LHR June 2004 Open Day

The day started at 9:30am, I packed car, me and me dad then went to pick up Kaz (pilot_kaz), we left hers about 9:45am and headed for the dreaded M25! We got onto the motorway and headed for LHR whilst listening to 'the bastard song' we got to LHR at about 10:15am and headed for the visitors centre to where the events were happening, they charged us a £1 to get into the open day itself to look around a fire engine and dodgy marquee.

We then headed to the grandstand only to find the runway was obscured by trees, well done BAA 10 outta 10 for that one! Anyway things were not that great there so it were time for McDonalds, we headed there to get some grub, only for Ben (British767) to tell us he is ready to be picked up, so off we went, after grub of course, to pick him up from Hatton Cross station, we then headed for the visitors centre again. Arrived at visitors centre, smuggled Ben in so he didnt have to part with his pound coin. We headed straight for the tent where the airport tour buses were departing from. Paid our £2 each for the tour and jumped on the bus, the tour lasted about 45 mins, had to listen to some woman who sounded like a cat being strangled give us running commentary on what we were looking at although most of it were obvious, I have to say most of the tour could of been done by car except the ride into the new Terminal 5 building site.

We arrived back at the visitors centre and the heavens opened, we ran for cover into the tent, soon got bored so Kaz, Ben and me headed for the RAF Tornado simulator, £2.50 to make you wanna chuck your guts up! Survived simulator and went to meet Lee (Leezyjet) and Ben (Ben) spoke to them for a while then Hannah (AvianceGirlUK) and her partner turned up. Had a little chat with everyone then Hannah and her partner went walkabout, Lee went to work, so we decided to head for the end of runway 27R to take some pictures, we got there and within 5 minutes it were hammering down with rain again, so we took shelter behind one of the huts near the crossing for BA maintenance!

After the rain stopped and sun came out, the departing aircraft swapped runways with arriving aircraft, so myself and Ben decided to head back to visitors centre to pick up cars and the others would walk on and meet us at the famous 'Greenman Pub' Hannah joined us shortly after we arrived there, Ben got in the drinks, while I tried to take some half decent pics, as usual they came out crap, anyway Ben introduced me to his camera i took some better pictures with that one, now wanna get myself one! At around 4:30pm it was time to leave, we said our goodbyes and headed for the car and began our journey home through a fierce rain storm, arrived home at around 5pm!

Glenn (EZYAirbus)