On 8 Sep, 20:54, James Farrar wrote:
On Sat, 08 Sep 2007 10:50:00 -0700, Jon
wrote:



On 8 Sep, 10:35, "dB" wrote:
I once heard that a building either at or near Croydon Airport has the
word NO written on so as to advise pilots that they are not
approaching Gatwick.

There used to be a gasholder at South Harrow with NO painted on the
side to indicate that it was near Northolt airfield and not on the
approach to Heathrow.

That was done after someone tried to land a 747 at Northolt.

The gasholder still standing in Southall has an arrow and 'LH' marked
on it for the same reason. ISTR being told someone did land a 707 at
Northolt by mistake in the 1970's, and it had to be stripped of all
non-essential components to make it light enough to take off again
safely.

http://www.abpic.co.uk/photo/1001607 and
http://www.thirdamendment.com/wrongway.html refer to this incident
in October 1960.

Wikipedia's page on [[RAF Northolt]] states "In days before such
navigational aides as instrument landing system (ILS) and the global
positioning system (GPS), the letters NO (for Northolt) and HR (for
Heathrow) were painted on two gasometers situated on the approach to
each airfield, one at Southall for the approach into Heathrow and one
at South Harrow for the approach to Northolt in an effort to prevent
recurrence of such errors." - this seems to imply that they're no
longer there, and certainly I cannot find any evidence from a quick
Google Maps search.


The gasometer is still there at Southall along with the letters
painted on it - in fact what's actually painted on them is "LHR"
accompanied by an arrow below pointing forwards (though of course the
precise arrangement may have been different in the past). You can see
it from the train on the GWML. Presumably this is provided by
arrangement between the gas board - now Transco - and BAA / the CAA /
NATS.

Here is conformation, albeit without a photo of the LHR markings on
the side:
http://www.route79.com/journal/archives/000213.html

And here, courtesy of a Flickr contributor, is photographic proof of
the LHR and arrow markings:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/route79/276017099/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/route79/162905004/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fictiondreamer/1138463729/

Great great curry houses in Southall too - and authentic, in the
truest sense of the word.