There is something intrinsically fascinating in lifting your head or looking out the window and spotting an aircraft and wondering where it is coming from or how many people are onboard. Point of Approach spells out this wonderment by combining a photographic ‘glimpse’ of flying metal* with as much publicly available information about each and every aircraft as photographed through the window of a South-London apartment on one November day.

Aircrafts flying over London are a very common sight, but only if the wind is blowing from a westerly direction†. One can see them as they exit their holding patterns around London to align themselves with the runways at Heathrow, one every two minutes from 04:00 to 23:00‡.

These four volumes contains data, diagrams and photographs of all aircrafts from one day, even those that were missed, either because they were hiding in the clouds or flying past outside my field of vision. Six hundred and fifty one in total, an average day in the life of Heathrow, like any other.

*Referring to aircrafts as flying metal is a slightly misconstrued notion. Increasingly modern airliners are ‘molded’ in carbon reinforced plastic (CRFP), which is much lighter and more durable than traditional aluminium.

† Aircrafts use either Heathrow runway 27R or 27L when they land from the west or runway 9L or 9R if they land from the east.

‡ Heathrow’s night curfew starts at 23:30 and ends at 06:00. Any aircraft landing outside that designated period are subject to a night levy, which depends on how much noise it generates.