Tag Archives: civil

Looking Out of the Window When Waiting to Depart LHR

Sometimes, when I get the window seat at the airport, there is really nothing much to see. I am on the wrong side, and everything is out of the other windows. However, on this recent flight, I did have a good view of the parallel taxiway as well as the runway for departing jets. Sure, it was backlit and sometimes taxiing jets could block the view of the runway. Also, windows looking into the sun are not great for clarity. Even so, an A380 from Singapore or a Virgin Atlantic A350-1000 is worth a look and whatever shots the phone can manage.

Interrupting My Bike Ride with a Balloon

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When the work schedule allows, I am making the most of the early light to get some bike riding done. When the weather is at its hottest, this is also the best time of day to ride anyway. It is a very peaceful time to be out in country lanes with very little traffic and plenty of wildlife. I was riding along one morning when I saw a hot air balloon off in the distance. Balloon rides are popular in our area, so this isn’t that surprising.

I then lost site of the balloon as I headed north for a while. As I got towards the northern part of my route, I briefly spotted the balloon again through the trees but then it was gone again. I wondered whether it would appear again as I started south but I couldn’t see it because the roads have tree cover on the side that might have offered a view. I gradually lost interest as I figured it had either landed or our routes had diverged again.

As I came through Micheldever, a Land Rover van came in the opposite direction towing a trailer. This was clearly the recovery team heading north. I thought I had my confirmation that they had landed somewhere I had already passed. Turning out of Micheldever, I was riding across the rolling hills towards Stoke Charity when I saw the balloon north of me and quite low to the ground. I stopped and watched it for a while. It was not coming right towards me but was heading slightly more to the east.

I was going to get moving again but then had a change of heart. I wasn’t under any time pressure to finish the ride since it was still really early. I turned around and rode back to Micheldever. I don’t know the village well having always ridden through it on one road. I went the other way with the hope that some sort of open space would show up. Sure enough, I came to a football field and the balloon was coming straight towards me. I stopped and waited to see where it would go next.

Turns out that they were planning on landing in the field I had just made it to. They delicately descended to the ground with a couple of minor skips as they touched down and then settled. When I have seen balloons in the past the crews got very tetchy if you got to close. In this case they kept the balloon inflated and just sat there. I rode onto the field and around while keeping a safe distance. However, they were more than happy to chat as I got closer. I spoke to them briefly and then decided I really ought to continue my ride.

Some Morning Heathrow Arrivals

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Another morning flight for a work trip meant another stop at the Pod Parking. Since the traffic had been light, I was there a little ahead of schedule so it would be rude not to get some shots of the arriving traffic on the northerly runway at Heathrow. Had I been there at sunrise, the sun would have actually been right around on my side, but I was a little later in the morning, so it had come around on the nose.

A Virgin Atlantic A350-1000 was nice to have but I got some short haul types from across Europe. The really interesting surprise was a Loganair ATR42. There are lots of poles in the pod parking and they make getting an unobscured shot tricky. I will confess that some AI removal tools in Lightroom have been exploited to remove some of the distractions. I have not taken out anything that was actually over part of the airframe, even though that can actually work quite well. These are just tidied up to allow the airframe be the focus.

Prop Effects When Using a Phone

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Rolling shutter is a phenomenon that has become very apparent with the widespread adoption of digital sensors in cameras. The way in which a sensor scans across its surface means that relative movement can result in the position of objects being different at the end of the scan than the beginning. DSLRs used a digital sensor but a mechanical shutter so weren’t terribly susceptible to this (except when in video mode) but phones and video camera like GoPros have been.

Usually, if I am photographing aircraft with props, I am using my main cameras. (While I now exclusively use electronic shutter on my bodies, the read speed of the sensor is sufficiently high that the rolling shutter effects are barely visible. However, I rode my bike to Popham one Saturday and decided to grab a few pictures with my phone while I was there. The resulting shots have props that are clearly suffering badly from rolling shutter. It is not something I normally get so I actually found it rather funny. That wouldn’t be the case if I had desperately wanted the shot.

Turbulent Times

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If you are only used to airliners, light aircraft can look pretty flimsy. They are well designed, but they are small and a little flexible looking. They might be more than up to the task but, to a first timer, they might have the impression of being a bit risky. Then you can look at a Druine Turbulent. That takes the idea of simple to a new level. It is a home-built design that first flew in 1951. Small, light, powered by a small engine and with an open cockpit, it seems like even fitting in it might be a bit snug.

One was parked on the field at Popham one Sunday when we swung by to get some lunch. In due course, the owner came back to the plane and headed off. He had to hand swing the prop himself, so the aircraft was chocked while he started it up. The chocks were then stowed in a panel behind the seat and he climbed in and taxied out. Take off was not startling but still reasonably swift and he climbed out en route. What a cool little plane. I wonder whether it is a cost-effective way of flying.

Europas With Varying Numbers of Wheels

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The Europa is a type I got attached to when my friend Sean had one. I was living in the US when he got it, but I used to come across for work on a regular basis, and we would often take the time to go for trips. It was a fun little thing to fly in with quite a turn of speed. The cockpit was very compact which was tricky when lugging a chunky camera around but not the end of the world! Recently, I made a couple of short visits to Popham Airfield and came across a couple of Europas.

The first was parked up and it is a Europa XS which is a later version fitted with tricycle undercarriage. It is a nice-looking aircraft, but it loses the novelty factor that the Europa Classic had. It has a mono wheel arrangement with outriggers to support it on the ground. The wheel, outriggers and flaps are all controlled together so, when you retract the flaps, the gear comes up. One had just landed when we got there and was getting some fuel. Fortunately, they took off before we left so I got a good look at it as it got airborne. A quirky but cool aircraft for sure.

A Fuji and a Bolkow

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When hanging out at a small airfield, you expect to get a bunch of the regular light aircraft types. Cessnas and Pipers will be expected. Popham has a good selection of microlights and autogyros as well so that will mix things up. However, it brought a couple of planes during one weekend that really caught my eye. These are not rarities, but it is still cool to see something a little different. One was a Fuji FA200. I have caught these a bit in the past, but this was a nice surprise.

Then there was something that I genuinely had no idea about. I got some shots of it and then, when I got home, got on the internet to check out the registration to see what it was. A Bolkow BO.209 Monson was the answer. Bolkow was a manufacturer I was familiar with both from its earlier days and then being part of MBB building helicopters and part of the Panavia consortium building Tornado. I was not aware of the Monson before searching for this plane and found that 100 of them had been built by MBB before production ceased. There have been times when resurrection of production was tried but without significant success. What a cool looking plane and I hope I see it again.

Summer Afternoon at Compton Abbas

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Back in the days when I first learnt to fly, I was curious about flying to Compton Abbas Airfield. Located on top of a hill in Dorset, it seemed like an interesting destination. However, I never made the trip there. Then, when my old friend Sean and I made some trips around the south of England in his Europa, we also discussed making a visit there. Not sure whether he ever went but I didn’t. Earlier this year, I got thinking about heading across because it is not much more than an hour from home by car. When I first thought of it, it was early in the year, and I thought summer would be a better time to go with longer days and a likelihood of more traffic.

Come July and it occurs to me that, if I am going to go, I should probably get on with it. So it was that one Saturday morning, we hopped in the car and drove west. It was a very pretty drive across there which made for a good start to the day. When we pulled up, they had some security guys on the gate. Apparently, it was a special day with Spitfire and Tiger Moth rides and there was a £10 charge to park. However, this £10 would then be offset against anything you bought from the café, so it really wasn’t a hardship.

The location is really rather special. Being up on top of the hill gives a lovely view to the lower ground to the north. It also makes for quite a backdrop for any aircraft shots, not that I was likely to be taking any of those! The restaurant is a modern structure, and the food was really good. We ended up sitting on a table outside to order our food which meant I was able to jump up whenever anything of interest moved.

The location does seem to make for some interesting conditions for pilots. Watching the planes on short final, you could see that they were keeping a bit high before dropping down when close in. The briefing notes on the airfield website highlight that, being low on approach can really get difficult. Looks like a place that you need to brief for carefully.

The pleasure flights in the old warbirds were certainly keeping things busy but there was the usual visiting traffic combined with some local flying training. Someone seemed to be having a bit of a time with timing their flaring for touchdown, and I felt a bit bad for them being so on view with all of the visitors when going through their early stages of flight training. I imagine learning there really teaches you some skills!

This was a lovely spot to spend some time on a sunny summer afternoon, and I would be happy to go back again. The food is also great so that would be tempting too. They had a converted horse lorry that served as an outdoor bar which might be worth checking out too next time.

Go for the Cars, Stay for the Helicopters

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A day out at Goodwood Festival of Speed was clearly done to see the cars on show. However, there might have been a chance for a little aviation to be thrown into the mix. On the Friday of the show, I was working from home and heard a sequence of helicopters head overhead. About four helicopters seemed to be running a shuttle from a country house hotel near us across to Goodwood. Seems like a pretty decent idea. It’s probably not much more than fifteen minutes and means a nice spot to stay combined with no traffic. Maybe I should have given it a go.

Elite Helicopters from Goodwood was running the service. For the rest of the day, they were doing pleasure flights around the venue. At one point in the day, I headed across to the field that they had set up for the helicopters and sat watching the steady flow. A combination of JetRangers, LongRangers and JetRangerXs were being used. There were a number of pads and ground crews were sequencing passengers on and off. A one-way system meant that the departing helicopters would go around a cluster of trees and out the back passing the inbound traffic. They were certainly keeping busy.

I would have quite liked to do a ride, but I decided this was not the day for it. The hillside around the event would make for a good view. I learned to fly at the nearby Goodwood aerodrome and know that the Trundle looks nice with the horse racing course being cool to see too. Combine that with so much stuff on the ground for the festival, it would be a good trip.

I would probably be camera happy in that environment but, watching the flights, it did occur to me that everyone did seem to be busy watching it through their phone rather than just looking at it. I would probably be tempted to do something similar. That is when something like the Insta360 can help because you don’t have to frame anything. It can all be done after the event allowing you to just enjoy the moment. I hope they all enjoyed their flights.

A Pitts with Extra Oomph

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When I was a kid, the Pitts Special was the pinnacle of aerobatic aircraft. Then, the arrival of a bunch of high-powered monoplanes like the Zlin Z50L showed up follow by Extras, and the Pitts became more the preserve of individuals getting into aerobatics. It can still make a good display platform, though, and plenty of souped-up versions are on the air show circuit. The Cosford show included one flown by Rich Goodwin that has been modified with a pair of turbine engines mounted on each side of the fuselage.

This makes for a lot of noise and plenty of extra power. The piston engine still does the majority of the work but, when going vertical, the jets are fired up and give a major boost in performance. That can include hovering in place if required. From some angles, the plane is hard to notice as being any different to any other Pitts. However, from the right angles, the engines are conspicuous. A pretty cool display act. I assume top speed is constrained by the original airframe limitations so not much point in using the jets unless pointing upwards.