London Sightseeing

Written by Administrator Monday, 05 January 2009 13:38

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One of the great privileges of flying a helicopter in the UK is the ability to fly down the line of the River Thames, right through the centre of London, passing some of the most famous landmarks in the world at heights as low as 600 feet (see picture gallery below).  We recently made such a flight, taking advantage of the great visibility that you can get on a cold winter day.

To follow the Thames through London, you follow defined routes, called helilanes, and are under air traffic control from Heathrow throughout.  We entered the London zone east of Denham, flying past Wembley Stadium at 2000 feet as far as RAF Northolt, used mainly by the Queen's Flight and executive jets.  You then reduce height to 1200 feet and follow the A40 as far as the North Circular at Hanger Lane, and then south on the North Circular to reach the Thames at Kew Bridge.  The old aviation joke that "IFR" stands for "I follow roads" rather than the official version of  "Instrument Flight Rules" is very relevant here.

At Kew you must be at 750 feet as you are now directly under the main approach into Heathrow, with commercial airliners only a few hundred feet above you.

The route eastwards along the Thames takes you past Battersea Heliport (landing fee around £600!) and MI6 Headquarters on your right.

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The H4 Helilane then takes you on past Westminster, St. James and the City on the left, having ascended in stages along the way to be back at 2000 feet by London Bridge.

The final stages take you round Canary Wharf, past Greenwich and London City airport.  On our recent flight, we had to hold at Greenwich to allow for traffic into London City airport, orbiting over Greenwich Park and the Royal Observatory for a few minutes.

We then headed back north, passing the 2012 Olympic village on our left where geat progress was evident, straight over the top of Luton airport, and back to Cranfield.

The total journey time was just over an hour - the cost to you if you would like to share this amazing experience, around £1000 for up to 4 passengers.

(All photographs by James Young)