Category Archives: aircraft

50 Years of Popham

This aviation moment was a bit of a last-minute thing. We don’t live terribly far from Popham’s airfield, and I have driven past it more time than I can recall including when travelling to visit family in Andover before we ended up living in Hampshire. However, I had never actually been to the airfield before. I had seen that they were having a celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the first use of the field, but I did have other stuff going on at home. When I had finished that, I knew I needed to get a bike ride in as part of my ongoing (if feeble) preparation for the charity ride I had coming up. I decided to ride up to Popham and back and swing by the fly in.

The weather was really nice and there seemed to be a ton of planes that had made the trip in to join the celebrations. The road into the airfield goes right under the western approach end and I did stop there on my bike for a while to watch the arriving and departing planes. Then I rode into the airfield itself and had a brief wander around. There were plenty of people out walking amongst the parked planes and, if I hadn’t been in cycling shoes and pushing the bike, I would have had a longer time exploring. Instead, it was a brief stopover before continuing my ride. I hope they had a successful day.

Reinforcement Around a Cargo Door

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The Vickers Vanguard might not have had the sales success of its predecessor, the Viscount, but a number of the passenger planes had a long career as a result of conversion to the Merchantman freighter configuration. One of these is on display at the Brooklands Museum. Since the cargo door was not an original design feature, the fuselage needed to be reinforced to accommodate the stress redistribution around the door aperture.

Since this was a retrofit, it was far simpler to have the reinforcement on the outside of the fuselage. Looking closely at the example at the museum, you can see the multiple layers of reinforcement to build up the thickness in the areas with the greatest stress increase. There were about ten layers in total with them tapering out as you got further from the opening. This was all prior to the days of finite element analysis so would have involved a lot of hand calculations!

Tanking Typhoons

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I had the good fortune to be able to spend a day with 101 Sqn of the Royal Air Force when they were undertaking training missions in one of their primary roles of aerial refuelling. Based at RAF Brize Norton, the squadron operates the Airbus Voyager, the A330MRTT aircraft. The aircraft we were in was configured for two-point refuelling while some of the aircraft have a three-point config that allows tanking of heavy aircraft from the higher capacity centreline hose drum unit.

We took off from Brize and headed out over the North Sea. Our initial tracks were off the coast of East Anglia which made for a convenient place to pick up trade from the RAF bases there. The F-35s were deployed from Marham so there was less likelihood of one of those jets showing up, but we did expect Typhoons. It was too long after we were on station before the first customers showed up.

The jets appeared from the port side of the jet and picking them up early allowed you to see them sweeping in astern of the plane before they approached from astern. They would gather off the port wing extending the refuelling probe before being cleared into pre-contact positions on either wing. Then they would pull forward to make contact and take on fuel. Once they were done, they would gather off the starboard wing until the flight had all taken on fuel at which point they would accelerate away to continue with their flight. This departure might just be peeling away but it sometimes included a burst of power and a climb up away from our flight level with the noise even being noticeable inside our insulated cabin.

There are very limited options when it comes to photographing the jets while they are plugged in. The pods are mounted outboard on the wings – I think in the location where the outboard engines would be on an A340 – but the length of the hose means that the drogue is quite a long way aft. This means that only the last few rows of the aircraft – it has a pretty standard seating config throughout most of the fuselage – actually have the ability to see the jets. I had been advised by a friend that the viewing was limited.

I had brought two cameras on the flight. My main camera was fitted with the 100-400 lens and my use for that was on aircraft off to either side. The other body I brought along was an older one I use less frequently these days and that is the M6 with a 55-200 lens. This ended up getting a lot of use. However, neither of them was suitable for use when the jets were refuelling. The angles looking back are tight and the interior panelling around the window apertures limits how you can point backwards. In this case, the phone was by far the best option. The small lens diameter combined with the ability to get it close to the window meant it was the best bet. Even then, it was limited in what it could see.

Later in the mission we headed up towards Scotland to pick up some local trade although, ironically, we ended up with jets from Coningsby which would probably have been fine in our original tracks. Overall, the mission last over 6 hours and we had a variety of periods when we had customers and then periods of waiting. It was definitely an interesting day out and certainly worth seeing. My thanks to the team at Brize for hosting us so well.

The Atlantique is a Great Throwback

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RIAT provided many high points for me this year. One of the types I haven’t seen for a long time was the Atlantique operated by the French Navy. I think I last saw one at Mildenhall at an Air Fete at the beginning of the 90s. Not only was the plane on the ground but it was also taking part in the flying display. Powered by a pair of Tyne turboprops, the engine whine on the ground is quite painful. You do need to give your ears some protection to avoid it getting too much. Once those engines are ramped up to take off power, the humid conditions meant some nice prop vortices showed up.

The display consisted of a number of passes. There is a radar installation that retracts into the fuselage for take off and landing as well as when it isn’t needed and drag reduction is more valuable. For some of the passes this radar was extended. Also, there is a large underfuselage weapons bay and the doors to this were opened to reveal a captive Exocet missile. The Exocet is a large weapon, and you really appreciate that when it is shown against a plane as large as the Atlantique. The French Navy is planning on introducing a new type based on a Falcon business jet so the chances to see an Atlantique will be diminishing soon.

The Gloomy Conditions Make the Cockpit Displays Visible

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Back on one of my last visits to Coupeville to watch the Growlers undertaking FCLP, the weather was not playing ball and things ended up getting quite gloomy at the end of the slots they had planned. With a modern camera, this is not really an issue as you can handle some really low light without too much compromise. However, the thing I did notice as I was going through the images was that the green colours of the cockpit displays really start to show up. In some of the earlier shots, the light in the sky was reflecting off the canopy which washed it out a touch but by the last few passes, the green was really showing up.

Reverse Thrust Bizjets

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Boeing Field is busy with business jets and some of them are more interesting than others. However, one thing that does catch my attention is the use of reverse thrust. On bizjets, it is often used for braking when taxiing to keep the brakes cooler. Of course, it is used for landings. Usually, the reversers are stowed as the jet slows but other times they are left in until they have vacated the runway. Here is a selection of jets with their reversers in use.

Take a Look at That Wing Span

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Back around 1990, I saw an Antonov AN-72 at the Farnborough show. This was the time as the wall came down and eastern bloc aircraft started to appear at shows. After that, I don’t think I saw one again. That changed at RIAT this year when the Egyptian Air Force brought an AN-74 – an updated version of the original Coaler. The feature of this plane that gets lots of attention is the location of the engines. They are mounted above the wing and employ upper surface blowing. The exhaust from the engines is entrained but the upper surface of the wing which increases the lift and reduces approach and take off speed.

However, the thing I had never appreciated before seeing the plane at Fairford was the span of the wing on this plane. When it taxied in towards us, I got a view of it head on which showed just how large the span is. It is massive. The upper surface blowing only impacts close to the engines, so the rest of the wing is not affected. I wonder how much it matters. It was interesting when it took off at the end of the show that the takeoff run seemed quite long. It didn’t seem like a STOL aircraft. Anyway, forget all that and look at this amazing wingspan!

Catching an Evolution in the Gloom

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The Lancair Evolution is not a particularly common aircraft although I have come across examples over the years. However, one slightly gloomy Sunday afternoon, I saw that one was heading to Paine Field. I understand that it might be locally based but I hadn’t seen it before and, with not a lot else going on, made the short trip up to Everett. On jaunts like this, you start persuading yourself that the clouds are going to part at just the right moment and then the sun will illuminate your subject against a dark and foreboding sky.

That has worked for me on occasion but this was not such an occasion. The conditions were still pretty dull when they showed up on approach. As is often my technique in these conditions, I shot quite heavily over-exposed. This allows for lots of detail in the aircraft to be captured and then for some masking of the background to bring it back down to something resembling what it actually was on the day. The eye does such a good job of dealing with dynamic range that it is amazing to see just how badly the exposures can vary in conditions like this. Getting the most of the data from the initial image and then letting the post processing techniques bring it back to what you actually saw is the way I like to go. This plane flew quite a bit after this day but never when I had a chance to catch it again so no sunny shots of it I’m afraid.

More Super High Frame Rates for the Red’s Syncro Pair

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A bit of a theme for me recently has been playing with the super fast frame rates on my camera. Last year I tried this out with the Blue Angels and posted on here about that. It worked well but they were rather distant. At RIAT, I decided to try again but with the Red Arrows this time. The syncro pair will make many crosses during the course of the show so I had a few opportunities.

First, let’s talk about what didn’t go so well. When you select this mode, it will fire off a bunch of shots – I set it to the maximum at 50 – and, when it has taken them, the camera will be effectively locked up until they finish writing. It doesn’t take long, and it shouldn’t matter because not much is happening for a while. However, if you are a dope and forget you have selected it and then take a shot of a plane coming around the turn towards you, you will get a lot of shots you didn’t intend and you may still be writing them when the cross actually happens. I am speculating, of course. No way I would make such a mistake.

The other issue I had was one of choosing focal length. On some crosses I zoomed out quite wide and the jets ended up being further away than expected and quite small in the frame although it gave me multiple framing options. This had been an over correction after having been too tight on a previous cross. Basic stuff but, at least with a bunch of crosses, I had more chances to sort things out.

Then we come to the crux of it. Did I get stuff I liked? Absolutely. I was always tracking the plane coming from the right so my left eye could see enough of the opposite jet, so I did run the risk of having the background jet in focus, but it all worked out fine. The biggest issue is that you end up with a ton of shots to work through. Then again, that is my story of RIAT as a whole! I have included so of the stills here but also an animated GIF of a sequence so you can see how close the frames are to each other. Please forgive the crappy colour space of the GIF.

Testing the Nosewheel on the A400M

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If you have heard much from the flying displays at the Royal International Air Tattoo this year, you may well have heard about the Luftwaffe A400M doing a wheelie. I will cover that too but the whole approach to land was one that tested the nosewheel of the aircraft quite a bit. They made a tactical approach to land and aimed for a touchdown point closer to show centre so near the crowd and one that would be a good demonstration of how quickly the plane can stop once on the ground.

The approach was nose low and, while they did aim to flare the aircraft before touchdown, the nosewheel was the first to make contact with the mains following a short while afterwards. Since this plane is designed to operate from austere strips, the gear is pretty tough, and I doubt a touchdown on a smooth runway is going to cause it undue stress. They then stamped on the brakes and reversed the prop pitch to bring the plane to a rapid stop.

The next part of the manoeuvre was a bit problematic. Keeping the prop in reverse, they started to back up the runway. A crew member was on the ramp as it opened to guide them. They put in a ton of nosewheel steering to swing the plane around, but I don’t think there was much weight on the front of the plane, and the tyres were skidding across the surface, and the turn was not as dramatic as intended.

Then came the fun bit. As they backed towards the edge of the runway, instead of applying some power to the props to stop them, they applied wheel brakes. With the plane going backwards and the braking action under the centre of the airframe, the plane pitched up and the nosewheel came off the ground. It didn’t go too high, and the ramp never hit the ground, but it certainly got everyone’s attention in the crowd! I wonder how the debrief went after the display.