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Post by Defender on Nov 4, 2015 6:10:59 GMT -5
Ken,
I can read it all so let me know if you need anything more. You'll get a better result using "save picture" and then adjusting contrast and brightness.
Not sure where you get the 28R/10L parking use from. Can't see anything in your photo link. Might have happened whilst that runway was closed altogether for the tunnel construction but otherwise unlikely? Certainly the north end of 15L/33R quite quickly became a parking area, early 60's possibly.
Note also the taxiway lighting. I read somewhere that certainly in the UK blue edge lighting wasn't used on taxiways over a certain width, 75' possibly. These had green centreline and just reflectors on the edges. Not sure what happened in North America.
As you can see, LAP was just a sea of concrete. The 150' asphalt overlays were a much later development, a universal ICAO measure possibly.
Bill
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Post by Deleted on Nov 4, 2015 11:38:39 GMT -5
Bill, When I tried 'Save As' it twice downloaded a file Photoshop refused to read and said was damaged; it might be different if I try again, of course. For the parking on 28R/10L see the photograph in the Wikipedia article here (overhead shot, right hand side of the page): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Heathrow_Airport#1950sIt is said to be from 1955. There seem very clearly to be aircraft parked there and there are oil spots and general dirt which would appear to suggest that it had been going on for some time. As I said above, the reference in the 1957 chart to the normal use of this runway would fit with it, although there might be other explanations. If I do decide to incorporate this into the new scenery I'm not sure whether it will be possible to get ai traffic to take off from a third of the way down the runway - when I tried it didn't seem to work, but I will try again at some point. Many thanks again for your input - the chart is just what I needed, Best wishes, Ken
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Post by Defender on Nov 4, 2015 12:51:50 GMT -5
Ken,
Thanks for the link. Interesting, and I see the central area is empty as well but I think you should just ignore that runway parking in your scenery. If it still happened in 1957 then the chart would almost certainly show a restricted available runway length as well, assuming parking in the line of flight was even allowed. More likely to be when the runway was closed for tunnel construction? I'll do some Flight Global browsing later.
The 1957 restriction is also still quite odd. I could understand if it was the other way round, less noise for Windsor Castle!
Bill
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Post by Deleted on Nov 4, 2015 13:56:37 GMT -5
Bill, Presumably the runway could be cleared of parked aircraft if necessary - which it probably wasn't very often - and that may explain the chart and the way the use of that runway is described. I have seen another photo of aircraft parked on it but can't for the life of me find it now. Is it not possible that there was so much construction going on elsewhere that available parking was extremely limited, hence the need to use the runway; and of course it was reasonably near the terminal? The Gallop book suggests that my earlier belief that BEA didn't use Heathrow at all before 1955 was wrong, Best wishes, Ken
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Post by Defender on Nov 4, 2015 15:26:51 GMT -5
Ken,
This explains it, top left paragraph.
www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1954/1954%20-%201330.html?search=28R
Then by summer 1955 the Central Area was available (again) so no need for the runway parking.
Hope that helps.
Bill
PS - Also found the green taxiway lighting article. No blue edge lights at LAP as taxiways were 100' wide, except those north of 10L/28R which were 50'.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 4, 2015 16:16:31 GMT -5
Bill, Many thanks. It certainly does help and is proof that runway parking was not used before the summer of 1954; hence there is every justification for not including it in the new (old) scenery. There were I assume (thinking of Afcad) no runway run-off areas and no numbers painted on the ends of the runways? Thinking of the Comm frequencies, did ATIS exist at this time? On the matter of the taxiway edge lights they are rather useful in FS9 at night and for this reason I may keep them. Best wishes, Ken
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Post by Defender on Nov 4, 2015 16:42:14 GMT -5
In the old days the runways were referred to as Runway 1,2,3 etc, numbered clockwise from mag north. I'm sure there's a LAP numbering chart somewhere on the web. But as the 1954 article talks about 10L/28R you can safely assume that the numbers would be on the actual runway end, and in fact AFCAD probably requires a number.
The green taxiway lighting appears to be a 1955 development anyway.
Best regards
Bill
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Post by Defender on Nov 5, 2015 5:29:55 GMT -5
Hi again, Your question about runway markings aroused my curiosity and this report will give you all you need and more about LAP's runway and taxiway markings, lighting and signage in 1954/55. I'm quite surprised to see how random the markings were. I can't copy the link directly so open this wiki link, go to aircraft accidents, G-AMOK, click on the link [102] and then the ICAO Aircraft Accident Report Digest link. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heathrow_AirportGood luck! Bill
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Post by Deleted on Nov 5, 2015 10:02:08 GMT -5
Hello Bill, Many thanks once again. I have downloaded the 1955 accident report and it looks fascinating stuff, not least because there is information about operating procedures, but it will take me a little time to digest it. Afcad allows no runway numbers but not a number at one end and none at the other, as was the case with 10L and 28R, the latter having no number. The terminal and apron, all with custom buildings, are almost finished and I am going to try finishing it today and then take a screenshot so that people can see it. There are three of the wide runways in existence, the three which appeared in Tom's Afcad for the 1961 scenery. Adding the other three of the original six (two were only 250 feet wide) appears to me not to be entirely straightforward and although I know their lengths I don't know their precise alignments, Best wishes, Ken
Stop Press. I have been able to place 05L-23R by making it parallel to Tom's 05R-23L at a heading of 041.5. I guess it should be possible to work out the other two parallel runways from this. In fact a heading of 325 degrees places a runway of the dimensions shown on the 1957 chart for 33L-15R in what looks pretty much exactly the right position, although I had to move 23L-05R slightly to fit. I am being fairly generous in inserting taxiways not shown on the 1957 chart.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 5, 2015 12:01:21 GMT -5
OK. Here it is, set within the UK VFR photographic scenery, which can hardly be seen here, and based on the CalClassic Afcad as modified with Tom's kind permission. All the runway sizes and lengths are as given on the very valuable 1957 chart provided by Bill.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 8, 2015 14:49:02 GMT -5
As promised, here are some shots of the latest version of The First Heathrow. The apron area is now almost finished and the buildings have all been custom made. The Control Tower is visible in the first shot. The evidence exists to reproduce this building fairly precisely, but in the interests of frame rates I have included only the main windows. There were a great many prefabricated buildings, many of them white, and some are shown standing to the west of the Control Tower, as indeed they did. In front of it was a public car park and just to the east of that a public viewing area which people were charged six old pence to enter - not a great deal, and it was evidently very popular among Londoners wanting a day out. They can be seen near the Constellation. Running ai at 40% the few parking spaces are nearly always full, hence the aircraft in front of the terminal in the second shot. There is a photograph of most of its frontage in the book by Gallop (see above) and again this is a fair replica. Frame rates seem pretty good, but the next job is the outlying hangars, Ken
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Post by Tom/CalClassic on Nov 8, 2015 15:00:40 GMT -5
Hi Ken,
Could we possibly use these buildings for an update of the 1961 Heathrow scenery? We would include your name in the credits, of course.
Thanks,
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Post by Deleted on Nov 8, 2015 15:40:30 GMT -5
Hi Tom, Yes, of course. I would be pleased to see my name credited. I guess you are probably happy to wait for the finished version but let me know if you would like a zipfile before that. I shall attempt custom buildings of the famous Fairey hangar and of the smaller BOAC hangars but not the really massive BOAC facility which I think still exists but was I believe not complete when the central terminal was opened in 1955. The roughly equally massive BEA facility was finished and as there are good photographs available (Flight, 18 June, 1954) I shall try it. It suggests quite a lot about the optimism of those days that they were prepared to build on such a scale, but I suppose that is still true of Heathrow today. As has already been pointed out, if they get permission to build a third runway where they are thinking of building it that will be a return to the plans of the late 1940s, which envisaged two runways in that area. Ken
PS - Flight, 25th September, 1953, for photographs of the 'new' control tower which has just been demolished and of a model of the new central terminal buildings.
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Post by Tom/CalClassic on Nov 8, 2015 16:51:28 GMT -5
Thanks again, I can wait for the finished version.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 10, 2015 18:10:39 GMT -5
Here is the just completed BEA facility. There are excellent photographs of it in Flight for 18th June, 1954; it may seem very simple, but this is pretty much what it looked like. And a BOAC Constellation just after take-off from Runway 33R; dark blue BOAC hangars and the BEA facility can be seen in the background. Any mishap on take-off or landing on this runway could have resulted in aircraft crashing into the terminal buildings. Although I have yet to start really flying it, the regular use of runways other than the two main East-West ones will make this a very different Heathrow to the one most of us are familiar with.
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