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Re: London Heathrow App Plates from 1965 (V large post!)
Posted: 06 Jun 2009, 16:39
by Chris Trott
Wow. Very interesting!

Re: London Heathrow App Plates from 1965 (V large post!)
Posted: 06 Jun 2009, 16:40
by DaveB
Ee-gads!! That IS a long one
Excellent stuff mate

Now then.. who's gonna make one for flightsim :think:
ATB
DaveB :tab:
Re: London Heathrow App Plates from 1965 (V large post!)
Posted: 06 Jun 2009, 17:32
by Nigel H-J
Yikes!! :o Take me all day and a night or two to get all that info digested!
Quite a bit of a turn for finals it seems from 243deg onto R/W heading 098deg, thought a final turn would have been a bit less say 45deg max to line up on the 10 ILS. :think:
Many thanks Tonks, will now have to try and put all of that into good practise.
NB Just getting a bit disorientated when standing on me 'ead to read the upside down bits!!
Regards
Nigel.
Re: London Heathrow App Plates from 1965 (V large post!)
Posted: 06 Jun 2009, 17:52
by TSR2
Mr T, any chance of the Nicosia ones please! CHEERS
Re: London Heathrow App Plates from 1965 (V large post!)
Posted: 06 Jun 2009, 19:57
by cstorey
Goodness me! I'd forgotten Garston, and how important it was for flights inbound from the north . I think it must have been superseded by Bovingdon and Brookman's park about 1970 or so. Perhaps Peter MacLeland will remember?
Re: London Heathrow App Plates from 1965 (V large post!)
Posted: 06 Jun 2009, 20:19
by TSR2
Cheers Tonks!
I guess I need to get busy!

Re: London Heathrow App Plates from 1965 (V large post!)
Posted: 07 Jun 2009, 07:31
by PeteP
cstorey wrote:Goodness me! I'd forgotten Garston, and how important it was for flights inbound from the north . I think it must have been superseded by Bovingdon and Brookman's park about 1970 or so.
You're right about Garston, Chris, but I'm not sure about the reference you make to "the Park" - the two stacks were Garston and Epsom. The change from two to four stacks came about because of the introduction of the Mediator/Linesman civilian/military ATC system at West Draytron in 1971. Part of the original plan for Mediator was that some of the intermediate approach work would be from West Drayton and Heathrow would operate in full parallel mode divided north-south. Neither of those features worked although the plan to do approach from West Drayton finally came into being in the early 90s and is now done from Swanwick with Heathrow (and, in turn, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton and City) becoming tower only.
The first move into the new stack system came when the Ongar NDB was introduced, first as an "at ATC discretion" stack, for traffic from the east in early 1969. In late 1970, Garston was replaced by Bovingdon as the northern stack and in early 1971, Biggin VOR became the fourth stack (for traffic from the south-east). Ongar was then replaced by the Lamborne VOR as the eastern stack and Ockham replaced Epsom as the south west stack and the system still in use today was complete. As far as I know, Brookmans Park (both the NDB and VOR) has only ever been used for SIDs or as an en-route aid.
Pete
Re: London Heathrow App Plates from 1965 (V large post!)
Posted: 07 Jun 2009, 11:23
by ianhind
I remember seeing one of those Aeradio charts in the mid 60's and suddenly all the locations that I heard on the airband radio became "real".
As Chris said, brings back memories of those old names no longer in use.
Brrokmans Park seemed to be used as a holding stack from the east if Garston was full on a foggy morning - eg KLM Electras (KL119?) coming in from Holland.
Other memories (perhaps rose-tinted?): Aer Lingus Viscounts coming from the west turning short finals from a heading of 140 degrees on to 28R at the outer marker, PanAm and TWA 707s receiving the ILS to 10L while still on Green 1 for a straight-in approach. Only when things were not too busy! Pete can tell me if my memory is playing tricks!
And few overflying aircraft in London zone would call all the enroute reporting points Woodley-Burnham-Watford-Brookmans Park but the USAF C-124 travelling slowly at FL80 on their way to Mildenhall or Frankfurt would do this - a combination of speed (ie sufficient time between points to make it worth while) and altitude (through the Garston stack) I guess?
Ian
Re: London Heathrow App Plates from 1965 (V large post!)
Posted: 11 Jun 2009, 14:55
by crisso
The original post may be of additional interest, if copied over onto the 'PPrune' Site under the Historical section of the forum? Guess a lot of older Pilots and ATC Controllers may have some interesting comments to contribute of their previous experiences.