If you’re a fan of plane spotting, you’ll likely to have heard of Myrtle Avenue – Heathrow’s famous plane spotting road. Popular with aviation fans and photographers, Myrtle Avenue is located right beside one of Heathrow’s runways and when you time it right, is a great spot for spending an afternoon (or morning or day!) watching plane after plane land at London’s famous airport. Read on to discover what you need to know to visit Myrtle Avenue near Heathrow.
Suggested read: The best day trips from London.
Where is Myrtle Avenue?
As mentioned above, Myrtle Avenue is found right near Heathrow Airport. You can find Myrtle Avenue at this Google Maps location here. If you have a car, you can park on the the surrounding streets (but please be aware there are ‘no parking’ signs in front of some houses). If you want to reach Myrtle Avenue by public transport you can easily do so by taking either a train to Feltham Station and then a bus to Myrtle Avenue, or the tube to Hatton Cross Underground Station and walk 10 minutes to Myrtle Avenue (Google Maps directions here).
When is the best time to visit Myrtle Avenue near Heathrow?
It is very important to time your visit to Myrtle Avenue correctly, because mis-timing it will mean you won’t get to see anything. Due to wind and other factors, planes take off and land on different runways and therefore you need to find out when they are landing across Myrtle Avenue for your Heathrow plane spotting trip to be worth while.
How to find out when planes are landing at Heathrow over Myrtle Avenue?
To time your Heathrow plane spotting trip to Myrtle Avenue perfectly, you need to be sure that planes are landing on the Southern Runway: Runway 27L. You can find out what runway Heathrow is using on the day of your visit by looking at the Twitter account: @HeathrowRunways. Note: This used to be called @HeathrowNoise if you have heard of that account before, but was changed to Heathrow Runways. On the Heathrow Runways Twitter account they will regularly post updates on what runways are in use. You may need to check for a few days in a row until you get a day where they are landing on Runway 27L. Also keep in mind that if you look early in the morning and plan on visiting later in the day, you will need to keep checking in case they change the runway throughout the day.
What to expect when you visit Heathrow’s famous plane spotting road
There are a few things to expect when visiting Myrtle Avenue. Firstly, even if you visit on a week day expect a number of people to be there. Myrtle Avenue is a very popular spot for plane enthusiasts, photographers and those just wanting to try something new, so even if you’re visiting out of a weekend, expect there to be other people there as well. However, in addition to Myrtle Road, there is a large park the planes fly across, which means that even if there are other people around, you will all still have a lot of space.
There are a range of different planes that fly in, and in my opinion, the larger the plane, the more impressive it is, as they are often already closer to the ground before touch down.
The planes don’t fly directly overhead this road (or at least, they don’t do it all the time), and if you walk towards the busy road on the other side of the park and head along the pathway, you’re likely to come across where the planes fly directly over which can be very cool as well.
What to bring to go plane spotting at Myrtle Avenue
There are a few essentials to bring to go plane spotting and these include
- Camera
- Tripod
- Mobile phone
- Hat (in summer), coat (in winter!) – of course
- Snacks and drinks – it can be very enjoyable to spend a few hours here.
- Download the Flight Radar 24 app. This app makes it a lot easier to see when the larger planes are coming in to land (which fly closer to the ground and are more impressive to view and photograph).
Should you go plane spotting and to Myrtle Avenue if you are scared of flying?
Without wanting to give professional advice without being appropriately qualified on it, going plane spotting on Myrtle Avenue can be very helpful if you are a nervous flyer. Often phobias are improved by exposing yourself slowly to the anxious stimuli, and when people are scared of flying it can be very difficult for them to have a slow increase of exposure (normally you’re on a plane or you’re not – you’re in turbulence at random, not at a controlled pace). Going to places like Myrtle Avenue where you can watch planes land (and trust me, there are a lot of planes – I would guess one every 2-3 minutes while I was there) can be very helpful to normalise the process that can be quite frightening in your mind. I would note that while I was here I saw an aborted landing (couldn’t understand why they aborted the landing from watching from below) and therefore this can be triggering to people who are early on in their stage of getting over their flying phobia, but it can also be very helpful to see that events like that are normal occurrences (and whatever their reason for their aborted landing it didn’t stop the plane coming into land 2 minutes behind them). If you’re unsure if this activity will help you, I’d suggest talking to a doctor or a psychologist or bringing a friend along with you for your first visit. Good luck x
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