British Airways Trident 3B G-AYVF, seen flying here on 20 March, was later withdrawn from service and broken up in June 1984.
Fred Olsen Air Transport L-188A Electra LN-FOH is seen here landing on 28R in March 1983. These became common for a short time and then stopped coming in almost as quickly as they had started. This airframe is still active as C-GLBA with Buffalo Airways.
Malev Tu-154B-2 HA-LCE is seen landing 28R on 20 March. This aircraft was last used at Budapest Airport by the firefighters for cutting practice, and may be completely gone by now.
Unknown CSA Il-62 (not M) seen here on final approach to 28R; these were daily visitors at this time.
A couple of BAC111s next, which at the time I didn't shoot much. British Airways BAC111-510ED G-AVMO is currently preserved at the museum at East Fortune, Scotland.
BAC111-510ED G-AVMY was last seen stored at Bournemouth Airport when last operated by European Air Charter. The cockpit was cut off and reportedly tracked to Genève to be incorporated into a house.
British Midland Airways F-27-200 G-BDDH landing on an almost sunny day, was later flown by Air UK and was an ex-Air Anglia machine. She ended up flying for Pakistan International Airlines as AP-BCT and was last seen withdrawn from use at Karachi Airport.
Next are a few Tristar photos, taken when British Airways were in the process of phasing them out.
British Airways L-1011-500 Tristar G-BFCA was shot at the old Bealine Maintenance base on 2 April 1983 when already taken out of service.
In the next shot taken 24 June 1983, you can see the same aircraft painted for the RAF carrying new serial ZD948, but still showing CA on the tail and nose wheel door, and the underside still in the BA scheme. She was later converted to a KC.1 tanker and is currently at Bruntingthorpe.
L-1011-500 G-BFCE later became KC.1 ZD952 with the RAF, and is currently at Kemble.
L-1011-500 G-BFCD later became K.1 ZD951 with the RAF, and is also stored at Bruntingthorpe.
British Airways Cargo Boeing 707-300C G-ASZG was operated by a variety of African and South American carriers and was finally broken up in Rio de Janeiro in 2000.
Trident 2E G-AVFM went to Bristol where it was being used as a ground trainer, and the front cockpit section was saved – it is now in private hands, and sometimes displayed.
Challenger CL-600S N110KS is still operational as N515BP, and was found parked in one of the Bealine Base hangars.
NASA Boeing 747-100(SC) performed a flypast of Heathrow on 5 June 1983 in terrible weather, hence the ropey photo, after departing from the Paris Airshow.
MEA B707-300C OD-AFE ended her days flying for Luxor Air as SU-BMV and was written-off in a landing accident at Roberts International Airport, Liberia on 23 March 2001. She is seen here in the TBA hangars on 15 July.
Air Mauritius Boeing 707-300B 3B-NAF is seen here at the main British Airways maintenance base; she ended her days in AMARC after passing through European and African operators. I'm not sure if she still survives.
Burma Airways F-28-4000 XY-ADW was an extremely rare visitor to the UK in September 1983. It was later flying with Myanmar Airways titles, which reflected the politics of the time. On 6 June 2009 the aircraft was written-off at Sittwe-Civil Airport after a heavy landing which caused the right main gear to fail, further causing the wing to strike the runway and forcing the aircraft to subsequently leave the runway.
Here she is parked at the cargo base, right near the entrance to the cargo tunnel. This was always an impossible place to take photos, but with something so rare, it's all we could do.
In 2010 there were reports that the aircraft was to be used as a restaurant, but I can find no confirmation of that.
You may have noticed that some of the above photos have areas of brightness in the top right corner and sometimes all the way down the right hand side. That's a consequence of a light leak in my camera at the time, with the only option being to buy a new one. I had to soldier one with this issue for quite some time, such were the issues of the day!