David Bladen's Aircraft Photos: Heathrow

The second half of the day’s expedition saw the four of us leave Luton behind and head off to Heathrow. The hope was that after the three o’clock runway switch, aircraft would depart using runway 09R enabling us to get some shots as they banked on to their initial heading soon after lift-off.

The weather gods smiled on us and, sure enough, 09R was in use. We made our way to the Bedfont Lane Recreation Ground in Feltham and set up camp to await the action. As to be expected at Heathrow, there was a constant stream of aircraft passing in front of our lenses, and in the few moments when nothing was actually happening, there was always the non-league football being played on the pitches behind us to keep us amused.

The photos below are in chronological order and will hopefully give an idea of the variety of aircraft to be seen:-

TAROM is one of the few airlines that still have Airbus A318s in their fleet - this particular example is YR-ASB.

American Airlines’ new colour scheme has come in for mixed reviews but I rather like it and it looks particularly good on Boeing 777-200 N761AJ.

Virgin Atlantic Airbus A330-300 G-VLUV, doubtless off to somewhere warm and sunny...

...closely followed by Air Canada’s C-FIUA, a Boeing 777-200.

The Boeing 787 seems to have settled down in airline service after its well-documented teething troubles. Qatar Airways A7-BCK gets airborne off 09R.

British Airways now have five Airbus A380s in their fleet with the most recent, G-XLEE, having been delivered to Heathrow two days before our visit. ‘EE was still undergoing acceptance checks so we had to settle for G-XLEC instead.

The Boeing 747-400 still soldiers on with British Airways, whose membership of the ‘OneWorld’ airline alliance is reflected in the titles on G-CIVI.

The magnificent ‘All Black’ colour scheme adorns Air New Zealand’s Boeing 777-300 ZK-OKQ.

9K-AOB is one of two Boeing 777-200s in the Kuwait Airways fleet.

Another long-time Boeing 747-400 operator is Virgin Atlantic, here represented by G-VHOT.

Royal Jordanian’s Airbus A320 JY-AYQ sets off on its 2292 mile journey to Amman.

Pakistan International’s Boeing 777-200 AP-BGJ demonstrates the trend for airlines to paint their name on the underside of their aircraft.

Leased from India’s Jet Airways is Turkish Airlines Boeing 777-300 VT-JEP.

I’ve only ever seen Air Algerie operate Boeing737s into Heathrow so it was good to capture one of their Airbus A330-200s, 7T-VJV, in pixels.

The majority of Alitalia’s fleet is registered in Ireland and Airbus A320 EI-DTM is no exception.

Emirates’ Airbus A380s are currently scheduled to operate three services a day into Heathrow and A6-EDS was on one the flights on the 8th.

A couple of freighters aircraft put in an appearance amongst the constant stream of airliners. One such was Emirates Sky Cargo’s Boeing 777F A6-EFF.

A brace of Boeing 787s now. British Airways G-ZBJB departs for Newark Liberty, while following not long after is V8-OLA of Royal Brunei on its way to Bandar Seri Begawan.