During my visit to Heathrow for the Cathay special, I was looking at the list of inbound types to see if there was anything else that would be of interest. An Air Peace 777 was listed but it didn’t show its departure time so I figured that it might have been cancelled. Consequently, I wasn’t expecting it to show up. Consequently, when I saw it appear on approach using FR24, I was delighted and rather surprised. Here is is – another new operator to see in person.
This is an old shot from 2019. I came over to the UK for a visit that included a trip to RIAT. As part of the display, a British Airways 747-400 painted in the retro BOAC markings did a couple of flybys with the Red Arrows on one of the weekend days. A few weeks before, this 747 had come into Seattle and I got a lovely evening shot of it in front of Mt Rainier.
A year later and the onset of the pandemic had resulted in BA retiring their entire fleet of 747s. This wasn’t the last time I photographed one of their jets, but it was probably one of the more impressive ones. In one of the shots, you can see Red 10 flying offset from the formation – presumably acting as whipper in and providing a photo platform. I came across these shots recently and figured, since these hadn’t been on the blog before, they were worth a look again.
Working back through some old images, I came across a couple of shots of a British Airways 787-10 Dreamliner as it was climbing out of Heathrow. The departure routing includes a turn out to the south and the angles made for an interesting view of the upper sides of the plane. Not sure which of these two shots I prefer (setting aside the softness from heat haze), so I have included both. You decide if you have a preference.
The lighting was far from ideal at Cosford when B-17 Sally B did its display, but the display itself was a good one. After a couple of decades in the US, I have seen a variety of B-17s at air shows. Sally B will still be the first one I saw, though. She has been part of the UK display scene for as long as I have known about it and was one of the five that were used for the filming of Memphis Belle. Good to see her again and glad to know that they have continued to keep her active.
After landing back at Heathrow from a work trip, we were taxiing back towards T5 and passing a variety of parked airlines. These two 787-9s caught my eye. Both are in Norse livery but one is labeled IndiGo. This Indian airline has been leasing jets from Norse. I guess only one got the change in titles. At the time of writing this, I understand the lease arrangements have ben terminated so maybe this was a lucky break to catch this before it wouldn’t be seen again.
I posted a bunch of crossing shots of the USAF Thunderbirds and, since I was doing that, I thought it might look like favouritism if I didn’t do the same for the Blue Angels. I saw a lot more of the Blue Angels in the second half of my time living in the US because Fleet Week in San Francisco and Seafair in Seattle always had them in attendance. That meant I got to see them after the transition to the Super Bug but the majority of shows I saw over the years were with the legacy Hornets. Anyway, here are a bunch of crossing shots for the Blues to balance things up.
One of the teams taking part at the show at Cosford was the Blue Eagles. The Army Air Corps used to have a team called the Blue Eagles and I saw them on a number of occasions but, apparently, the name went away for a while. It has returned and the routine is a combination of a pair of Apaches and a single Wildcat. This was my first time seeing an Army Wildcat display and that might not happen much more since the recent defence review announced the=at they would be phased out.
The coordinated manoeuvres of the two Apaches combined with the Wildcat doing its own thing. It kept something in front of the crowd at all times. The Apache is such an impressive machine with a menacing air about it. Meanwhile, the Wildcat has inherited the agility of the Lynx and so was thrown around with some vigour. I was happy to watch them perform and liked the synchronisation that they put into the planning. It is a good demo of the Army’s aviation capabilities.
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!
As is often the case, this shot is the result of me looking for something else. While searching through the catalogue to find something, I came across my first visit to the Aviation Nation show at Nellis AFB. I would end up spending a lot of time at Nellis over the years, but this was possibly my first real visit. The USAF F-15E Strike Eagle demo was on the programme, and I had the 500mm on as it took off. By purely good fortune, it rotated at almost the perfect spot for that focal length.
There is a tiny bit of clipping of the airframe, but the dynamism of the shot combined with the favourable lighting means I don’t mind. This then got me thinking of other F-15E demos that occurred around then. On two of them I got the mudhen in an arcing turn at speed with vapour across the airframe. One was in nice light but slightly backlit while the other was in more muted conditions. I figured I would include both of them here so you can compare them yourself.
I will put together a post soon about the Chinook display at RAF Cosford. It was a great display. However, this post is not about that. Instead, it is about editing. Lightroom Classic recently had an update to the masking tools and the subject select process is now way better than it used to be. I used to spend a lot of time refining the selection to get something usable but now the process has become a fair bit quicker as a result of the starting point being more accurate. Not perfect, but better. Anyway, I include a version of the image almost out of camera and then the result when working on the airframe and sky in separate masks. It is a lot more how the thing looked at the time and a significant improvement in my mind.