Sensors Versus Markings on the Gripen E

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I was editing my images from RIAT recently and culling those that were never going to see the light of day. As I was working through the images of the Gripen E demonstrations, I noticed an array of sensors on the fuselage of the aircraft. There were also a bunch of markings that looked quite similar. The sensors seemed to have a specific shaping to the fuselage to align them with where they needed to face whilst the markings just seemed painted on to both the fuselage and the pylons. My assumption was that these were tracking locations for stores separation tests, but they were different to what I have seen used for this previously. I can’t tell for sure whether one is designed to distract you from the other! I have no knowledge of the systems fitted to the Gripen and will have to do some research but once you see this array of sensors, you can’t help but notice them thereafter!

Baby Coots Are Not That Cute

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I was walking through the Swiss Garden at Shuttleworth prior to the air show getting underway. In the pond was a family of coots. The parents were diving under for food while the “kids” were hanging around on the surface and making a ton of noise! Normally baby birds are very cute. However, I don’t think that same can be said for baby coots. (Is there a specific name for a baby coot?) They might not have been adorable, but I couldn’t help but get some photos of them.

The Approach Is Busy

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Back to a time earlier this year when I made a trip to Heathrow for a brief bit of shooting. Most of the time, I was offset from the approach path to get shots of the jet as they were on short final approach. However, I did walk along to the approach lights to get some head on shots. While there were more about getting a tight angle on the jets and some underside shots, it did also allow me to look back up the approach and see a number of jets on the glideslope or turning to line up. Heathrow is a busy place so there always seem to be jets on approach.

Sizergh Castle Gardens

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Nancy had been to Sizergh Castle before but, for some reason, in all the time we lived in Lancashire, I had never been there. We rectified that during our recent trip to the Lake District. When it comes to places like this, we are not terribly interested in the interior of the buildings. The exterior and the grounds are usually what we want to explore. Sizergh was a nice enough looking building, but the gardens were excellent.

A Cedar of Lebanon tree is always going to get my attention because I love the layered effect of the branches. They have one very close to the main building. A walk through the wood brought us to a Japanese garden which was very attractively laid out and only open to walk through on certain days. This meant thee weren’t people getting in the way of photos too often!!

Back near the house was a more structured garden. This included a lot of acers, and, at this time of year, they had turned a delightful colour. One of the staff at the entrance had said they shouldn’t be missed and he wasn’t wrong. I was glad I had brought along my polariser. I have no idea why I hadn’t made the effort to visit previously but that omission is now rectified.

Black Jets Look Better

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A brief encounter with an Embraer Praetor one weekend at Paine Field for today’s post. I like the Praetor/Legacy jets but one sitting at the threshold might not normally be worth a look. However, this one was painted black and I have a weakness for black painted bizjets. That’s it!

Brooklands Museum

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One slightly overcast Saturday, I dragged Nancy along to a museum that I was keen to see. The Brooklands Museum is one I had been to a couple of times before we left the UK. I first went there in 1990 when it wasn’t actually open to the public. I was doing some research for an exhibit that were were putting together in the Department of Aeronautics on Barnes Wallis’s Swallow project. The archives at Brooklands had a lot of material that we could access. The next time I went, it was when I worked in London and we had a team meeting at the museum which then included the chance to have a look around.

A lot has changed since that time, and I wanted to see what it is currently like. The museum sits on the site of what started out as the Brooklands motor racing circuit and then became the Vickers Weybridge factory. The museum reflects this extensive history. The racing circuit had banked curves and, while much of the circuit is now built over, there is still some of the original banking in place behind where the museum is located. The banking does not look that steep either in pictures or even when looking at it from a distance. However, when I was there on the previous work trip, we were allowed out on the banking, and my work shoes couldn’t maintain any traction on the concrete. I just slipped back down when trying to walk up the slope. On this visit, they strongly discouraged any walking on the banking.

The museum has three core elements. The first is the racing history of Brooklands. The infield infrastructure is nicely maintained with old garages for the tenants along with the clubhouse and associated buildings. There are car exhibits as well as bicycle and motorbikes. Apparently, road racing of bicycles was illegal in the UK for many years so races on the track were the only option. Motorbike racing was an obvious option if you were a car racing circuit, so the collection of old motorbikes made sense.

The second element is the aerospace history. The factory was heavily involved in manufacturing aircraft in the Second World War with the Wellington being possibly the most famous product. The site then moved into airliner production post war with the Viscount, Vanguard and VC-10 being well represented. Weybridge was also central to the development of Concorde and one of the pre-production jets is also on show. There are also Hawker jets on display, and I have covered them separately in other posts. There are also some test facilities that are rather unusual including the stratospheric chamber which will get its own coverage in due course.

The third part of the museum is a collection of buses belonging to the London Bus Museum. This is included in the admission, and I was not even aware of it before we got there. Aside from plenty of buses, there are lots of exhibits about the supporting elements of bus operation from years gone by. It was a pretty interesting collection, and I was surprised how much time I ended up spending in there.

The museum proved to be a really interesting day out and I think Nancy, while maybe not quite as enthusiastic as me, also found it reasonably worthwhile. The collection has expanded significantly since I was last there and it is able to provide a full day out if you want to check it out. Here is a selection of images from the day. It won’t surprise some that know me to find out that there are way more images from the day than I have included here!

Have I Ever Seen a Boomerang?

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Before you think I am being ridiculous, I am not referring to the profiled wood that will come back to you but the plane. In fact, there is more than one plane called the Boomerang. A Rutan design called the Boomerang was a one off which I once saw on the ground at Oshkosh. However, it was also the name of a piston fighter built in Australia. I had never seen one of those before. If I am being totally honest, I still haven’t since the one I saw was a replica built but it is a pretty impressive replica so we shall let that go.

It was brought to the Festival of Flight that was held by the Shuttleworth Trust at Old Warden in the summer. Having an old type with an unfamiliar shape when you can get blasé about the various Spitfires, Hurricanes, Mustangs etc. is a nice change. It had a great paint job, and the tighter confines of Old Warden allowed it to be displayed nice and close to the crowd line. Certainly, one of the more notable things I got to shoot this year.

An A-4 Pacific in the Neighbourhood

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The Watercress Line had a steam gala in the autumn and, while I was planning on going there for the event, I did end up with a little spare time at the end of Saturday and decided to nip across the see if I could see the trains – specifically one of their headline attractions.They had many locos taking part but the Sir Nigel Gresley was probably the one that attracted a lot of attention and was probably why I was there. I hadn’t seen an A-4 Pacific in motion (although I did recently post about Mallard in my visit to the National Railway Museum).

There is a footpath that crosses the line between Alresford and Ropley and I thought I would try this out. When I walked there, I found a few other people that had shared the idea. It wasn’t crowded so we could all have space from which to shoot. Because we were right by the track (although behind a fence), I decided that going for a low angle would be best. Earlier in the day, the light would have been more favourable but, the day had been quite overcast so I wasn’t so worried. As it was, the sun did pop out at the right time and provided a little extra pop to the paint.

This crossing is just around the curve from a section of track through trees and a cutting. It is a climb from Alresford towards Ropley so the loco is working hard. Consequently, you get a lot of smoke/steam from the smokestack. That also means that you can hear it coming before you see it. When the train came around the corner, it was framed nicely by the trees and embankment. I was able to get a few different types of shot as it approached.

I had decided to go with a longer zoom when I walked up to the crossing. This meant that I wasn’t going to get a wide shot as the train passed me, but this avoided any fumbling to change cameras at the last moment. Instead, I just shot tighter and tighter as it approached until it was too large to get it in frame. Staying low to the ground gave a more dramatic look to the train is it steamed towards me. Having a cloudy background was not ideal because I would have liked more distinction between the smoke from the loco and the background but a bit of work in processing helped sort that out.

Having had some success with this, I did try heading to a bridge further down the track later in the afternoon when it was due back. It made the return journey in reverse as it pulled the train back to Alresford. I had anticipated that it would then run around to the front of the train so you can image I was a bit annoyed to find that they put another loco on the front and left the A-4 on the back. Not so photogenic.

Despite this, I did think that the bridge might be a good spot in the morning and, while Nancy and I had plans to head out on Sunday, I did zip back early to see what there was to see. Again, I was not alone. Quite a few photographers and videographers had come out. This time the conditions were really lovely with the low sun angle providing great illumination. This spot provides a long shot towards Alresford which means you see the train as it starts its climb before it comes around onto a straight section heading to the bridge. The sun really picked out the blue of the loco while it was clearly pulling hard on the climb. A few shots grabbed and then time to head home for the the rest of our day.

Portugal’s Merlins Just Look Better

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The AW101 is a great looking helicopter. I saw the original prototypes fly in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s including one that was configured as a civilian passenger type (sadly never to have the demand to make it to production). Since that time, I have liked to get photos of them wherever possible. The Canadian Cormorants look great in their yellow paint, and I finally got shots of them last year. Normally they are not painted in a very exciting way.

However, the Portuguese Merlin came to display at RIAT this year and it was way better looking than the average. It has a camouflage finish which seems to be a rarity these days. The colours of the camo were also quite vibrant, and it made for a striking subject. It certainly helped that the crew were throwing it around quite energetically and performed on more than one occasion, so I got plenty of shots of it.

An air show is an opportunity to see an airframe performing in ways that you wouldn’t normally get but it is also a rather sterile environment. These helicopters are used for search and rescue along the coastline of Portugal, and I imagine it would be really nice to get to photograph them in their “natural habitat” with cliffs and the see behind them. Maybe I might find myself out there one day.

Staying 50m Away

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We took a walk through the grounds at Tatton Park while on our way to the Lake District. The park is known for its herds of deer, and we wanted to see some – well, I was particularly keen to see some and get some photos! It was the time for the rut and so it is wise to be more careful than usual around the deer. Signs warned everyone to stay at least 50m away from the deer. Sometimes that was harder than you might think.

Some of the males were off doing their own thing. That might include being on the ground watching things around you and, as you walk along, you didn’t always spot them quickly. Finding a large beast with extensive antlers staring at you can be quite startling. We did manage to stay out of the way, but it required attention.

When we came to the larger herds, the males were more active. As they asserted their dominance, there was much bellowing and pacing plus the occasional chase after a male that got too close. They would then start wandering towards us. I don’t think that they had read the signs about keeping a distance. We consequently were making an effort to keep our distance. I don’t know what the best behaviour is with deer. I’ve seen plenty about what to do with bears, but I don’t know what works for a deer. Fortunately, we didn’t have to find out. Our distance was sufficient.