Some Features Show Better in Video

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I was at Ryde one Saturday morning watching the Hovertravel service on a windy day. Because hovercraft are not in contact with the surface, there is no grip to counter any crosswinds. The technique for operating is therefore like flying a plane. You have to yaw into the wind to offset the drift the wind produces. When taking stills, you don’t really show this but, when watching it happen, the drifting is very obvious.

Consequently, video is the way to go. I got some clips of the hovercraft coming in, first over the water and then as it transitioned to the sand flats. For the hovercraft, the change of surface makes no difference. It does mean, when the wind is right, you can get head on shots when they aren’t coming straight at you!

A Grumman Goose Joins the Party

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The Martin Mars was the reason we had made the trip to Sproat Lake last year, but it wasn’t the only flying boat we got. At one point, when we were on the dock rather than out on the water, the rumble of engines came to us. We wondered what it might be but didn’t have to wait long to find out. A Grumman Goose came over the top and headed off to land on the water. We were hoping that it might fly around a bit and maybe come over along with the Mars but that wasn’t to be. Just a quick encounter and that was it.

Who Would Get a Slot and Who Has One?

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I was looking at the various statues on the outside of the cathedral in Salisbury. Normally I will not pay that much attention to the details of these statues, but I paused for a few minutes and noticed the differences between the people represented. It was easy to tell the priests because they were all standing with a hand raised as if giving the sign of the cross. There were a bunch that weren’t in that pose, though. Some looked like they might be specific trades – presumably those involved in building or maintaining the cathedral itself.

The other thing that struck me was that, while there were loads of of alcoves on the façade of the cathedral, they weren’t all occupied. Presumably, when they built it they recognised that additional individuals – bishops I guess – would be deserving of their own slot at some point. Whether there weren’t enough worthy people or they just stopped adding statues, I do not know. I wonder what it would take to add someone new at this point?

A Pair of MC-12s But Only One Moves

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I don’t know why two MC-12s might be showing up in Seattle. Maybe they have training requirements that involve deploying to random places or maybe they were intently listening in to the people of Seattle. I suspect that might not have been super interesting but you never know. Whatever the reason, there were two of them parked on the Modern ramp at BFI a while back. Normally a King Air would not get me terribly excited but stick lots of lumps and bumps on it and now I will show some interest. I was hoping that they both might fly while I was there but only one was fired up. It as a warm day and heat haze was not on my side so the ramp shots were a bit ropey. At least the one that flew came closer when it headed to the runway so I could get a slightly less hazy shot!

Wherwell Looks Like a Postcard

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Since moving to Hampshire, one thing that has struck me repeatedly is just how picturesque all of the villages in the area are. It feels like every place is a combination of thatched cottages, a pond, a little church and probably a nice-looking pub. When you say it that way, it doesn’t sound too bad. Nancy had found a local walk that seemed like it might be interesting, so we decided to try it out.

It started out in a village called Wherwell. Wherwell does its very best to fit in with the profile that I outlined above. The pub is currently being refurbished and there is a river instead of a pond but otherwise, it ticks all of the cuteness boxes. Here are some images of the village from our stroll. It is a linear village, so everything is pretty much along the one road and that means you have to be conscious of vehicles coming through.

The Phantom Restoration Has Moved On

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A little over two years ago, I made a brief visit to Kemble prior to attending a family wedding! One of the things I was surprised to find was a pair of Phantoms that were sitting stored by the road. When I went back for the Buccaneer event, the Phantoms had moved to a new location along one of the airport roads. A structure has been erected and one of the Phantoms is inside along with a bunch of parts. Outside was the raspberry ripple aircraft that had been used at Boscombe Down. It has undergone a lot of work and is looking in far better shape than when I last saw it. Still plenty to do but great progress.

Severn Valley Railway at Kidderminster

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2025 is the 200th anniversary of the first passenger railways in the world and the UK is celebrating this throughout the year with the Rail200 events. Our company is supporting this at a few events including a weekend at the Severn Valley Railway in Kidderminster. I volunteered to take part in this event so spent a couple of days showing people around our hydrogen fuel cell demonstrator train. More of that in a separate post.

The Severn Valley station is alongside the mainline station in Kidderminster. I guess you had to walk between the two stations when this line was still a part of the national system. The mainline station is a modern looking affair, but the Severn Valley’s station has a far more period feel to it. Here are some images of the station itself. It will come as no surprise to find out that I shall have more posts to come from the weekend before too long.

Messing Up the F-35B Departure

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Since I switched to my R3 bodies, I have been playing a lot more with low shutter speeds to emphasise speed in images. This has been a topic in multiple posts on the blog in recent years. However, it doesn’t always work out well. I know that the keeper rate will fall when shooting fast moving objects at low shutter speeds, but you hope/expect that you’ll get something worthwhile from the ones you take.

However, that doesn’t always happen. During Seafair last year, the US Marine Corps F-35B departed Boeing Field for its display. I decided to go low with the shutter speed from my location up on the tower with the aim of having the airfield background blurring out and leaving me with the plane as the dominant element in the shot with little distraction. However, when I came to go through the sequence of shots that I took, I had some sharp ones as it approached me and as it flew away but nothing that really pleased me as it was closest and alongside me.

Some of them weren’t terrible but it was a huge disappointment as I clicked through the images and came to the realisation that I had blown it. You can’t always get lucky, and I knew what I was doing so I can’t be totally surprised that it didn’t work out, but it was still a bit galling. Does this mean I won’t do it again? No. Getting the record shot is fine, but I am more bothered about having a shot I really like these days. Might as well give it a go!

Good Morning Gandhi

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Our London office is on Tavistock Square and, every morning when I jump off the bus, I am next to the path into the middle of the square and I find myself looking at a statue of Mahatma Gandhi. Normally I am in a rush into the office so don’t stop to look at it. However, one morning I had started a call as I was getting off the bus and, rather than have it interrupted by signal loss in the lift, I walked around the square while on the call. When it was finished, I was right by the statue so took a moment to look at it and take a couple of photos.

An Unusual Pairing for “Formations”

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In the late 1980s, the RAF had just introduced the Tornado ADV to service. The squadron boss of the OCU displayed the jet with a Spitfire of the BBMF. This dissimilar formation caught my attention at the time. This was repeated in the 2000s when the RAF repeated the idea with a Typhoon and Spitfire display. However, I think I saw something that trumped both of those combinations at the Shuttleworth Military Air Show. The combination of a Great War SE5a and Spitfire was really something else. You might think that a fast jet and a Spitfire is a tough combination, but jets can fly slowly quite well, and Spitfires are no slouch.

However, an SE5a is not a speedy plane while a Spitfire is still no slouch! How to make this work then? Some very clever use of speed differentials and spacing is the answer. The SE5a would fly some curving passes closer to the crowd line while the Spitfire offset further out – slowing into the pass and then accelerating away. The result is a view from the crowd where both planes are quite well aligned.

The idea was very interesting. I won’t say it is innovative because I’m sure someone has done something like this before, but it was the first time I had seen it. The result was surprisingly effective, and they did it on a few passes. I don’t know just how precise the initial points have to be and how much scope the pilots have to adjust on the run in to make it work. I assume the SE5a pilot just flies the pass, and the Spitfire pilot has the power and control to make the adjustments. Whatever the approach, it worked well.