@lambourne Thanks for the in-depth explanation, that's very interesting. And I'm glad I don't live just east of EGLL.

On a side note, I lived for a while at Coogee Beach in Sydney. On days with strong winds from the west, airliners on final approach to YSSY rwy 25 would pass right overhead my apartment every 2 minutes or so. The noise was deafening. 

1 minute ago, lambourne said:

Don't know if it is, really. Heathrow started life as a grass airfield for the Fairey aircraft company in the late stages of WWII. The government requisitioned it under wartime powers with the intention of never returning it, as the requisition powers said they should do. Instead they wanted to develop it into a replacement for Croydon Airport which at the time was the main civil London airport.

Over the decades of London's expansion, what used to be a relative trickle of flights filled Heathrow to capacity - before covid it was at something like 98% of its theoretical maximum. The location means adding a runway or new terminal involves bulldozing large amounts of neighbouring houses and industrial units, with all the opposition you can imagine to that.

Because it's on the western side of London and the prevailing UK wind is sou'westerly, about 80% of approaches during the year fly over central London at a few thousand feet. Not great from a safety or noise point of view, especially for the outer West Londoners who have commercial airliners pouring down the ILS or thundering off the departure runway every minute or 2. (In fact you can hear a Turkish Airlines jet during the 2 minute silence in Prince Philip's funeral, held in Windsor just below the final approach/departure path for the northern runway)

They alternate arrivals and departures in the mid-afternoon to give the locals as much relief as they can but night flights are almost completely prohibited; by 11pm traffic's usually stopped.

On the flip side it supports something like 40,000 jobs in the aviation industries we all love.

The vast majority of British airfields and airports date back to WWII Air Force construction. If you look at Google or Bing aerial imagery of a UK airfield you can still see the old A layout from the wartime runways when all airfields had a standard triangle pattern no matter where in the country they were built. Squinting very carefully at Stansted will reveal one of the wartime cross runways, still just about visible in the modern taxiway layout.

 Fairey aviation had been evicted from Northolt in the late twenties too.  Anomoly?  Probably not the best choice of wording but a mistake certainly.  Croydon was closed due to the urban expansion which surrounded it and the recognition that air traffic and aircraft size were increasing.  Heathrow has presented those same challenges - and many more - for over forty years now but we've shied away from moving it primarily on cost grounds.

I grew up in North London and can still very much recall my awestruck astonishment as an eight year old as the first 747 services into Heathrow started cruising over our school field. 

49 minutes ago, Mike S KPDX said:

Thank you for your comment.  You may want to keep in mind your land area comparisons, you are actually smaller then my single state here in Oregon (99k sq miles), and we a somewhat of a mid-sized state.  Texas is at 270k sq miles and Oklahoma at 70k for 340k total.  The UK clocks in at 94k max.

I have driven the equivalent of the length of your country and back again for a single day at work.  However it was pointed out to me by Englander that though it may be true in miles it is not the same in time.  I did my trip in 8 hours, he said you cant even do the M25 in that time (he may have been joking though)

You're right.  We're smaller and more crowded than I thought!    You've driven the length of the UK and back again in eight hours?  Okay.....  

 

'You're right.  We're smaller and more crowded than I thought!    You've driven the length of the UK and back again in eight hours?  Okay.....  '

I think that was about right, 280 miles one way, maybe I was just thinking of England?

12 minutes ago, Mike S KPDX said:

'You're right.  We're smaller and more crowded than I thought!    You've driven the length of the UK and back again in eight hours?  Okay.....  '

I think that was about right, 280 miles one way, maybe I was just thinking of England?

I think the length of England is a little over four hundred miles but compared with the US or the whole of North America we are a mere spec.😎

Being a handy, unsinkable aircraft carrier has shaped how, when and where you fly in the UK.

 

On 5/1/2021 at 7:35 PM, Mike S KPDX said:

The developement from a WWII facility to today now make a bit more sense.

As has been alluded to, the UK's major airports (and a great deal of the smaller ones) have generally been developed from WWII (or even pre-war) airfields, so what was practical for a standard 3 runway triangular layout for quick response times isn't necessarily practical for expansion into large airports catering for comparatively huge airliners and thousands of passengers. As the airports expanded, it was more a case of fit things in where they could rather than designing for efficiency as you would for a built-from-the-ground-up airport.

2 hours ago, DD_Arthur said:

I think the length of England is a little over four hundred miles

Lands End to John O' Groats (the more or less diagonal length of mainland UK is about 840 miles or around 13 to 14 hours if the traffic isn't bad.