This Belgian A109 was on the static display at Cosford’s show this year. I actually used it as a reference point when meeting up with a friend. There is something about the shade of green that they use that really makes it look cool. What I didn’t realise at the time is that its days are numbered. The Belgian Air Force has just taken delivery of its first H145M with a batch of these due to replace the A109s. I wonder if I will see one again or not?
Back in the days when I first learnt to fly, I was curious about flying to Compton Abbas Airfield. Located on top of a hill in Dorset, it seemed like an interesting destination. However, I never made the trip there. Then, when my old friend Sean and I made some trips around the south of England in his Europa, we also discussed making a visit there. Not sure whether he ever went but I didn’t. Earlier this year, I got thinking about heading across because it is not much more than an hour from home by car. When I first thought of it, it was early in the year, and I thought summer would be a better time to go with longer days and a likelihood of more traffic.
Come July and it occurs to me that, if I am going to go, I should probably get on with it. So it was that one Saturday morning, we hopped in the car and drove west. It was a very pretty drive across there which made for a good start to the day. When we pulled up, they had some security guys on the gate. Apparently, it was a special day with Spitfire and Tiger Moth rides and there was a £10 charge to park. However, this £10 would then be offset against anything you bought from the café, so it really wasn’t a hardship.
The location is really rather special. Being up on top of the hill gives a lovely view to the lower ground to the north. It also makes for quite a backdrop for any aircraft shots, not that I was likely to be taking any of those! The restaurant is a modern structure, and the food was really good. We ended up sitting on a table outside to order our food which meant I was able to jump up whenever anything of interest moved.
The location does seem to make for some interesting conditions for pilots. Watching the planes on short final, you could see that they were keeping a bit high before dropping down when close in. The briefing notes on the airfield website highlight that, being low on approach can really get difficult. Looks like a place that you need to brief for carefully.
The pleasure flights in the old warbirds were certainly keeping things busy but there was the usual visiting traffic combined with some local flying training. Someone seemed to be having a bit of a time with timing their flaring for touchdown, and I felt a bit bad for them being so on view with all of the visitors when going through their early stages of flight training. I imagine learning there really teaches you some skills!
This was a lovely spot to spend some time on a sunny summer afternoon, and I would be happy to go back again. The food is also great so that would be tempting too. They had a converted horse lorry that served as an outdoor bar which might be worth checking out too next time.
A day out at Goodwood Festival of Speed was clearly done to see the cars on show. However, there might have been a chance for a little aviation to be thrown into the mix. On the Friday of the show, I was working from home and heard a sequence of helicopters head overhead. About four helicopters seemed to be running a shuttle from a country house hotel near us across to Goodwood. Seems like a pretty decent idea. It’s probably not much more than fifteen minutes and means a nice spot to stay combined with no traffic. Maybe I should have given it a go.
Elite Helicopters from Goodwood was running the service. For the rest of the day, they were doing pleasure flights around the venue. At one point in the day, I headed across to the field that they had set up for the helicopters and sat watching the steady flow. A combination of JetRangers, LongRangers and JetRangerXs were being used. There were a number of pads and ground crews were sequencing passengers on and off. A one-way system meant that the departing helicopters would go around a cluster of trees and out the back passing the inbound traffic. They were certainly keeping busy.
I would have quite liked to do a ride, but I decided this was not the day for it. The hillside around the event would make for a good view. I learned to fly at the nearby Goodwood aerodrome and know that the Trundle looks nice with the horse racing course being cool to see too. Combine that with so much stuff on the ground for the festival, it would be a good trip.
I would probably be camera happy in that environment but, watching the flights, it did occur to me that everyone did seem to be busy watching it through their phone rather than just looking at it. I would probably be tempted to do something similar. That is when something like the Insta360 can help because you don’t have to frame anything. It can all be done after the event allowing you to just enjoy the moment. I hope they all enjoyed their flights.
When I was a kid, the Pitts Special was the pinnacle of aerobatic aircraft. Then, the arrival of a bunch of high-powered monoplanes like the Zlin Z50L showed up follow by Extras, and the Pitts became more the preserve of individuals getting into aerobatics. It can still make a good display platform, though, and plenty of souped-up versions are on the air show circuit. The Cosford show included one flown by Rich Goodwin that has been modified with a pair of turbine engines mounted on each side of the fuselage.
This makes for a lot of noise and plenty of extra power. The piston engine still does the majority of the work but, when going vertical, the jets are fired up and give a major boost in performance. That can include hovering in place if required. From some angles, the plane is hard to notice as being any different to any other Pitts. However, from the right angles, the engines are conspicuous. A pretty cool display act. I assume top speed is constrained by the original airframe limitations so not much point in using the jets unless pointing upwards.
Sometimes, pilots don’t realise that their obligations to a photographer are more important than their other mission goals!! I was in a Voyager on a refuelling track over the North Sea providing fuel to a bunch of RAF jets. A couple of Typhoons from 3 Sqn (ignore the unit markings on one of the jets) came up to get some fuel. They had a time on a range that they were waiting for so hung out in formation on our wing until near their slot so that they could top off at the last minute before heading in.
A tight formation of the two jets off our wing was really cool. They were close in and their formation was nice and tight. Perfect photo stuff. However, their location was just a touch further back then ideal with the wing tip obscuring the planes a touch. I was desperately hoping that they would pull forward just a touch. Nope, locked in place seemingly effortlessly maintaining station. Then, after a turn at the end of the track, the positioning moved just a touch forward. I was able to get a clear shot of the pair at last. What a great view. This was also one of those moments when it is important to stop looking through the viewfinder and enjoy watching this most unusual of sights.
The final display of the Cosford air show was the Chinook demo. I have always enjoyed a Chinook display because it is a very agile helicopter despite its size and it can be thrown around which impresses. There is also the wheelie that it can do which has a unique feel to it. However, I wasn’t prepared for just how much I enjoyed the display.
There were a number of elements that made it so good. First, it was at the end of the show, and the light had come around to be more favourable for photos. This could have been even better because a bit of cloud cover rolled in. A little while after the display was over, this cleared and the warm light was so nice. It would have been great to have that on the helicopter during the display. Let’s not focus on the negative though, when there is so much positive.
They started the display carrying in a couple of underslung loads. Showing off the lifting performance of the helicopter is a great way of showing what this capability is all about. They had a howitzer and a truck on lifting lines using two of the three pickup points that the Chinook has. A bit of manoeuvring with that before dropping it off on the airfield. The gun crew then came out and set the gun up. They proceeded to fire off a few blank rounds.
Then it was back to throwing the helicopter around for a bit. A helicopter display always has an advantage in that it can keep things in front of the crowd, and some tight turns certainly achieved that.
However, I haven’t yet highlighted what really made the display great. The commentary was top notch. You might think that a military display narrator is going to run through a staid list of talking points but that was not the case here. Sure, they did highlight the capabilities of the helicopter and the helicopter force as a while but there was so much ridiculousness thrown in to keep you amused throughout.
Whether it was pointing out that one of the crew had both of his friends in attendance or describing the vertical climb and pointing out it has no operational benefit but it does look really cool, the lines kept coming. They were delivered in such a normal way, though, that you needed to pay attention to spot when the serious bits had been superseded by the more flippant lines. Top stuff and hats off to the team. Great flying, great performance and excellent writing!
Let’s jump back in time to when we were still in Washington. My buddy, Mark, had come down from Vancouver to visit a friend and had some time to kill so was stopping off in Kenmore to photograph some floatplane activity. I headed over to join up with him since it is fun to see a friend and there is never a bad time to watch floatplanes.
An extra was that Mark knew a spot that I didn’t – local knowledge, huh?? There is a public dock that is accessible and has benches to make hanging out relaxing. It is a lot quieter than the pier at Log Boom Park which, on a sunny day, can get very busy with the local kids swimming. It also brings you in closer to the approach path of the planes which adds some options for the shots. We hung out for a while with a bunch of the usual sort of traffic coming and going. Then we each had places to go. Having a location like this on your doorstep was definitely a bonus when we lived in Woodinville.
Tanker trips are always a great opportunity if they come up and I had another one a while back. Back to Brize and up in the Voyager. This was a slightly shorter trip than the last one as a result of a planned runway closure at Brize that needed us to be back on the ground. While it was shorter than my previous trip, we did have more trade.
The majority of what we got was Typhoon traffic. It is quite a challenge picking them out as they turn in towards the tanker for the join. Sometimes I spot them but often they are behind us before I know they are there. Isn’t that what a fighter pilot is supposed to always do? Once they appear on the port wing, you get a good look at them before they slip into pre-contact position. The forward fuselage is a good spot to be when they arrive and depart but, once they are on the hose, you can only see them from the last few rows of the aircraft and then it is very tight.
Fortunately, they stay on the basket for a while which means that people get a good chance to have a look and get some images. Picking a side for the light depending on which side of the racetrack we are using is handy, but you can also get a change of light if making the turn at either end. When the planes gather on the starboard side ready to depart, I changed my approach this time. I would kneel on the floor because, when they power up and climb away, they go up fast. You need to be low down to be able to track them heading off.
The Royal Navy contribution to the RAF Cosford air show was a great combination. They brought a Leonardo Wildcat in partnership with a Fairey Swordfish. This is right up there with the odd combination that I have seen at air shows over the years. A rotary airframe and a fixed wing has happened before but often the fixed wing is really struggling to go slowly enough for the helicopter. In this case, the helicopter has the speed advantage on the Swordfish. It is not a speed demon.
They did a pairs takeoff which was really interesting and then commenced their display with a flypast in tribute to the lost crew from the Merlin crash that had occurred not long before the show. They then carried out a sequence of passes before splitting for individual performances. The Stringbag is a beast of an aircraft, even if it isn’t fast. I got some other shots of it that will probably show up at some point.
With RIAT having been cancelled for 2026, I find myself looking back at some shots from last year. This was the first time I got to see some Gripen E variants. All of my previous Gripen encounters have been earlier generations of the jet from the prototypes onwards. There was a pair of the jets taking off together at the end of the show. A tight crop on them as they climbed out gave a good look at these new airframes. I do like the Gripen. Nice to see it still finding customers.
