In message , at 10:52:15 on Fri, 4
Nov 2011, Graeme Wall remarked:

Regardless of what's on the ground, they routinely start to turn very
soon after take-off, so as to head in the direction they need to fly
(ie, to join the airway). It's not normally straight ahead.

I used to live in Reading which is almost exactly due west of
Heathrow. Tell me again about the planes having turned off before then.

A few head west over Reading, but others turn over Windsor. It depends
where they are going.

So some do go straight ahead, contrary to what you said before.

That was my first posting to the thread, so no I didn't say anything
before.

In addition some of those that do turn will be turning north-west
across London, it's a big place.

What's important here is how far west of Heathrow they get, so we can
compare how far west of the estuary airport the planes might turn.

There's a flight to Los Angeles coming over Notts soon, and that stayed
within 5Km of the end of the runway (measuring east-west; it flew just
east of High Wycombe).

But there's no need to argue about this, actual data he
http://www.flightradar24.com/

I've just watched a Heathrow-Edinburgh flight take off west and turn
right over Cookham heading for High Wycombe then Bedford;

Extrapolate that to a take off east of London and what route will it take?

No further west than the M25. There's an air lane over Maidstone,
Harlow, Corby, Nottingham with loads of transatlantic flights from
continental Europe currently.
--
Roland Perry