General Chat

We lived in one of the villages next to heathrow airport as it only took my husband a minute to get to work and we had a lovely view of the planes landing and taking off, at night you could see them stacking up over hounslow to come in lovely sight

Barry :-D I can just imagine the look on that lady's face when your wife told her than. But lovely to have had your son pilot you safely.

And, those were the days (with BA, don't know about others) when, if you turned up looking smart at check in, you had a chance of being upgraded to business class. As he travelled for his company, OH had a silver whatever the card was called for BA frequent travellers. and for a while he had a gold card (I think it was gold anyway, an increase on the silver) That sort of came with the penalty that they liked to 'look after' you at the airport. One day we wee wandering round the shops and finally went back to the lounge when a flustered attendant rushed up saying 'thank goodness I found you' I think it was supposed to make you feel important.

My son flew 747s several years for BA before flying the 777.
One Sunday afternoon in October 1970 - incredibly just 50 years ago!! - I saw this huge aircraft seemingly stationary in the sky. I was very puzzled by the size of it.
It was huge!
The penny suddenly dropped ... and it dawned upon me this 'big baby' in the sky was my first sighting of the new Jumbo 747!
I can still see it on its apparently VERY slow approach to LHR ... among its earliest landing of thousands.

One summer in the 1990s my wife and I flew from Toronto to London. It was my son's 'sector' ... he was the pilot ... YYZ to LHR.
We were in business class by good fortune for that flight. I was also invited into the cockpit - more professionally known as 'The Flight Compartment!' - for take-off, during flight, and landing at LHR. (This was pre-911 days.)
Each time I went to join the pilots I saw the lady sitting opposite intently following my every step.
It seems she could no longer contain herself toward the end! As I went up for the landing at LHR she turned to my wife and asked "Where does your husband keep disappearing?"
My wife reassured her saying ...
"Our son is flying the aircraft ... and his Dad has gone to see he does a really good job today with us on board."

I have many happy recollections of an era sadly long gone.

My wee tip for you when next you travel, if I may ...
No matter how 'hard' or 'bumpy' the landing, if you walk away from the aircraft unaided, consider it a 'good' landing.
If something happens during landing and you are carried away - alive and you survive - that is a true BONUS!!
Count your blessings!! Be very grateful!!

So, from me it's time for 'Three Greens' ... as I always used to say to my son.
(These three small green lights are confirmed by the pilots ... and these mean the undercarriage / landing gear (the 'wheels' if you are still unclear) is 'locked' in the landing configuration ... always a reassuring scenario, you'll surely agree!
It can be a VERY bumpy and lop-sided skid on the runway otherwise!)
Tally Ho!!

Barry

Yes very sad my husband was a ground engineer on them then moved over to Concorde to great planes gone now loved flying on the jumbo but never got to fly on Concorde

That's only the BA ones that have stopped flying. There are a lot of cargo ones still flying over and to the UK.

The 747's used as Air Force One (747-200) are being replaced by new 747s (747-8). As the current ones have been in service for nearly 50 years the new ones should be around for quite a while yet.

Farewell 747. Sad to see the last one land at Kemble. Had a couple of flights on them great aircraft.