London Airport in the 50s & 60s - Part 2

[PeteP]

Part 2 of a little wander down Memory Lane.
Pete

Edit: I'm glad you all enjoyed the photos which I've now removed and thanks for all the kind comments.
Pete

[DaveB]

Absolutely brill Pete I passed a link to this thread to some of the Vanguard team at Brooklands.. all of whom were there at the time those shots were taken. Paul, my team leader, asked me to thank you for posting them so declare yourself well and truely thanked. In Pauls words.. pure nostalgia;-)

ATB
DaveB

[DispatchDragon]

Thank you Peter

You brought back memories of hanging about on the observation deck as a ten year old --- the noise the smell -- the wonderful aircraft!!!
(that would have been around 1963)



Leif

[TSR2]

Fantastic! Trident in RS = a very happy Ben

[Garry Russell]

Lovely reproduction Pete

Rich colours

Interesting comparison to the contemporary up to date BOAC Comet livery with the BEA Pinstripe Viscount 802 in the background

[DaveB]

I'm certain a certain member of our team will love picture no.1. He joined the aircraft industry late 40's as an engineer with BOAC working on Haltons then did a spell in the RAF. When demobbed in the early 60's, he joined the 'Best Ever Airways' and almost certainly worked on ALYF and the other Pionairs in the fleet. I can't wait for him to see that shot.. or the others for that matter

ATB
DaveB

[ianhind]

Unlike Leif, I didn't hang around the observation deck - I just watched from the back garden or under the approach on the Great South West Road.

Alitalia DC-6s were operating out of Gatwick as SAM, never saw an Iberia or LOT Cv-440, and G-ALYF was Westpoint by then.

[PeteP]

Thanks for all the kind comments - I'm delighted they're bringing back so many memories. I started my career in ATC as an 18 year-old at Heathrow in late 67 so many of these views are familiar to me, too.

For those interested in this sort of thing, all the originals are 35mm slides and the earliest ones with dates on the mounts are 1957 (the Ambassador shots). Fortunately this batch - all card mounted were in pretty good condition but those in other boxes in expensive glass mounts have not survived so well with moisture becoming trapped between the glass and slide causing considerable degradation of the emulsion. All that was needed with these was a little dust removal - mostly physical but sometimes electronic - and some judicious colour restoration. I try to do as little as possible but, unsurprisingly, some of the colours have faded a little in the 50 or so years since they were taken and, I find, the scanning process also adds to this. Colour - and what's good and bad - is a very subjective thing but, as you see, I've gone for the sort of deep, rich colours I think the original slides would have had when they were new.

More to come later.
Pete

[ianhind]

Pete

So you're a similar age to me - hence you will have seen the same things at EGLL. And we previously discussed "Raffles 1" so definitely the same era!

Ian


Edit: just been looking over these again

MEA Cv-990 - rare bird

background of Alitalia DC-6 = 5 x Constellations

background of red square on blue tail Comet = Swiss Lear Jet - makes you realise how old that design is

background of Swissair CV-440 = thought it might be Ontos (TWA's C-82) but not sure it ever had that scheme with quite so much orange/red - looks more like a USAF one

[DispatchDragon]

Ian/Pete

The Connies were Skyways about to be sold to Euravia
Along with the USAF c82/119 is a York, two Hermes and MORE connies. the Hermes makes sense as they are outside the Hunting Clan hangar.
DO my old eyes deceive me or is there a Bristol Freighter parked in amongst the Eagle Vikings in the back ground of the Eagle Dc6????
The furthest Viking on the line appears to be in Eagles old solid red paint.

Leif