Before Flight Radar 24

[Beemer]

How did we manage before FR24. I have never been a dot spotter but some did/do. These are some letters handed to me belonging to the late Graeme Thompson. Graeme worked in ATC at LJLA but died suddenly aged 55 in 2010. Graeme aged 12 would dot spot and make note of the date and times of the various aircraft passing overhead and would then put pen to paper and write to the various airlines. As the letters show he was sometimes successful and other times he would be refused.

Letter to Alitalia letter returned with the regs added.


Letter to TWA with some regs added


Another letter to Alitalia


...and three letters on headed paper from the airlines.

Air France


PanAm


BOAC It looks like it has been typed on a faulty typewriter by a junior clerk.



Thanks to Adrian for passing them to me. Regards Beemer.

[eelmoor]

At Lhr we used to call the airline desks and ask !! Not always received that well :-( the other way was to write what you saw down tied up with call-sign via radio and then wait 3 months for the LAAS magazine to come out then look at the 'over the oggin' section ! I do remember seeing 2 LTU tristars pass down upper green 1 towards Compton no more than 5 mins apart once.... Result as they only had 2 at the time ... Lol.... Great days :-)

[Biggles]

I well recall "dot spotting" in my early teens in Wallasey and used a huge marine telescope in combination with the Shorrocks Air Band radio which could be rented by members of the MSAE at Speke. I used to look forward to the trip via bus ferry and bus from Wallasey to the airport to collect the radio when available.
I recently wondered if any still existed and where used today.
In those days logging RAF aircraft crossing Wallasey was pretty simple as the serial was in huge letters and numbers under the wing usually, logging V Bombers was a specialty as an ex air cadet from my squadron flew Vulcans and as he mentioned they did regular practice bombing runs using the gold name plate of a bank in Old Hall Street as an aiming marker ?

[eelmoor]

We seem to take dot spotting for granted nowadays, i remember getting my first sbs (long before FR24 was invented) I used to spend hours logging stuff ott but then this got to the point where there was very rarely anything I needed! The interesting stuff didnt show on screen :-( I then purchased 'planeplotter' its like a whole new world opened up to me again, biz, lights, military, etc, Ive now cleared the chinook fleet, which even though they are based just up the road from me at Odiham are an absolute pain to read off, even when your standing next to them:-/ Apaches have also started entering the book as a great rate of knots thanks to them transiting farnborough down the London/Southampton railway line :-) great days, roll on the airshow, its the only real time we get heavy metal mil within reach of the garden :-)

[eelmoor]

Good luck with planeplotter, can be frustrating to set up worth it though :-) only really good for aircraft above about 5000ft but have got round this by minimising planeplotter screen to fit in sbs radar screen (ie on top of sbs) which then leaves the SBS sidebar visible

[rob125]

This was quite a memory flashback for me - I have a very similar set of replies from various airlines regarding tie ups for OTT's - indeed Graeme and I used to share the load when sending request off to avoid duplication. I found that Swissair, SAS, Air Canada, Alitalia, Aer Lingus all replied by adding the registration to the original letter. El Al, Pan Am, Wardair wrote a separate reply.
During the early 1970's I relied very much on feedback from MAS and Dave Peel and John Coghill must have had access to data for many overflights I saw/heard but did not tie up immediately. I suspect that some old magazines from other societies would contain information relating to some OTT's from the late 1960's that were never tied up at the time but you just have to accept that fact. I certainly remember also seeing many Vulcans trailing over Liverpool - it would have been great to have had access to the optics mentioned in one of the replies!
Regards
Rob

[rob125]

I was going to upload a couple of my letters - noting that the typewriter at BOAC had improved by late 1969 (or it may have been a standard letter they had copies of and just inserted the address of the recipient). However, a message states that this Forum has exceeded its upload limit.

Regards

Rob

[Beemer]

Rob125,
you can not add letters or photos as an attachment, you have to use FlickR or other image posting sites. Regards Beemer, Admin.

[mooneyncp]

nice to see names from the past. how many times had you heard some one saying the will try and quire about the big
orange ?

[marpleman]

I used to send listings with dates, flight numbers to (I think?) Prestwick Aviation Society, along with an SAE. The returned document would drop through the letter box several weeks later with almost a complete set of tie ups, all for the cost of a membership subscription.

I also remember chatting to fellow spotters at the old brick works, south-side at Ringway, about "how good it would be to be able to look up at something at 36,000 feet and be able to use computers to identify it instantaneously!" We got laughed out of the place!!

Having travelled quite considerably over the last several years to some less spotter friendly countries, even to the extent that I didn't want to take my "box" with me, I really don't know where I'd be without these sites.

[jetdragon]

I used to use the TAS mag to tieup the dotsI could see from Chester (usually heading from/to Wallasey). Had to wait a month or so and probably tied up about 75% of what was seen. FR24/ADSB was a distant fantasy!!