Routing Into Heathrow

To Help pilots from outside of  the UK, I have included the standard routes from the Atlantic and Main Land Europe  to London Heathrow. I will build them up for easy reference. around the major UK airports.

All traffic filters into one of the 4 holding stacks at Heathrow they are on VOR beacons as follows

Bovingdon (BNN) NW of Heathrow
Lambourne (LAM) NE of Heathrow
Biggin (BIG) SE of Heathrow
Ockham (OCK) SW of Heathrow minimum stack height is Flight Level 70

Traffic from America and Ireland route to Bovingdon or Ockham depending on entry points into the UK. All inbound Scottish and Northern Britain traffic routes to Bovingdon.

Traffic to Bovingdon standard arrival route is from either the Isle of Man IOM or Dean Cross DCS on the Scottish Border routing to Wallasey WAL then to Honiley (HON) then Westcott NDB WCO then to Bovingdon. BNN

Traffic to Ockham comes from either Lands End VOR Strumble VOR or ORTAC OR BARLU reporting points in France This will cover flights from Spain, Portugal ,Canary Islands, South America and some North American cities. Routes are as follows :-
Lands End route is Dawly, Southampton,( SAM) Hazel, Ockham( OCK)
Strumble traffic routes Brecon (BCN), KENET then Ockham (OCK)
Ortac and Barlu traffic routes to Kathy then Hazel Ockham (OCK)

ORTAC and BARLU and KATHY are reporting points in the English Channel North East of Jersey

Traffic to BIGGIN comes from airports in Switzerland some Italian and French and North Africa. The route normally comes North on the east side of Paris to the VOR at Abbeville ABB on the French Coast then direct to Biggin (BIG)

Traffic To Lambourne

This is the busiest inbound route to Heathrow Belgium Middle and Far East traffic plus Russian traffic arrive on this route plus German and Austrian and some Italian. Most of the traffic filters onto the route from Brussels VOR to Costa VOR then Blusy Logan Lamborne .

Scandinavian traffic routes from PAM to REFSO then Lambourne from the Amsterdam Flight Region

Blusy Logan and Refso are reporting points in the North Sea other traffic routes down from Norway on UM 604 from Kristainsand in Norway towards these points  |All these routes converge on Lamborne VOR  flying North of the River Thames and South of the Outbound traffic.

From Stacks to Touch Down

Heathrow runways 27 L or 27 R

leave Lambourne heading 235 descend to 2500 ft at 14 DME start right turn intercept ILS
leave Biggin heading 335 descend to 2500ft 8 DME start left turn for ILS
leave Ockham heading 070 descend to 2500ft at Ockham 12 DME to left for ILS
leave Bovingdon heading 135 descend to 2500ft at Bovingdon 19 DME turn right for ILS

Heathrow Runway 9L 9R

leave Lambourne heading 265 to 34 DME Lambourne turn left to ILS descend to 2500ft
leave Bovingdon heading 225 to 15 DME Bovingdon turn left to ILS descend to 2500ft
leave Biggin heading 280 to 30 DME Biggin turn right to ILS descend to 2500ft
leave Ockham heading 305 to 14 Dme Ockham turn right to ILS descend to 2500ft

ILS frequencies 110.30 109.50

The Final Approach

Normally on Westerly Operations the Biggin Arrivals are pushed towards Ockham on leaving the hold  they then blend into the pattern with the Ockham traffic. A similar pattern happens on the north side where Lambourne arrivals are pushed towards Bovingdon and then fed in between the Bovingdon Arrivals. This is all done by Air Traffic Control at West Drayton now. Heathrow no longer has its own approach control under the tower. The picture below shows the South Side flows. What never fails to amaze me is the stream is constant all day and there is never a gap when the South Side finish and the the North side start. The aircraft are 4 miles apart for example. You can see that Lamborne and Biggin traffic route in an S shape.

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