I can honestly say in all the years of travelling I have never once had a scary incident – even a VC10 I was in once going to Beirut had just taken off from LHR and hit an airpocket which gave me a fright but I did not feel in real danger. I did use to travel regularly on business with someone who was petrified of flying. He would sit the whole journey with his hands gripping the seat rests (no exagerration) between London and Edinburgh. I once said to him on a flight that we had been in more danger getting to the airport by car than being on the aircraft (BA757) his reply was that surely I had travelled on an aircraft that had at some later point crashed and that it was a question of bad timing and when. I said I doubted it. Now I can imagine that this would be the case with air crews but not so much with passengers. Anyway I did a bit of research and I had travelled on a BEA Vanguard (G-APER) 10 months before it crashed in Belgium killing everyone on board. I don’t think it proved what he was saying and I have felt more unsafe on a number of occasions travelling on the M4.

Believe me Monster500 when you say its hardly worth getting airborne, you would be only too happy to go in if it meant avoiding the gigantic security queues to get in last year. I rather foolishly thought that by camping as I have done on many previous occasions that I would wake up and just saunter in thereby avoiding all the traffic but I could not believe the size of the queues for the security check. There was no control and many people were walking to the front and pushing in. I will miss it this year as I am in Saudi but I can’t wait to see the first reports.

Its sad because Heathrow in the sixties seventies and early eighties was the leading european airport in terms of passengers and movements but it is gradually being overhauled by airports like Frankfurt and CDG. The problem is of course lack of runways. whilst ground facilities have expanded it is still stuck with the same number of runways while CDG and Frankfurt (not to mention Madrid, Vienna and Amsterdam) have all added more runway capacity to cope. The new runway at Heathrow when it is eventually built is too little too late. The problems could be seen thirty years ago. I remember one busy summers day in 1971 standing on the Queens Building (in the days when it was open) and I counted 23 aircraft waiting to take off.

I am not a great fan of his films but I have to say that I admire him for using his money to follow his dreams. I think back in the 1998 U.S. Register of executive Jets there was a 1-11 registered to him, I may be wrong. On the subject of dreams I applied to join the Fleet Air Arm as I had my heart set on flying Phantoms at the time but was turned down at the medical because of my eyesight. I still buy my lottery ticket though in the hope I can still do a “Travolta”!?

Excellent shots Skycruiser. These are the first close ups I have seen of Chep Lap Kok but how my heart pines for Kai Tak!
Best Regards
Old Git

Thanks for your greetings Hand87_5, I am an “immigrant” having been here for 5 years. There is some very interesting stuff comes in to Jeddah airport particularly during Haj but photography is not advised but I am making some enquiries to see if I can get permission for some pictures during the next Haj. I have to say I am very pleased to have found this forum – its excellent to be able to see posts from like minded people.

My first flight was on a BOAC Stratocruiser from Heathrow to Kano Nigeria back in the Fifties. I have the exact date and reg. in my BOAC junior jet club log book but it is at home in my attic and I am in Saudi. The Stratocruiser had a bar underneath the main deck and one of my earliest memories was going to look for my dad in the bar and falling down the steps. From what I can remember the flights stopped at Barcelona or Tripoli.