Older jets were designed with some more brutal approaches to functionality. Modern fighters have a focus on fit, and finish and stealth/drag considerations will result in blemish free surfaces. The Buccaneer comes from a different generation. Wandering around then pair that were on show at Kemble, I did enjoy looking at the little details on these old jets. Here are some shots that caught my eye.
Early morning run from Stratford down towards our location in the Warwickshire countryside and I found myself driving past Charlecote Park. This is a National Trust property so I could go and check it out at some point. At this time in the morning, I doubt it was open anyway and I had places to be so I just paused by the gate and took a look up the driveway towards Charlecote House. A cool looking building in the morning light. I was also quite taken by the wild boars that were guarding the gate!
When I was up the tower at Boeing Field for Seafair last year, I got to play around a bit with what I shot of the Blue Angels C-130, Fat Albert. The takeoff was a straightforward as it was departing in our direction so photographing it as it left the ramp and then rotated and climbed past was the obvious choice for me. However, when it came to the return to landing, I was wondering what to do.
The threshold is a long way from the tower, so any shots of the landing were going to be quite distant and, given the heat haze, unlikely to be that good. I figured I might try video and, with the 200-800 having such good stabilisation, thought this might be practical. It turned out surprisingly well with the original video being pretty stable. I did apply a little extra stabilisation in Resolve afterwards. The worst elements are down to operator error where I had a few moments where I ended up moving the camera very jerkily and there is nothing that the post-production can do to fully disguise that! Shame I didn’t plan ahead enough and avoid having that happen when near the flare!
My regular walk near our new house provides a bunch of wildlife but it is pretty much the same stuff each time. That includes some deer. They seem to hand out on the same area each day but are always a bit far away. They seem to be pretty relaxed but not keen to get too close to the people walking along the paths around their area. Usually, they are a long way off. Early morning or late afternoon, they will be off in the distance. Only on one occasion have I found one of them relatively close to me. I thought it was going to scoot quickly but it stayed still for a while. I got a call while it was there and I thought I had lost the chance to get a shot but, no, it was quite patient!
During my brief visit to Heathrow, I got a bunch of long-haul departures and loads of single aisle types serving destinations closer in. However, I was caught off guard slightly by one 737 Max 8. It belonged to Air Canada. I’ve seen a few of those including when they were on test, but I hadn’t anticipated seeing one in the UK. However, the longer range of the Max means that Air Canada is using it serve Halifax from London. I guess that is not really much longer a flight than plenty in Europe, so it makes sense and is probably more efficient. I just didn’t expect to see one of their narrowbodies there. Given that the A321neos are now becoming so prevalent, this is likely to be a regular thing for other airlines too. JetBlue is already doing this so others will be too.
During the pandemic, I did spend a bit of time checking out the various ferry services in Washington. Now I am back in the UK and taking a trip to the Isle of Wight, I did get some sunny conditions on one of the Wightlink ferries, Victoria of Wight. We took this ferry across to the Island but came back on a different boat. We were on an earlier ferry than planned so this would have been our ride if we had stuck to our schedule. Anyway, some nice sun on this ferry as it made its regular crossing from Portsmouth to Fishbourne.
During the Buccaneer event that I went to at Kemble, we spent some time in an enclosure out near the taxiway. This would be good for the first part of the event, but I was out there quite a while before things were due to kick off. While hanging around, the purr of a Rolls Royce Merlin came to my ears and, downwind there was a Spitfire. It flew a nice curving approach and touched down before taxiing in quite close to where I was standing. It was a two-seat example and presumably had come to provide rides for some enthusiasts. I didn’t see it head back out, so I don’t know whether it was a brief visit or whether it did some rides and then left. Interesting markings on it, though.
A sunny Saturday afternoon and we had some time with my mum and headed down to the New Forest for a stroll. I had thought that it would be very busy down there given that it was a lovely weekend, but I was pleasantly surprised just how quiet it was once we got there. It wasn’t a long walk – just a nice wander through the woods and over some of the open grounds. It was a super place to be, and you can see why old monarchs will have liked to keep it for hunting grounds although I understand it was not good agricultural land and was better for common grazing.
Here are a few shots from our stroll across the countryside. It is about half an hour from our home and so I think we shall be making more trips down there in the coming months. The selection of good pubs for lunch is certainly not going to hurt that idea!
One evening while wandering through the fields near our house, I saw a hot air balloon in the distance. When we lived in Woodinville, the balloons were a regular feature of the summer months. Morning and evening flights were common. I didn’t know that flights around Winchester were a thing and, given the proximity to Southampton Airport, I thought it might not be practical but apparently, I was wrong. I was hoping that they would continue to drift in my direction, and I would get a closer look. Then I noticed that they were dropping out of sight quite quickly, so I headed through a tree line to see them drop behind some trees off in the distance. The vent on the top of the balloon briefly opened as they touched down but then closed up almost as quickly. I guess they weren’t in a rush to rapidly deflate. I wonder whether I shall catch any more flights in the future.
The process of getting yourself from one part of the world to another is not terribly complex. Get a plane ticket, pack some bags and off you go. However, airlines are quite fussy about how much you take with you on a plane and don’t want to include all of your possessions in your luggage allowance. To fully move 5,000 miles and across an ocean, you need an alternative. That means loading all of your stuff up in a shipping container, sending it across the ocean and hoping it doesn’t drop off a ship on the way. The first step is having the shipping company come and pack everything up. Our street was not suitable for bringing in a 40’ ISO container so they loaded a couple of trucks up to take everything to their site for transfer to the container.
The smaller trucks came on the first day when the crew showed up with the packing material to get everything packed up ready to go. The second day was the loading and packing any remaining items. The bigger trucks were needed for the loading. They were really efficient about packing the items into the truck to minimise space used. Quite a game of Tetris, I imagine. Then the doors get closed, and a truck drives off with almost all of your belongings in it. Fingers crossed you see it all again!
