Bird’s eye view of the ‘new’ Heathrow

HAVING been beaten to the punch by your correspondent Mr Sherwood (Gazette Nov 30) by his excellent facts in relation to the absolute rubbish conveyed by Mr W Pierce on Heathrow etc (Gazette Nov 16) I would like to put my twopenneth worth forward.

First, the cause of pollution pre war and indeed well into the 1950s was that almost every household had a coal fire which, together with industry, caused the terrible smog.

Next the start of Heathrow was, as stated, 1944. I had a bird’s eye view of this from the open cockpit of a Tiger Moth trainer out from then RAF

Denham, after my instructor indicated ‘we will go down and have a shuftie’.

Word had it that it was going to be a long range bomber base. Next, Mr Pierce’s observations on six runways are, together with the following, a load of absolute twaddle. I refer to the Brabazon, which was the brain child of the great aviation pioneer Lord Brabazon of Tara.

It was a six engined giant to combat the American domination.

It was a lame duck from the start Only one was built, which managed the grand total of 383 air miles on test mainly over water. It may have flown over or near our area but never landed at Heathrow and never carried a single fare-paying passenger. It was scrapped in 1953.

I would suggest Mr Pierce is getting mixed up with Concorde as regards noise, as is his other views on the expansion of the airfield to gratify the deep pockets of the few at the expense of the area and population.