Lovely plane – Despite all the airports I have been to and airshows attended, the only time I actually thought my ear drums were going to burst was when I was working at Edinburgh airport on the taxiway joining the old runway when a British Caledonian 1-11 taxied out and took off about 200 feet away. Absolutely earth shattering.

My first spotting visit to Heathrow was in 1966 and it was a busy airport then. In the late sixties and early seventies, you could regularly count anything up to 20+ aircraft waiting to take off at busy times. A quiet day then (Sundays) seldom saw less than 600 air transport movements. It was obvious that things were going to get busy even then that is why the Roskill Commission was appointed to examine the possibilities for an Official Third London Airport – Foulness was proposed but rejected as was Stansted – A joke at the time was that the third London airport should be Benbecula. In the end nothing happened and decades later Stansted started to take on the role envisaged for it back in the sixties (albeit not in the way people thought). I have a booklet from 1967 called “Londons Airports” by Maurice Allward with the proposals for Stansted at the time and it states “Mentioning Stansted as Londons Third Airport may be rather premature”.
The problem is that building airports and runways has never been a big vote winner.

Great photos as usual and a good report. I will be there in April as I am am going to fly from Edi havent made my mind up yet whether to go Ryanair or Aer Lingus.
Does anyway know what its like around at the maintenace area trying to get photos as the last couple of times I have passed through there is usually the odd interesting aircraft or two parked there.

Originally posted by wysiwyg
1970, aged 1 to Palma de Mallorca. Don’t know where the departure airport was. Can anyone identify it?

That is Gatwick and the pier in the background is the Central pier
(vastly different to what it looks like now) This shot gives you a good idea of what it was like to be able to walk out on top of the piers to look at the aircraft and just near to where this picture was taken on top of the Left pier was a cafe with a walkway to it off the top of the pier for spotters and sightseers.

Good luck Merlin – I would be interested to know how you get on. I had a lot of hassle getting my sons records from that office.

Originally posted by Ren Frew

So I decided to just sit by the pool and have that lazy holiday I’ve been promising myself for ages. And it’s fair to say I haven’t moved far from the pool since, with the exception of the beach and maybe to the bar as well.

Life can be so hard sometimes……:p :p

Very Addictive – I haven’t had so much pleasure since I found 60 quid in Broad Street Reading a while back. :p

Re: United Airlines

Originally posted by Wrenchbender
For Example. They have been farming work out o third party chop shops and a one shop put the nose gear in wrong. It worked for a few trips correctly. On final in to ORD they deployed the gear and the nose tires were 90 degrees to the runway. the plane landed blew both tires, ground the rims down to the axles. I could tell you about engines failing out of overhaul. I will try and post some of the pictures.

Keeeriiiist – I don’t fancy the sound of that at all. Are you serious!?