When I first moved to Winchester, I was initially staying in a couple of Airbnbs before we moved into the house we are renting. One of them was up in the roof of an old school building. The view out of the windows was across the rooftops of the neighbouring houses. The chimney pots caught my eye. One of them seemed to have a serious branch growing out of it. I think it was dead, but it did look like it had done well to get established in the brickwork.
In the 80s, after the RAF had retired its operational Vulcan fleet, you could come across examples of them in all sorts of places. When I moved to Lancashire in 1990, there was one sitting just outside Blackpool Airport. It lasted a few years but eventually succumbed to corrosion and was cut up. It is a big beast to preserve. There are still a few around and the home of one of them is Wellesborne Mountford airfield. It is near Stratford on Avon and I had a work trip that took me within about ten minutes of it. When I had finished my meetings and was heading home, I diverted off to see if I could see it. Sure enough, pulling into the parking by the flying club meant I could see the plane clearly. I will be back in the area at various times so I will see if I can arrange a better look at some point.
When I was a small kid, BHC was stretching a couple of the SRN-4s to the Super 4 configuration. Despite living in the same town, I never saw them while they were being tested. The late 90s and I got to travel on one for a Channel crossing as we went on holiday to France. Not long after that, they were withdrawn from service. The two hovercraft made their way to the Hovercraft Museum at Lee on Solent. One has since been scrapped but the other survives and is on display.
Getting this close to it, you really appreciate the size of the machine. It is interesting to wander through the passenger cabins on the side, up the main ramp, through the car deck and around the outside. It really is a most impressive piece of engineering. It dominates the grounds of the museum and gets you thinking about what it was like when it was in service rising high up on the massive skirt.
It was a cold and dreary day when I was there. The grey skies don’t provide a nice backdrop to the exterior vie and I will have to try and go back on a nicer day at some point. However, it was worthwhile having the chance to view it when few other people were around so a cold and gloomy winter day might have had it advantages.
Shortly before we left the Pacific Northwest, I made one of my final visits to Paine Field at the end of a day. Boeing was testing a 777F that was due to go to Ethiopian Cargo and the jet was due back at the end of the day shortly before sunset. I was hoping that I might get some stunning colours at that time of day but, by the time the jet came on to approach, the sun had slipped below the low cloud on the horizon.
Even so, the remaining light did provide some nice illumination on the jet as it was on short final and touching down. I was about to pack up and head home when I heard the sound of the engines coming back our way and, sure enough, they were taxiing back for a high-speed taxi and abort. There was a fair bit of moisture on the runway surface and, as they powered up, they were spraying clouds behind them. This time they were done and headed back to the ramp. I shall miss seeing the interesting variety of operators that you get from the factory.
The Bishop of Winchester has an official residence close to the cathedral. It seems like a pretty nice house to have in the centre of the city but the thing that caught my eye on the Sunday morning when I was passing was the flowers sprouting from the lawn. A combination of snowdrops and crocuses made the place feel rather nice, so I got the camera low to the ground to get them to be the main part of the shot.
If you want to annoy your Canadian friends, be oblivious to famous Canadian aircraft. (We’ll, this will annoy Canadian aviation enthusiasts. I doubt it will bother Canadians that aren’t into planes.) The Norseman was built by Noorduyn (don’t ask me how that is supposed to be pronounced) and it was a rugged single engined bush plane. It is a beast of a plane and there is one on display at the BC Aviation Museum. I don’t know whether it is always stored outside or not but it was on the ramp outside the museum on the sunny day that Jim and I visited. Our guide opened it up so we could have a look at the interior. It looked very nice as it has been well maintained.
The Royal Garrison Church is a ruin along the waterfront in Portsmouth. It was originally built in the 13th century but it was bombed in the Second World War and has not been rebuilt. It sits as a reminder of what has been before while it still has a graveyard around it so remains the resting place of many. The lack of a roof makes for some interesting lighting and the shapes of the walls and windows are more apparent. As I walked back to the station, the church was backlit and I couldn’t help grabbing a couple more shots.
I think I have posted previously about the wing on the Cessna Citation Sovereign. It is not a jet I particularly like the look of but I am amazed at the wing span of this thing. This example was on short final to SEA and I decided to shoot it head on and then from underneath as it passed overhead. It does show just how long that wingspan is. I don’t know whether the wing is that advanced but it is long!
Quite a few years ago, Pete and I took a flight around the Isle of Wight and we took a small diversion near the Hovercraft Museum at Lee on Solent. At that time, both of the Super 4 craft were present along with a lot of other types. I had it in mind that I wanted to visit the museum at some point and, having now moved back to the UK, I figured I would do it. One Sunday morning, I didn’t have a plane or anything else so bought a train ticket and headed off.
It was a morning that could be best described as bloody cold. Walking around some old hangars on the edge of an airfield is not going to make you any warmer. I was glad I had my warm coat but probably should have taken some gloves with me! There are some special items on display and there will be some more posts to come. In the meantime, here is some more general shots of the collection. More to come.
The dire situation with Boeings 777X programme means that Boeing hasn’t delivered a passenger 777 for a very long time. The only jets getting delivered from the line are freighters. The good news about freighters is that you get some different operators to the norm. Maersk is a shipping company that has taken some 777Fs and, while I missed the first one that they took, I was able to catch the next one although only just. I was there on the day it was delivered. It was heading in a northerly direction which isn’t my preference for Paine Field departures but, because it was a delivery flight, you had the advantage of it being pretty heavy with a decent fuel load to take it home. That blue paint scheme is a cool one to catch. Maybe I will see one in service at some point.
