A Day at the Queens Building - Heathrow Airport 1987 - 1996) Part 1
Вставка
- Опубліковано 14 гру 2017
- This is Part 1 of a seven part series of videos shot between 1987 and 1996 on the famous Queens Building viewing area at London Heathrow airport.
The video begins with the journey into the airport by Bus and takes us through the main airport tunnel and into Heathrow Central. We then take a look at the Central area bus station and old Heathrow Control Tower building, followed by a walk up the steps to the legendary bridge that took all plane spotters to the Queens Building in the 1960's/70's/80's and early 1990's.
As we walk over the bridge you will have to visualize the old Queens Building being at the far side of the bridge, this is because when I shot the footage, the Queens Building along with the old Terminal 2, had been demolished and I had, just had!, to grab one last chance to film the famous walk over that bridge!
This unique footage was filmed during 2012 and 2013 and captures some of the old Heathrow magic.
The footage then moves on to the Queens Building itself! Filmed by my aviation friend Ian Austin in 1988. 1988 was a great year for plane spotting as it had a perfect fusion of new planes and classics from the 1960's and 70's, many of these you will see in this and the other 6 videos in this series. My special thanks to Ian for donating all of his valuable tapes to me and for having the foresight to capture so much of 'old' Heathrow.
Here is a tale of great plane spotting!
Olympic A300, Iberia 727, Tarom 1-11, Austrian MD-80, Alitalia MD-80, Air France 737-200, Lufthansa 737-300, 737-200, TWA Tristar L100, Thai 747-200, BM British Midland DC-9, Iberia A300, BM British Midland ATP, Aer Lingus 737-200, Air France A300, Lufthansa 727, SAS MD-80, DC-9, British Airways 757, Sabena 737-200, British Airways Tristar L1011, Alitalia A300, British Airways 747-200, 747-100, PAN AM 747-100, British Airways 737-200, Terminal 4, KLM A310, JAT 737-300, Finnair DC-9-51, Lufthansa A310, Gulf Air Tristar L1011, SAS DC-9-51, BM British Midland Shorts 360, Air India 747-200, PAN AM 727, BM British Midland 737-300, NLM CityHopper Fokker F.28, British Airways Concorde, Kuwait Airways 767-200, LOT Polish Airlines TU-134, BM British Midland 737-200, Air Canada 747-200, JAT 727, Air Littoral Bandeirante, Aer Lingus 737-300, Dan Air 1-11, TAP Air Portugal Tristar L1011, Air UK Bae 146, Air Canada Tristar L1011, Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 767-200, Airbus, Swissair A310, Turkish Airlines Airbus A310, LUXAIR Boeing 737-200, TWA 747-100, KLM Boeing 737-300, British Airways BAC 1-11, - Авто та транспорт
Some of the airlines and their time moments on the video.
09:00 49:00 50:00 Olympic airways (not Olympic air)
09:27 11:30 Tarom (Romania)
10:10 Alitalia
10:30 Austrian
12:20 01:20:50 TWA
13:25 Aer Lingus (Ireland)
14:00 Lufthansa
15:10 SAS Scandinavian
21:05 29:55 JAT Jugoslovenski Aerotransport (former Yugoslavia)
22:25 Gulf Air (Bahrain)
28:10 41:50 54:00 01:02:50 Pan Am (Panam collapsed in 1991)
30:40 Iberia
32:00 Air France
36:05 37:50 39:25 41:20 01:21:20 Concorde British Airways (unfortunately no landing neither take off. The next Part 2 video has a Concorde take off)
37:00 Kuwait airways
37:35 LOT Polish airlines
47:10 The Lufthansa airplane has the inscription Official Airline UFFA 88 European football Championship (which occurred in West Germany in 1988).
51:20 British midland.
59:25 Air India
01:01:45 Nice view of the Queen's building flat roof with the benches for observation.
01:12:50 Air Portugal
01:14:15 Air Canada
01:16:10 Ethiopian airlines
01:13:35 Swissair
01:19:34 Luxair (Luxembourg)
01:21:30 KLM
Great nostalgic video.
Thank you Achilleas, please feel free to share the video on other social media - I have pinned your work to the top of the comments.
This is just fantastic but sad to see it gone. Thanks for the upload. Spent a lot of time spotting in the 80's on the Queens building as a youngster.
Very slick piece of parking by that Lufthansa 737 14:00. Does a handbrake turn, chops the throttles, and just rolls right up to the spot 😊
Love it
Back in the day when Heathrow wasnt all boring Boeings and Air Buses lots of classic liveries and Concorde too ,recall parking in the BA maintenance area and having a look round the hangers without being arrested happy days!
Great footage!
Planespotting was much better back then!
I remember they used to land on the cross runway but only very rarely. It was a treat to see.
Aye. Runway 23. I saw one landing ever on that runway. Singapore 747 on a very dull rainy day mid 80s.
I saw a Seaboard World C46 land on RWY 33L
many many happy memories there the viewing platform
the model shop the cafe ahhhhh pre 9-11 goodness
Thank you for bringing back my childhood memories.
So sad to see it like this, I used to spend many happy days up on the roof terraces of the Queens Building , just watching the planes, plane spotting and getting very sun tanned! There was a pretty decent cafe up there too, which sold delicious egg sandwiches!
The Heathrow I remember during my family travels to and from Yugoslavia in the 70s and 80s. Gulf Air was THE penultimate Middle East airline and their flight attendants were beautiful and looked amazing in their uniforms. Looking at the video I'm reminded how much Air India's 747s were a constant sight at T3 along with PA, SAA, Qantas, TWA. Then there was the constant sighting of British Midland DC-9s and Aer Lingus 737s. Of course, my most fond memories were seeing the Union Jack tails from BEA/BA Tridents and the golden Speedbirds upon the midnight blue tails of BOAC/BA 707s, 747s, and VC-10s. I do miss those days,......good times.
You are easily beautiful enough to be the best looking flight attendant on any airliner.
You know your airplanes too.
I have an 87 inch 60s Super VC 10 model in BOAC
Snap.. I remember that brand new 737 300 back in the 80's - think it was one of the first to fly in Europe. It seemed so ultra modern after the old smokey DC9's. My favourite were the 727's at that time though.. Loved those birds. Often Flying LHR via Ljubljana to Belgrade or LHR via Pula to Dubrovnik. Happy days. I used to spend many an afternoon at Terminal 2 in the coffee shop eating carrot cake - watching the planes parking and departing. Wish I could go back to those days.
great one hour 23min and 02sec pure nostalgic experience trip to memory lane just great many many thanks
You're welcome Sam, there are lots of other classics on this channel too, feel free to check them out.
Used to come here with my brother in the 80's and 90's. We used to to be a bit selfish and push the bench right up to the railings so we could balance our binoculars on them, but that meant no one else could sit there. I miss that place. The smell of Kerosene, the sandwich shop and everything else. Also my brother and I wanted to open a snack shop there but luckily we didn't because of 911. Great times!
i had many a good day spotting with my late dad on top of the queens building excellant views of heathrow i remember
I went to the queens viewing area many times during the mid to late 70s and though out the 80s miss this place so much got many pictures
Hi, you don't have any pictures of the old amusement arcade do you?
I use to go to the queens viewing area every2 weeks on a Saturday in the year 1986 and onwards still got the pictures I took their so miss this place thanks for sharing this video bring s back so memories
I first went to London Heathrow on Air India Boeing 747 in 1988. After that in 1998 and 2000. Simply Nostalgic. Thanks for the video. Cheers from Mumbai India 😍😍
I used to watch from Queens Building in the early 1970s and late 1960s, before terrorism or security was invented. I paid just a few shillings (less than 50p) to get a better view than today's control tower gets. You could see both runways very clearly. Heathrow was always messy but it did not look like today's permanent building site. I saw Viscounts and Vanguards, the bread and butter of BEA's domestic and close Europe flights, plus many Comets, Caravelles, the first B727s and 747s and of course the BAE Trident, of which there were many. In those days ILS was in its infancy and satellite/gps navigation did not exist.
Inertial navigation was at its height and nearly every arriving aircraft flew from beacon to beacon to establish vectors to finals. There were no artificial waypoints. Stacking was nearly as busy as it is today, and like today, you could see between four and six aircraft all lined up neatly on final approach. If anything the turnaround of aircraft was even more efficient in those days. Yet occasionally the odd Tiger Moth or GA aircraft would land between the heavies. We had a permanent commentary at Queens Building letting you know the departures and arrivals. A typical fully loaded B707 would take an enormous length of runway to take off. Apart from GPS/FMS navigation the airport dynamics was almost exactly similar to today, and little has substantially changed, except that access to the airport was very much easier and I did not see a single security guard, machine gun, or security presence. How things have changed in that regard.
also the airport perimeter fence was a 1 meter, two bar wooden fence. you could step over it if you wanted. the views from the perimeter road were wonderful. as you say, before terrorism and security.
Thank you for posting! Sad these spots aren’t available any longer from which to view aircraft. Being replaced by Terminal 2, correct? Great video! 👍🏻
Thanks Dallas Guy, yes you are right the new Terminal 2 now stands where all these spots once were. Stay tuned to my channel, I have lots more retro footage coming soon.......
That lufthansa 737 at 14 mins isnt hanging about. Almost looks like it would in a cartoon!
That parking ability was legendary on these stands, I would see that quite often with 737-200's of Lufthansa, the pilots were ace's at taxing and parking.
He thinks he's Michael Shumacker
Pure practice. I think that LH had up to ten daily flights from Frankfurt alone.
By the way, I loved visiting the terraces on the Queen's Building as a teenager in the 1970ies when visiting my aunt in London. So thank you very much for bringing back those memories!
I was a 707 hunter back then. I used to grab a BA worldwide timetable back then for MEA 707 flight to/from Beirut. MEBA(because it was handled by BA)203/202. By the mid-80s, they were the only scheduled 707 into LHR, Ethiopian replaced the 707/720B in 1986. The Qatari VIP 707 would come in every once in awhile, as did TMA. But MEA was the airline to have scheduled 707 services into LHR. Air Zimbabwe flew the 707 into LGW until 1990
lol, Yes I seem to recall they called them 707 super Q (meaning super Quiet !!)
Sudan Airways used to operate them too on a Sunday evening from Khartoum via Cairo & Rome. Though more often than not, the flight would be cancelled.
Hi, great video. Do you have any photos or video of the Queen's building itself, the arcade that was there etc?
54:18 Beautiful landing of the PA 747-121.
I was working in the Control Tower from 1970 to 2006.
I used to dream of going in the Tower when I was spotting on the Queens Building.
Nice footage! I have fond memories of LHR! I have a quick question. Do you know if the demolition of Terminal 1 (closed in 2015) has already been completed?
T1 is still standing as of August 2023
@@MrFlashjet oh nice! Is there a way to see it from outside?
Those tube gates were a brilliant metaphor for the royal family.
In those days DC-9s and MD-80s outnumbered 737s, and there were still 727s with major carriers. JT8D's everywhere!
When did they stop people going on the roof to watch the planes? I'd be interested to know the precise date.
I think it was during early 2002, I can't remember the exact date.
There used to be a great video game arcade up on the roof too.
I have to say, having to endure that copyright information on screen for the entire video, certainly compromised the experience enough for me to cut short what been a great viewing experience.
So sorry to hear that. It wasn't my intention to spoil the enjoyment for viewers. I have lots more vintage work to still upload, my future uploads will have a smaller copyright info. Best wishes
I was there when the first Swiss md80 Arrived hbinc I think
Spent a lot of time there when I should have been studying.
You were studying - - Planes! Manzur
Maybe breaking this into smaller segments would help.
There used to be commentary too
Blimey, the Lufthansa pilot at 14 mins isn't hanging around!
Please can someone more knowledgeable than I am explain what a PanAm 727 was doing at Heathrow?
It was a scheduled service, the PAA 727 was one of around 24 that were rotated between the United States and Germany for use on the Internal German Services (IGS) (Berlin)
29:55 JAT must have had one of the very first 737-300s then.
Correct, they did indeed.
Dude that watermark is annoying AF. I'd rather watch ads. Otherwise cool footage though
Thanks for watching Peter, unfortunately people (including mainstream media) steal the videos and use them as there own if I don't watermark them. There is no other way to protect my work.
нормально
The Queens Building. Well that is one ugly piece of British architecture. God Bless HRH. She has lasted long past that representation and still going strong!