return). In the days before Cat 3, fog often led to airlines putting larger replacement aircraft on to cope with the backlog from earlier cancelled flights, hence this Air France Starliner I took in September 1961 which was rare indeed at Heathrow although the Connies (like the KLM one behind it) were regular. I previously mentioned the airside coach tours which ran from the Queens Building. The American Airlines DC6 (N90703) I graphed on such a coach tour back in October 1960 on its way to become G-ARFU and which I graphed again in 1979 dumped in Malta after reverting to N90703. Dave mentioned the TWA spare engine flights. These used to be in Fairchild C82A Packet N9701F named “Ontos” (apparently Greek for Thing) based out of Orly and which I first saw at Heathrow in February 1961. You can still see her today preserved in Hagerstown, Maryland. She had a roof mounted jet engine added in 1963. bw6 by dave tompkins, on Flickr bw1 by dave tompkins, on Flickr IMG_2064 by dave tompkins, on Flickr bw295 by dave tompkins, on Flickr bw323 by dave tompkins, on Flickr IMG_2055 by dave tompkins, on Flickr 79-jc by dave tompkins, on Flickr
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Post by davebasing on Nov 29, 2023 14:58:35 GMT
Even back in those days the Viscount was regarded as pretty old. In the winter of 1962 I graphed these at Heathrow awaiting sale by BEA to Vasp. We had real winters then as well! bw293 by dave tompkins, on Flickr
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Post by graham on Nov 29, 2023 18:30:03 GMT
Indeed Keith, it was "Deux Ponts" which tranlates as "two bridges".
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Post by keefyboy on Nov 29, 2023 19:18:56 GMT
Back in the day - I can well remember the DC9 that was all black and had the Bunny motif on it's tail - it belonged to Hugh Hefner who ran Playboy Club - it was a frequent visitor - sadly I never got my leg over Barbi Benton!!
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Post by dave on Nov 29, 2023 20:11:33 GMT
hi, another memory just popped up, back in the middle 60ties i was in the ROC, and a senior in the control tower staff who was also in the ROC used to organise visits, we visited the tower the enclosed radar room, and upon the balcony, now that was a view. A tour of a Britannia with a stern warning not to crowd up in the tail... and then a buffet in a mess room by the hangars, with a great view of the runway bound a/c... regards, dave...
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Post by graham on Nov 30, 2023 8:03:39 GMT
She obviously wasn't fussy Keith, Hefner must have been 50 years older than she was which just goes to show that money can buy you anything. I doubt you missed much...
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Post by graham on Nov 30, 2023 9:38:04 GMT
Another LAP memory, when the weather was bad, we used to head downstairs from the viewing atop the QB and we used to sit in what I think was a cafe or similar, I remember it had floor to ceiling picture windows that looked across the lines of BEA Tridents. Does anyone else remember that?
I'm fairly sure that the Seaboard 747s carried N7**SW registrations and all the DC-8s were N8**SW but it was a looooong time ago.
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Post by keefyboy on Nov 30, 2023 10:01:57 GMT
IIRC it was 1967 when an Ambassador crashed on 28R and cartwheeled clipping the tail of parked Trident ARPI in the process. I believe it was ARPI that crashed on take off in the early 70's
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Post by graham on Nov 30, 2023 10:17:21 GMT
Just looking at PlaneBase Keith I saw G-ARPI at LAP on 2/9/70 and she crashed just after take off on 18/6/72. The Ambassador was G-AMAD and was written off at LAP on 3/7/68. I managed to see 16 of the 23 Ambassadors made but never saw G-AMAD
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Post by dave on Nov 30, 2023 11:17:28 GMT
IIRC it was 1967 when an Ambassador crashed on 28R and cartwheeled clipping the tail of parked Trident ARPI in the process. I believe it was ARPI that crashed on take off in the early 70's If i remember right the Ambassador was carrying horses... regards, dave...
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Post by lordevanelpuss on Nov 30, 2023 14:02:58 GMT
Another LAP memory, when the weather was bad, we used to head downstairs from the viewing atop the QB and we used to sit in what I think was a cafe or similar, I remember it had floor to ceiling picture windows that looked across the lines of BEA Tridents. Does anyone else remember that? I'm fairly sure that the Seaboard 747s carried N7**SW registrations and all the DC-8s were N8**SW but it was a looooong time ago. I saw B747s N701SW, 702SW & 703SW.
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Post by chrisj on Nov 30, 2023 20:34:06 GMT
'Evening ALL , Are we sitting comfortably ? I had an evening off last evening so here we go again ... TWA used a C82 Packet for shunting engines about . I first saw it on the north apron when registered ET-T-12 the old system in Ethiopia . Last seen 1969 in a hangar at Orly during the WLAG Paris show trip . Under £40 for the week ! Coach from Victoria to Lydd I think , Skyways 748 to Beauvais then coach to Paris . Basic bed and breakfast for the week . Yes , the café of the QB was used during unfavourable weather . Those windows were fantastic , almost floor to ceiling . Nobody seemed to bother if you bought refreshments or not . I think like just about all of the airport catering , it was run by Forte who's pink trucks took food out to the aircaft . Just as the DC9s started to be used I went off to Cyprus co RAF . So with a trip home about once a year I used to 'borrow' the family car and rush around places for several weeks . I think I missed quite a few because at that time there was the change of frames for many airlines . However , my claim to fame came in the form of a Yak ! I read in Flight that someone had seen an old Soviet aircraft when passing through Cyprus or Greece . I found the Yak among some houses and this formed my reply . Shortly a letter arrived , I think from someone at Personal Planes , and I sent them photos . Next I heard OK-KIE was at Booker ! I often feel that it would of been nice to get a thanks or an invite to have a look at it at Booker but those were the days of spotters being thought of as trouble at airfields . Some had been collecting registrations by cutting the fabric off of aircraft at places like Kidlington ! Unfortunately there will always be a small group who do such things . Anyway , S&W Cl44s were used by BOAC for freight but not sure if the 707s were . Just thought !! One day during 78 I think , I was walking about the apron at Belize International and taking photos . I looked up as I passed under a wing of a Belize Air Cargo DC7C (F) . I could clearly see the G-AOI* scrubbed out from it's days with BOAC . I put * as I have not got notes to hand . You never know just where an old London Airport fram will turn up ! That's it for now , time for a refreshment . Chris
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Post by Trevor B on Nov 30, 2023 20:34:40 GMT
All
Thank you all for bringing back some great memory’s of my early days spotting at Heathrow, i lived in Slough early 70’s so it was the 81 bus up the Bath road and then a walk through the tunnel. Then ether T1 windows until kicked out by the police then on top of T3 Carpark
Trevor
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Post by davebasing on Nov 30, 2023 23:32:53 GMT
Chris - Guess your ex BOAC DC7 would have been N90801 ex G-AOIC which was I think the only ex BOAC DC7 to have been operated by Belize Air Cargo. After seeing it at Heathrow in its BOAC days I saw it again with Saturn AW as N90801 in Naples in 1964. Having twice been impounded during her more dubious times, she ended her days in cockroach corner at Miami where she was finally broken up in 1985. Always remember watching a BOAC DC7C landing on 28R and not flaring but hitting nosewheel first very hard and bouncing back up and going around. Just why the nosewheel didn't collapse must be a tribute to how they used to build them.
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Post by graham on Dec 1, 2023 8:08:08 GMT
chris, I'm sure there are still a**eholes around these days as there were half a century or more ago but this takes the biscuit. I remember attending a Biggin Hill Air Fair way back, possibly 1969/1970 ish, I was in my mid teens, a hanger door had thoughtfully been partially left open albeit with a "entry forbidden" sign dangling from the latch, if you craned your neck a little you could see the 5 or 6 occupants and the airfield had rather kindly placed the registrations on a small blackboard outside the hanger. I distinctly remember walking up to the hanger just as a bunch of 3 or 4 older blokes had stuck their heads in the door to see the inmates, written down the reggies, then wiped the blackboard clean.
With mindsets like that, I would imagine they grew up to be traffic wardens or tax inspectors or hopefully met an untimely demise on their way home.
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Post by tomcat14 on Dec 1, 2023 10:30:30 GMT
I have been reading this thread with great interest. It has certainly jogged my memory of times gone by, of spending hours on the Queens Building, getting there by bus or even by car if parents so decided, and trips as an eleven year old to central London using a Red Rover ticket for train spotting (London stations plus sheds Old Oak Common, Willesden, Stratford). I once made the mistake of going to the QB when a pop star was arriving (David Cassidy I believe). Lets just say it was busy. Personally my earliest memory of LHR would have been in the mid sixties and I do remember a C46 parked up on the north side. CAM that have been listed above I well remember, indeed I still have some of the late sixties/early seventies ones. Religiously underlining when the new edition came out. My mind wanders to airband radios. It was in 1968 that I got my first radio. A Park Air Concorde model which was a very simple affair with AM and FM including the airband frequencies (108-136). It gave up a few years ago but I donated it to some guy in the Fairford area who has a museum of such things and he got it working again. I spent hours turning the dial to pick up movements, getting a sore finger in the process. But living near Brookmans Park under Red One, and also being able to see Green One, when something was picked up it was usually worthwhile. MAC military flights, Saturn, Trans Caribbean, Air Bahama, Universal readily spring to mind. Clacton to Braintree to BPK to Watford to Woodley to Brecon to Strumble on 129.6. C133 Cargomasters...aah. Seaboard World has been mentioned. Well here is N8633 in April 1975. Shot as it was about to depart LHR 28R with only a knee high flimsy wooden fence between me and it. My notes show it was w/o in 1978. Seaboarda by wokinghampaul, on Flickr Paul
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Post by dave on Dec 1, 2023 12:57:53 GMT
hi, here again, radio's, my first was a ordinary radio with a airband label on the dial in the late 60's early 70's as it was illegal then. Second was a hand held ?, with a 5-6ft aerial that was lethal outside looking, third another ? but the wife bought it for christmas for home use, i remember first test christmas morning and tuned it to 128.05 and got one straight away, the pilot giving a passenger update on the weather at the destination a/p, then i explained he switched the wrong button... Then a Signal R.535 base scanner for civil/military, padded it up for use in car. Then i got into SW with a ? from Maplins only about £30 but it did the job, lastly a GRE PSR-282 hand scanner had that for years took it everywhere, in fact still got it, stopped using it when the was it 7.5? came in, but that was when the computer etc provided everything we needed. Air Scotland and LAAS were not needed (nor the 1-2 month wait to see if the one's you had seen were also seen and reported!!! but, and i'm not complaining, its now too easy, ie adsb.fi, fr24, its instant... regards, dave...
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Post by graham on Dec 2, 2023 14:59:30 GMT
Hi Dave, I remember I was a member of LAAS decades ago, the monthly magazine was posted to members and you used it wherever possible to tie up overflights you'd seen. I let my membership lapse during the years of my first marriage then renewed it in early 2013 not knowing at that point in time that VRs existed as well as digital databases. As a member you received several very handy booklets for the likes of bizjets, foreign GA based in the UK, various foreign civil registers and stuff like that. Of course, the new technology of which I was blissfully unaware in early 2013 rendered most of that stuff redundant. I now use PlanePlotter mobile which is set up to only show needed frames. I wonder what we all would have thought about all this tech 50 years ago?
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Post by dave on Dec 2, 2023 17:31:26 GMT
hi, good point Graham, if we'd had this tech. years ago, i think i've still got list of , or two of flyovers a good few Reach (which i still have a look at). Also what you said about LAAS there booklets were very handy, but waiting 2months for any tie-ups, usual for the time but it was a bind... regards, dave...
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Post by graham on Dec 3, 2023 10:36:59 GMT
Dave, I recall back in 2013, most biz tracked but weren't ID'd on the VRs. I remember having to write down the squawk codes and at the end of every month, there was a website where if you were lucky, you could tie up the squawks to the reg.
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Post by dave on Dec 3, 2023 18:12:42 GMT
hi, back then money was a problem, so i had LAAS and my mate had Air Scotland and the TAS mag's then we swopped... but as i mentioned about having a list or two, not many seemed to see what i did! regards, dave...
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Post by chrisj on Dec 4, 2023 20:35:57 GMT
Yes , I recall those long waits for identifying overflights . Also the disappointment when the ONE you wanted is not identified ! I have a few like that . Also a book of sightings and miss-poles from the years . It seems that whenever I visited an airfield that I was the only one to visit that day ! In many cases it is the usual writing problems of mistaking O for D or A for H , as well as mistakes when putting notes into a more permanent books . It helps to pass these dark cold days and is greatly helped by now having WLAG and BARG available as well as Air Britain on disc and LAAS ( members only and limited numbers so far ) Air Pictorial is also available for a few years . The same site for WLAG also have a number of other group's magazines available from East Anglia for those tie ups from the USAF bases . Going back a few posts . Belize . Yes , N90801 was G-AOIC .I sent a photo of it to Propliner Mag where it was published . There were several props in and out of Belize International . Usually a morning rush of TAN and SAHSA and TACA with mix of Electra , 737 , BAC 1-11 plus Belize 707 . These returned later . During the day Freight DC6s and mix of light aircraft . One problem is that some registrations are not true because the use of the aircraft was not legal ie drug running ! Chris
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Post by chrisj on Dec 5, 2023 19:53:10 GMT
Just a quick 'note' tonight if I may ? I would like to thank ALL who have taken the trouble to press the Like button . Thank you very much . Got a few things to do this evening so no time for rattling the grey cells . Chrisj
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