Tag Archives: aircraft

IWM Duxford

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My wife is a star – well that, or she is a masochist.  Our trip to the UK was in three phases.  We spend the first phase visiting family.  The second phase was my visit to RIAT for a few days while she did things in London and around the south coast.  The last phase was our time to tour around East Anglia and relax a little.  Our last full day had us up near Cambridge.  She suggested I might want to visit the Imperial War Museum aviation collection at Duxford.  Since I had taken a chunk of the vacation to do aviation things, I was not going to push anything aviation related for the rest of the trip but she was quite happy to do this.  What a star!

I haven’t been to Duxford for ages so I was interested to see how things had changed.  What was once called the Superhangar had been rebuilt and had lots of interesting stuff inside.  The American Forces section was there last time I went and hadn’t changed a lot.  Some of the large airliner stuff outside was familiar but other bits were either new or something I didn’t recall from previous visits.  It is a very extensive collection and well worth a visit.  I was really pleased to check it out.

I will give a few of the exhibits their own posts but this is a bit of a summary post.  Below is a gallery of some of the shots I took as we wandered around.

Bristow’s Coastguard AW189

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While walking along the waterfront at East Cowes, I heard the noise of an approaching helicopter.  As it got closer, it turned out to be a Coastguard AW189.  I hoped it would come closer and it obliged by flying almost directly over us.  What I didn’t know was that another of the fleet would be at RIAT when I was there a few days later so I was going to get a closer look than this.  Stay tuned for that!

Romanian LanceRs

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RIAT proved to be a lot of fun with such a variety of types to see.  The shooting conditions were less than ideal but that shouldn’t take away from what was there and the effort that went in to organizing it all – I’m looking at you Tom if you are reading this.  Your team did a great job.  One of the stars of the show was actually a rather aged type.  Romania brought a pair of MiG-21 LanceR jets.  The last time I shot an active MiG-21 was at Rockford many years ago and that was privately owned.  These were very definitely active.

Their arrival on the Thursday certainly got everyone excited and the display itself was great.  The jet is from an era when the current levels of maneuverability had not been achieved but the jet can still put on quite a show.  The speed is something to behold, particularly on final approach when it fairly screams in to land.  I got to shoot it from a couple of locations including being at the departure end on the Sunday of the show and getting slightly closer to the jet as it taxied out.  I understand that they will disappear before too long to be replaced with something more generic – F-16s I think – so it was time to enjoy something old school for perhaps the last time.

Lots of Prop Vortices

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Departure day at RIAT was a bit overcast, much like the majority of the show.  The damp atmosphere did have the positive effect of meaning many of the more powerful prop aircraft were pulling vortices from the tips of their propellers.  This was most obvious earlier in their take off runs but you could get a  pretty good view of it even head on from where I was sitting in the FRIAT stand.  Here is one of the Hercs that was beating the air into submission.

Posts in the Water – Are They for the Carrier?

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I have made countless trips between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight over the course of my life.  Things change but most of the landmarks are remarkably consistent.  I was therefore quite surprised to see some very large posts that had appeared in the approaches to Portsmouth Harbour.  I knew that there had been dredging work undertaken to allow the new carriers (see this post) to enter the naval base.  I suspected that these new large posts might be connected with the same project.  Sure enough, some research after our returned confirmed that navigation lights have been installed to allow the carriers to navigate their way in.  These light are mounted on top of large posts sunk into the seabed.  They aren’t the most attractive things but I guess they do the job.

Concorde Formations Flypast

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RIAT is known for putting together formations of different types to celebrate certain events.  The fiftieth anniversary of the first flight of Concorde resulted in two display teams getting together.  Concorde was an Anglo-French collaboration and so was the celebration in this case.  The Red Arrows and the Patrouille de France both fly formations to represent Concorde so, for this joint effort, both teams got airborne and flew their two Concorde formations in line astern.  They made passes in each direction with the national anthems of each country playing – one on the first pass and the other on the second.  It was a simple demonstration but an impressive one all the same.

M346 Sporty Departure

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A quick post from my visit to RIAT.  There are going to be plenty of things from my time at the show that will show up on the blog in the coming weeks but this is an intro even though it comes from the last day I was there.  Departure day included some more energetic maneuvers from some of the participants including this M346 heading back to Italy.  It waggled the wings to give us a nice top side view.  Thanks chaps.

Cloudy Isn’t Always Bad

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I was looking to get some midsummer shooting in at Vancouver.  The day was a lovely one but the evening promised so overcast rolling in and that proved to be the case.  However, I thought I would give things a go.  The lack of the strong evening light was disappointing but it did actually make for some softer lighting conditions and things weren’t all bad.  The evening culminated (at least for me) with three quick arrivals.  An Edelweiss A340-300, a BA A380 and a China Airlines A350-900.  I quite liked the conditions as they provided something slightly different.  Clouds shouldn’t necessarily be a deterrent from an evening out shooting.

Korean Air’s Last 777

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I’ve seen a few Korean Air 777s on test at Everett since we moved here.  This one was heading out on a delivery flight on a Friday evening.  The only reason it gets a post is that, from what I can discover, this is the last 777 that Korean Air has on order.  They have a bunch of 787s to come in the coming years but this is their last 777-300ER.  They haven’t ordered the 777X (which, given how many different widebody types they operate, is quite a surprise!).

Dropping the Shutter Speed in Bad Light

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My cloudy Vancouver shoot also gave me the chance to play around with some lower shutter speeds.  I have done this for the turboprops before but this time I decided to play with some of the jets.  A really low shuttle speed can blur out the background and give a nice impression of movement but it is a problematic shot to make.  You don’t want to do it on something that you are keen to get in case you get nothing!  It is also something that results in very small apertures if there is much light which can make for a lot of dust spotting in post!  A cloudy evening is a good time to try and a bunch of boring regular jets are good targets for a trial!