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London Heathrow Airport (LHR) Plane Spotting Guide
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(Photo by Godron Gebert Jr.)
London Heathrow is NYCAviation.com's first of many international spotting guides. Enjoy!
Perhaps our most exciting guide yet, we bring you the best spots to spot at perhaps the world's most diversely trafficked international gateway, London Heathrow!
PLUS: Now all maps can be viewed in full screen mode or downloaded into Google Earth!
Another priceless place to spot planes at LHR is from the window seat of your inbound flight before you even land. As inbound flights are often subject to holding prior to landing, one of the coolest things I saw on my first trip to LHR were 3 heavies(2 747s and 1 A340) on top of each other 1000 ft apart simultaneously making loops around the pattern.
On that same trip, my first on a 777, I asked and was granted permission to visit the flight deck after landing. :D
This is great stuff, purely due to Concorde Heathrow was my plane spotting airport and from 1976 - Nov 2003 i came to heathrow countless times to see her and i had countless happy times.
Now i hardly go there, last time i went was in 2007 to see G-BOAB.
Until 2002 the safest place to plane spot (where heathrow police would not stop and search you) was on top of Terminal 2's plane spotting area, that had been open since the 1960's, But in 2002 Heathrow management closed that down.
2003-2007 there was a Heathrow Visitor centre which was located near North runway 27R next to the Renasonce hotel but I heard Heathrow management closed that down as well.
Plane spotting at Heathrow
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If you're going to plane spot at heathrow don't use the car. If you use a car and you park it any where on public road near the runways the Police will clamp it and tow it away = a huge fine.
So its best to go on foot as you'll be walking around the public roads and foot paths around the parimeter fence.
Be careful as some Heathrow police officers can be nasty little hitlers, they can or will stop and search you a lot (if you look like an Indian or have dark-ish skin) this is purely due to the evil 9/11 terrorists who looked like Indians.
6 years ago (while innocently chasing Concorde around public roads and foot paths of heathrow) I was stopped and searched countless times due to my skin colour, when this happened it was frightning, humilating and very degrading experience. I complained to the authorities a lot but they defended Heathrow Police's actions.
So my human rights didnt matter.
Be careful when you go to Heathrow.
If you're coming to heathrow by train its best to get the train to Hatton Cross tube station on the Piccadilly line.
27L/27R
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Very close to Hatton Cross is the South runway 27L, to get to the North runway 27R you can walk (which takes around 30 mins) or get the 285, 555, 556, 557 buses which has stop near the Northrun way, bus waiting times vary from 10-30 mins between waiting for a bus to arrive, if you're in no hurry its easier to walk.
09R/09L
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To walk from Hatton Cross tube station to 09R side of the North runway will take around 1 hr - 1 1/2 hrs each way.
It takes a long time to get there but to get good photos with a zoom lens its worth it.
To get to 09R of the South runway takes even longer on foot and exactly 6 years ago i was Concorde chasing around Heathrow so every day i had work out which runway and which direction she was landing and taking off on, then i had to make the same journey on foot to relavent runway ends.
Near Hatton Cross there is BP Petrol station which is great for getting food, if you need the toilet try to get to Terminal 4 or Terminal 1,2 or 3 as there are no real places to relieve your self outside these terminals.
Not sure about Terminal 5, never went there as in 2003 it was not built.