[quote backinthebox]@notimagain yes, I am old enough. I landed on it 5 times in 6 days once a long time ago in a week of high winds. Was very exciting, and each captain didn’t believe I’d already landed on it that week. SRA to get onto finals - did you ever have the pleasure?
Very pleased I am not flying today, although I have flown on many a windy day before. More bothered about tomorrow being first day of half term and therefore the first opportunity of the year to play the Staff Travel Lottery! Storm has already had an effect on that.[/quote]
Only had the pleasure once on the classic LongHaul type on a wet and windy evening.
Good luck with staff travel…
For those wondering what this is about a digression from the thread:
When it was first built, when aircraft had lower crosswind limits, Heathrow used to have a multitude (6 plus) runways..over the years it got whittled down and by the late eighties it was down to three..the two parallels east/west aligned that are used now plus a short runway aligned north east/south west that would have been ideal in today’s wind.
It wasn’t equipped with a top of the range Instrument Landing system and as aircraft limits improved it got used less and less.
Eventually (very very early nineties) it was taken out of service, and the area then got encroached upon by Terminal 4 remote parking and then laterly by extensions to Central area.
It (and a lot of the original layout) are clearly visible on Google Earth.,..now enough of history, back to the winds…