Luton Airport, being just outside London, and at that time not called "London Luton", was always an interesting airport to visit in the late 70s and early 80s, albeit not a very busy one.

At that time, there were still single-engine general aviation aircraft based there and a grass runway with hangar.

Even though it was quite close to where I lived, it was quite a pain to get to. The only viable option was the Green Line Coaches 727 service that routed Gatwick-Heathrow-Luton, a journey that took quite some time as the M25 wasn't built yet. Sometimes we would even travel Heathrow-Luton-Heathrow-Gatwick-Heathrow, all on the two pound Golden Rover ticket that was available back then.

The viewing area was at the curved taxiway from the runway to the ramp and there was a cafe situated at that point, which was a popular place for anyone to stop and look at the aircraft. The issue with photos from here was the plastic coated, square-holed fence that our camera lenses couldn't quite fit through and, as the aircraft were so close, it was a difficult job to quickly snap the aircraft as they sped by. Remember that it was manual focus, manual exposure and no motor-drives at that time, so we did have quite a hard time. This area was taken over by easyJet in the modern era.

During the late 70s and early 80s Luton was Britannia central, both aircraft wise, with the Bristol Britannia being a popular freighter, and also it being the home of Britannia Airways and its Boeing 737s.

The film era pages above have specific information on individual aircraft depicted.

Subscribe to receive updates via: e-mail list | Facebook | Instragram | Twitter

[photo/serial list]

---

[photos from behind the scenes]