London Heathrow was my first introduction to plane spotting. As a young boy I went to a school holiday club where one of the activities was a trip to Heathrow Airport's Queen's Building Viewing Terrace. We were given an "I-Spy at the airport" book to tick off, and I was hooked!
On this trip I based myself close to the airport for a few days, spotting at Heathrow and also visiting the Brooklands and RAF Hendon museums.
WARNING: This is a mammoth post as there were so many interesting aircraft.
I arrived at Heathrow just after the runway switch so headed for Chester Park. You get a good view here, as planes landing on runway 27R pass at around 800ft. There was a good mix of planes coming in including a few with the One World livery.
There was also a Saudia Boeing 777 with a special livery being photo-bombed by a soaring Red Kite.
The star of the evening arrivals is the Korean Air Boeing 747-8. This is currently the only regular passenger service to Heathrow operated by the Boeing 747.
I was to be at Heathrow on and off over the next few days, and was plenty of interesting planes, including the Air Canada "Go Canada Go" Olympic livery .
The weather was variable to say the least, but the only day it rained I was at the RAF Museum at Hendon, but that will be another post.
There are many airlines servicing Heathrow that are new to me, including Aeromexico with their Aztec styled head on the tail. Another fun livery was Kenya Airways with their Rhino.
The smallest plane to operate a scheduled service into Heathrow is Loganair's ATR 42.
In the week I was there, runway 27L was used for landing in the morning which meant that the plane spotters congregated at Myrtle Avenue, where, if anything, the planes pass by too close and too quickly. Imagine the noise in this house when Concorde was operating!
Planes are landing at spacing of around 75 seconds, so there is always something going on.
The itinerary was the pretty much the same each day, mornings at Myrtle Avenue, and then the short 10 minute drive to Chester Park at 3pm (usually via McDonalds to pick up a late lunch!)
A couple of planes I particularly hoped to see were the the British Airways special liveries, one the " BA Better World" and the other the BEA retro livery. They duly arrived one evening at Chester Park.
One plane that the locals were excited about was an Etihad Boeing 787, newly painted in their "Warner Bros World" livery, featuring Tom and Jerry and Tas, Bugs Bunny and Tweety Pie.
And to finish this epic post some more of the fantastic array of planes that visit Heathrow Airport, Europe's busiest, and the world's 4th busiest airport.
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