Quote:
Originally Posted by glatt
When I flew with my family to Heathrow from Dulles a couple years ago, we totally traced one of those heavy lines. The cool thing was we overshot London and then made a U turn to come into Heathrow from the East, since it looks like that's always the direction for the landing air traffic, and I had a window seat as we flew low above South London. I could see Tower Bridge and Big Ben right outside my freakin window as we landed. It was so awesome.
Later, visiting Windsor, it was amazing to me how every 747 departing Heathrow flies almost directly over Windsor Castle. I guess the Queen doesn't have enough pull to have prevented the runways from being aimed directly at her house. Actually now that I think of it, maybe they were landing and not taking off. I can't remember. But they were about every minute and flying very close to the castle.
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I think it all has to do with general wind patterns at the given moment. Heathrow is only a few miles to the west of the castle and planes generally take off with the wind or land into it. Most of my flights into Heathrow have brought us right over the city and along the Thames to land.
Here in Houston I live just a few miles north-north-east of IAH and we hear and see jets taking off since most of the time we have a prevailing wind from the Gulf of Mexico. The big 747s like those of BA and KLM are really loud and typically fly right along highway 59 not far from my home. Most days you can set your watch by them as they go by.