My day at Heathrow with Britain's planespotting king
It cost $490 million (£366m), has flown 500 people thousands of miles, made possible by massive computing power, orbiting satellites, and impeccable piloting skills guiding it through the world's busiest airspace to land with pinpoint accuracy on a Heathrow Airport runway.
'Go on, my son… easy… easy… woooaaah… bosh! Nice one.'
This isn't the guidance of air traffic control, but the commentary of Jerry Dyer as 390 tons of Emirates Airbus A380 kiss the runway and graceful glide becomes dramatic flurry of tyre smoke, air brakes, stabiliser and rudder movements, then the deep howl-and-whistle of reverse engine thrust to slow the behemoth.
Dyer is planespotting royalty, the man behind Big Jet TV, the YouTube channel blasted to the fore during Storm Eunice in February 2022 and Storm Gerrit in December 2023. His commentary and footage hit mainstream news as he charted the heroics and skills of pilots wrestling their airliners to the ground through the gales at Heathrow.
Three years later, his channel is approaching 500,000 subscribers, a global community of highly engaged aviation nuts, from hobbyists to pilots.
We met at his home on a leafy avenue near the airport. The ground floor is filled with flight simulators, a broadcasting studio – the backdrop of which is a scale model airport called 'Staines International' – and shelves of aviation memorabilia.
Twenty minutes later, I'm with him on the roof-mounted gantry of his Big Jet TV Transit van in a field alongside Heathrow. Headphones donned, Jerry is panning and zooming, chatting live to aviation fans globally as a showcase of airliners whoosh overhead.
A flight lands every 55 seconds or so; 10 seconds after they pass, a howling vortex of wind arrives in their wake.
You either get aircraft, or you don't. If you do, they're awesome, emotional, jaw-dropping feats of engineering. If you don't, they're simply metal tubes delivering you to Majorca, or a meeting in Frankfurt.
To Dyer, they're everything. Unless he's golfing.
Pre-Eunice's climatic tantrum, the Big Jet TV community was smaller and ring-fenced. But by storm end, Dyer was a near-household name. Reports disclosed that captivated viewers as varied as Chelsea footballers and the Call of Duty game design team had been ordered to stop watching the channel and get back to what they should be doing.
Dyer, 61, single, has always been interested in aircraft. His dad, Capt Robin Dyer, was a pilot. As a kid, Jerry went to air shows. While work got in the way – variously City trading, setting up mountain-biking and then motorcycling magazines, and an interior shutters business – he produced aviation-themed videos, posted on YouTube, and interest, well, took off.
In 2016, he went full time, generating enough from the videos, online chat shows, subscriptions and merchandise to make a living, the subject matter taking him all over the world to film. But Big Jet TV, he says, is not about making money. His engagement with the subject and members is testament to that.
Key to the organisation around Big Jet TV, its shows and social media, is Gilly Prestwood, the director of operations. Working with him for several years, she was a member of Big Jet TV who morphed into the organisational role as its only employee.
Dyer says: 'She solves problems, runs the store, gets up at 5am if we've got a big show on. I couldn't operate without her. Running Big Jet TV is hard work.'
He adds: 'We've an eclectic membership, from five-year-olds to grown-ups who love to just watch planes, and teenagers who want to become aircrew or engineers, technicians. One guy started watching the channel with no intention of becoming a pilot. But he's since qualified and flies for an American airline.
'Looking at all its aspects, aviation is an amazing subject. Old aircraft technology is just as amazing as new aircraft tech – back in the very early days with the Boeing 707, and prior to that with BOAC (now British Airways) and their Viscounts and then the Comet.'
He pauses as a British Airways A350 whooshes low overhead.
'The technology is fascinating, the way everything has evolved so amazingly over a short space of time.'
I ask whether there are ever any disagreements among members. He says: 'There's people who are in this just to collect (airplane) registration numbers, [and] people who are like, 'Oh, I don't like the A380. I think it's horrible.' Man, it's a plane. Appreciate it because of its size and that Airbus took that risk.
'We don't get into proper spats, but there are definitely people who, like me, are traditionalists, who love old aircraft when they were 'real aeroplanes'. Some of the older generation would say, 'When aircraft were real aircraft, when they were built tough.' I'm an all-over 'aviationist', though: old and modern.
'When we're chatting during the shows, people still say when I've just filmed an A380 taking off, 'It amazes me how that thing gets in the air.' Well, it gets in the air exactly the same way as any aircraft does. It just needs more engines and bigger wings. Aerodynamics to me is an amazing thing, and how that's evolved, and efficiency improved.'
As Big Jet TV has almost half a million subscribers, I suggest to Dyer that he has made geeky planespotting cool.
'People say it's the extremeness of an A380 or a 747 landing heavy in strong cross-winds, especially when you see an aircraft being put through its paces, more so the flight crew,' he says.
'I'll have a 'wow' moment at least once a show, whether it's a modern jet's tricky cross-wind landing or a 90-year-old Douglas DC-3 taking off. We're filming right now where we filmed Storm Eunice, 268,000 people watching live. On an average show I'll get 6,000 live viewers, up to 100,000 views post-live.'
He has six filming locations around Heathrow, and is hugely grateful to the airport authorities and local businesses, with whom he's established relationships allowing him close and exclusive access for filming.
Dyer's favourite aircraft? 'The [Boeing 787] Dreamliner. There's no wing like the Dreamliner's. An Airbus A350 wing is amazing when you're looking out on it as it rotates (takes off) and the wing flexes up like 11ft. But the Dreamliner wing is phenomenal, its flex way beyond anything else.'
One whooshes overhead; like with most big jets it's a soft noise, but loud.
'Isn't it beautiful? The wing is plastic. Insane. The ailerons flapping around on the outside, the flaperons in the middle. Just levelling everything up, all computer-controlled. Long flare (when the aircraft nose rises before touchdown), bit of thermal heat from the ground,' he says.
It's then that you appreciate it's not just same-y back-to-back landings every 55 seconds or so; each touchdown is different, influenced by all manner of human control inputs and ever-differing climatic influences. It's strangely compelling.
And if Dyer weren't doing Big Jet TV? 'I'd like to run an airline,' he said. Bosh.
How to spot aircraft at Heathrow
Many UK and foreign airports provide and maintain viewing areas for aviation fans. Where to make camp can depend upon wind direction and airport operations, so be prepared to head to one spot, then find you have to move to another. Better still, seek out the planespotting communities, often via Big Jet TV, to get tips ahead of your trip on where and when is best.
At Heathrow, Dyer recommends nearby Myrtle Avenue, a popular spotting spot for 'LHR', but because of the airport's location and surroundings other spots are mainly in hotel grounds: the Renaissance, Courtyard and Thistle all neighbour the runways, but you need to be a patron. European airports such as Brussels, Frankfurt, Schiphol and Zurich have dedicated spotting areas, and lend themselves to day trips for enthusiasts.
Such hub airports can mean a daily feast of flights coming and going, so take a folding chair, packed lunch and spare camera and phone batteries or power banks.
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