Category Archives: Travel

London from the Air

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Digging back in to the archives today.  Back in about 2005, I was heading back to the UK for work.  Our flight arrived in to Heathrow early in the morning and the approach route took us across the center of the city.  I was sitting on the right side of the aircraft so was able to get some good shots of the city.  My favorite shot was as we turned over the top of Waterloo and looking down at the London Eye and the Houses of Parliament.

I also got some good views from other areas.  A nice view across the city which shows just how close everything is within the cities of London and Westminster.  We also came south of Kensington which gave a good view of the museum complex and Hyde Park – an area where I lived for three years as a student.  The next shot is of Kew Gardens.  The glass house and the pagoda are both visible.  These have been sitting in the archive for a long time but finally make their way to the blog.

Northrop Grumman Firebird

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Northrop Grumman brought the Firebird to Fairford for RIAT.  RIAT is a big public show but it has developed a significant trade element to it and Firebird was clearly aimed at that audience.  It is a Scaled Composites design (with Northrop Grumman having bought Scaled a while back) and, while it has a cockpit, apparently it has the option to be flown unmanned.  I don’t know whether this is well tested or not.  Nor do I know the state of production examples.  I believe the one at RIAT was the prototype.

It was parked in the static park for a portion of the time I was there.  I did see it getting towed across to the north side at one point, presumably so it could be parked in a hangar rather than left out.  Supposedly, there is a US Government order for some of these and I imagine they will be fitted with some interesting systems.  Whether I shall ever see one is a different story.

Trafalgar Anchor

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If you are used to a modern shape of an anchor, particularly one for a large ship, the old style of anchors in the days of the early 1800s will be rather strange looking.  They look like a giant version of the sort of anchor you would see on a small boat.  This example sits on the seafront in Southsea and comes from a ship that fought in the battle of Trafalgar.  It seems in pretty good shape.  I wonder whether that is a feature of the materials used or the result of lots of bits of it being replaced over the years.

Odd F-16 Vortices

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With a sharp LERX, the F-16 regularly pulls a nice vortex on each side as it maneuvers hard.  Getting a shot of that is not a surprise.  However, I have recently been slowly making my way through shots from RIAT (months after the event) and I was working through some shots of the Belgian F-16 display.  I came across a shot of the jet pulling and rolling, taken from astern of the aircraft.  I noticed a second, smaller vortex trailing from the tail plane.  It appears that, with differential tail for the roll, there is a vortex coming from the tail plane – possibly at the route.  This pleases the old aero guy within!

The Original Doctor Yellow

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The Tokaido Shinkansen service requires regular inspection of the track to ensure it is up to the high standards required of high speed service.  JRC operates an inspection train called Doctor Yellow.  It is a highly instrumented version of the current trains.  I have seen the current Doctor Yellow when I was at one of JRC’s maintenance facilities.  However, the original Doctor Yellow was based on the Series 0 trains.  It is now preserved in the SC Maglev museum in Nagoya along with many of the other Shinkansen designs.

Apache Wall of Fire

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The British Army display of the WAH-64D Apache is one I have seen plenty of pictures of but I haven’t had much of a chance to shoot it myself.  The majority of the display is pretty standard stuff with them maneuvering tightly in front of the crowd, much like the US army’s display of the similar type.  They do use a little bit of pyro during the display but the finale is a wall of fire.  I was a bit concerned about my position compared to theirs as they positioned for the big moment as the background looked like it might not be all fire.  However, things turned out well enough and I got the sort of shot I was hoping for.

Turkish Phantoms

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F-4 Phantoms are rapidly disappearing from service.  They remain in a few countries but their replacements are lined up in most cases.  The Turkish Air Force is still using them and brought some examples to RIAT.  They made their way to the west end for us to get some shots.  These jets had been planned for replacement by the F-35A Lightning II.  However, with the political fall out of the Turkish acquisition of Russian missile systems, they have been blocked from the program.  Maybe the F-4s will live on a little longer after all.

Nagoya Bridge

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When I headed south out of the center of Nagoya to go to the museum, my route took me down to the docks area.  A highway along the water obviously needed to clear the route for the larger ships so a pretty impressive bridge had been constructed.  It is called the Meiko-Chuo Bridge.  I could only get a good view of it from the train but it was in the background when you were at the museum.  I thought it looked pretty spectacular.

Patrouille de France Takeoff Configurations

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I was working through some RIAT photos of the Patrouille de France display.  I had some tight shots of the first four jets as they took off and, as I looked closer at them, I was confused as to why two of the jets had a more nose high attitude than the other two.  Since they are taking off on formation, I figured that they should look the same.

A closer look at the images and it seems that the flap settings of the jets vary.  The nose high aircraft seem to have less flap – hence their need for a higher angle of attack – than the other two jets.  I have been trying the think why they would adopt this approach.  With all jets accelerating together and climbing together, I had imagined that they would all be in the same configuration.  I wonder whether there is something to do with the outwash from the nearby jets that requires a different configuration but I haven’t come up with anything conclusive.  I throw it out to the aero engineers that read this to propose your ideas as to why.  If any of you know anyone in the PdF, feel free to ask them instead!

Crystal Palace II

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This one is for some of the Brits who read this blog.  The pictures are a bit sketchy as they were taken from a moving car (I was not driving)!  I was in Dallas for work and noticed this building from a distance.  I figured I would try and get some pictures as we drove by.  The building is apparently a modern construction but, to my mind, it appears to be a direct reproduction of the original Crystal Palace.  Obviously not a reproduction after it burnt down but it does look just like it.  Anyone from Texas – Gary, I am looking at you – that knows anything about this building?