Heathrow spotting

[wjwren]

My mother loves planes, I'm thinking of taking her to Heathrow Myrtle avenue I believe is a good place. How do I know if it's the right spot to see them land. Do they rotate the direction of the runway? Also is between 6am and 10am best. Is it still busy say mid day?

Thanks

[Mabbs9]

It should be pretty busy all day. The runways switch between the left and right at 3pm if they're landing in a Westerly direction.

[towser44]

wjwren said:

My mother loves planes, I'm thinking of taking her to Heathrow Myrtle avenue I believe is a good place. How do I know if it's the right spot to see them land. Do they rotate the direction of the runway? Also is between 6am and 10am best. Is it still busy say mid day?

Thanks

Runway direction depends on the wind. Most of the time will be landing East to West over London, but they do rotate landing and taking off runways. It'll be busy all day.

[peter tdci]

Here's the schedule for runway alternation for 'westerly operations' (wind blows from the west - aircraft land/approach from the east). The swap is usually at 15:00:

https://www.heathrow.com/content/dam/heathrow/web/...

If approaches/landings are being made from west to east and both runways are in use, then it's very unusual to have a switchover and landings are almost always done on the northern runway (09L).

Edited by peter tdci on Monday 31st January 21:04

[Master Bean]

Download the Flightradar 24 app so you can see what's coming in. When they're taking off on 27R I park at the McDonald's for an hour and wander across the road to watch them spool up.

[Dr Jekyll]

peter tdci said:

Here's the schedule for runway alternation for 'westerly operations' (wind blows from the west - aircraft land/approach from the east). The swap is usually at 15:00:

https://www.heathrow.com/content/dam/heathrow/web/...

If approaches/landings are being made from west to east and both runways are in use, then it's very unusual to have a switchover and landings are almost always done on the northern runway (09L).

More specifically, take offs are almost always done from the Southern runway because the area to the East of the Northern runway is regarded as especially noise sensitive. But when there's a gap between take offs there can be the odd landing on the Southern runway.

[wjwren]

So just to confirm - is 27L or 27R better for landings, and is Myrtle avenue the best spot. Thank you again!
Im thinking of going on 7th March Week.

[silverfoxcc]

27L for landings. take a couple of folding chairs and sit near the hedge parking is at a premium would suggestdriving past and tryin a side road further down.. but check out the SYL timings

27R for take offs .(.see the comment about Macs BUT Watch the timing limit..) although not sure how the screens 'help'

Note to LHR Regulars

Is the viewing area/platform still there near museum IIRC.

[Master Bean]

Viewing platform is still there as of 2 months ago.