Author Archives: Rob

A Juno Interrupts My Lunch

Middle Wallop has a café upstairs in the museum and Paul and I retreated there for a little sustenance and some idle banter. On the visitor ramp across from the museum, a Juno helicopter from the training fleet was sitting awaiting its next flight. As we ate, we saw the crew step to the helicopter. For those of you that have followed military aviation, you will know that there was no need to interrupt our food. Unless there is an alert, military aviation happens at a deliberate pace.

After a while, with engines running and rotors turning, we did finally head out to the balcony alongside the taxiway that they would be using. Even this was slightly premature as it was a little longer before the rotors finally generated lift and the Juno got airborne. It then taxied towards us and through the gate to the airfield before turning across the grass and pulling up to depart. A brief addition to the day but a good one. My first Juno!

Spinnaker Tower

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A long time ago, as part of the redevelopment of the harbour at Portsmouth, a tower was built. It is alongside the Gunwharf Quays development and rises above the waterfront providing a view across to the Isle of Wight and back to the South Downs. The tower is shaped like a spinnaker from a yacht and so it is named Spinnaker Tower. I have seen the tower on numerous occasions when taking the ferry from Portsmouth to the Isle of Wight. However, I had never actually been up it.

On this trip, we had a lot of time to explore Portsmouth and I decided to go up the tower as part of the visit. There are three visitor levels. The main level is the lowest of the three (but still a decent height). It has the most space and includes a glass floor section to allow you to look directly down. The next level up is a little smaller and has a café. The top level is smaller still and doesn’t really provide much the first level doesn’t have. The windows are also angled in steeply which makes them more problematic for photography.

The view across the whole of the dockyard including the Victory and Mary Rose was great (although one is indoors and the other is currently under covers) and you could see across the Solent or back towards the city. I really enjoy elevated viewing locations so this was a great place for me to spy on the world around me.

A Marine Corps Bonus Package

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One weekend, I was at Boeing Field for a visiting warbird. I was pleasantly surprised to see some US Marine Corps helicopters across the field too. A combination of UH-1Y Venoms and AH-1Z Vipers were on the ramp. I had no idea if or when they would fly. However, luck was on my side as a Venom/Viper pair fired up and launched on a training mission. The rest stayed on the ramp while I was there but this pair taxied out to the main runway and then departed past my location. A nice extra!

Sun On The Seminary

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Despite having lived in the area for over five years, for some reason, we had never been to St Edward State Park before. We went for a walk there that will get a separate post. In the center of the park is the old Seminary building which has now been converted into a hotel. With a nice sunny day to light it, it looked like a pretty interesting structure. No doubt, it has some interesting history too!

Army Flying Museum

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Our vacation in the UK wasn’t about aviation exploits but, if an opportunity presents itself, it would be churlish not to follow up. I had made arrangements to visit my friend Paul while I was in Hampshire and, halfway between us is Middle Wallop, home of Army aviation in the UK and also a museum. I guess that would be a good place to meet up.

The museum isn’t large but it has recently gone through some refurbishment and it is definitely a good place to spend a couple of hours. Army aviation has a strong rotary element to it but there has also been plenty of fixed wing activity. The collection is a good reflection of both. I will save one exhibit for a separate post but there are plenty of others. The Lynx was a big part of the Army’s fleet for many years and the example that they have in the first hangar is actually a development airframe that has been restored. The three windows on the cabin door are the most conspicuous identification item. There is another operational Lynx in the second hangar too.

A selection of Austers are included in the displays. There is also a Scout (with a second one on the grass by the parking lot). An Agusta 109 is tucked away too. This example was in service with Argentina in the Falklands and was co-opted by the UK forces when they took control. It was used for support to the SAS along with a second example. They ended up buying two more so I guess they worked well. The Beaver was also used extensively with one sitting outside too. The Alouette had a career with the Army but was not as widely used. It is still displayed, though. There are some old types reflecting the early days or military aviation too.

The only thing that confused me was the name. I have seen it called the Army Flying Museum (on the wall) and the Museum of Army Aviation. I wonder which it really is!

Killdeer Versus The Worm

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While I was down at Juanita Bay one weekend, a killdeer was hanging out on a muddy flat near me. It was busy extracting worms from the mud to snack on. The worms were not totally onboard with this plan and they were doing their best to stay in the mud. Some times the killdeer won the struggle and sometimes the worm did!

My First Trip To Myrtle Avenue

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The day before we left the UK for home, we headed to a hotel at the airport since we had an early departure in the morning. We got there early in the afternoon and I figured I had a little time to make my way to Myrtle Avenue. I have seen plenty of photos from this location but have never actually shot from there. They swap runways at 3pm and I had about an hour before that time. Not a lot but the conditions were great so time to try.

What I didn’t count on was the Piccadilly Line. I stood at the station under Terminal 5 for 25 minutes before a train finally left. I was only going to get to Hatton Cross with less than half an hour to go and I wondered whether it was worth it. However, I didn’t have any other plans so why not. Some rapid walking along the A30 to Myrtle Avenue with planes arriving over my head and I joined a large crowd of people hanging out enjoying the afternoon. Plenty of photographers were there but there were also loads of families just out enjoying the sunny afternoon and the planes.

It was worth going with a few interesting arrivals before 3pm arrived and they switched runways. At this point, I was tempted to head back to the hotel. Not having ever explored the east end of the airport, I didn’t know what was possible. However, as I mentioned above, I didn’t have any other plans so I wandered along the eastern perimeter road. I bumped in to a couple of other photographers – one of whom was visiting from Vancouver. There were a few spots where good shots were possible and the conditions were getting better and better. It proved to be a well worthwhile exploration which will get its own post at some point.

Winchester Cathedral

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First stop on our vacation was Winchester. It has been quite a while since I was last there and I didn’t remember much about it. The cathedral is the center of the city of old and we had a stroll around to see it. Later, Nancy took a visit inside but I never got around to doing that. Instead, I have to make do with some shots of the exterior of the cathedral. It will reappear in another post before too long, though.

F-16s In Odd Colors

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Sentry Eagle 2022 had a couple of F-16s on static display that had been painted up in special color schemes. They were supposed to be throwback schemes but, according to those I know that know more about these sorts of things, there are some issues with the schemes that they chose. I have no idea about such things but I have to say, neither scheme seemed to look that great to me. They felt slightly cartoonish but I can’t come up with a better explanation what it was.

Getting shots of them both was not straightforward. First, there were a ton of people around as they were central to the static displays for the show. Also, the sun was very high and bright and they was a lot of contrast to deal with. One of them was also close to a shadow from a hangar which made for even more contrast issues. Since we weren’t staying on base for the full show, I only had a narrow window to work with. It did improve just before we left, thankfully.

Lightroom’s New Content Aware Remove Tool

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The latest version of Lightroom Classic was recently rolled out. It comes with a bunch of new additions and refinements. The one that caught my eye was the addition of content aware remove. There was already the cloning tool and the healing tools built in and these could do a lot of what you might want. However, these have now been supplemented by content aware removal. The tool is really straightforward to use but you can customize it if you like, both by choosing what area to use as a reference and also the ability to get it to try again if you don’t like the result by hitting Refresh.

The thing I wanted to try out was using it to remove power lines. These can sometimes be a bit of a pain when taking shots but, rather than use an aviation shot with some power lines crossing it, I happened to be looking at a photo I took in California of some railroad which had a bunch of lines strung across it. I wasn’t bothered about making a great shot. I was just interested in what the tool would do with the power lines. It was surprising effective. Too close an inspection would show the flaws but, if you look at the overall image, it came out quite well with very little effort. I have the before and after shots here for comparison.