Tag Archives: jet

Tanking Typhoons

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 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.

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!

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.

Kemble’s Other Residents

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My visit to the TBAG event at Kemble was quite a while ago now. However, still more to share from that day out. The airfield is home to the Buccaneers and the Phantoms that I have posted about but there are some other aircraft that are parked there. This includes one of the Ex-British Airways 747-400s that were painted in retro liveries. There is a Gnat painted in Red Arrows colours, and a Canberra PR9 in a silver scheme. Both look good.

A Hunter is also in a silver scheme which is a nice addition and there is a Bristol Britannia that I have posted about previously. These are all by or close to the café so any visitors to the airfield will have a few cool planes to check out during their visit.

Getting the Moon in Some Shots

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If you are shooting at the time of the month when the moon is close to full, it should mean it will show up in the background at some point when you have afternoon/evening light behind you. Will it make it into your shot? Probably not. The angles the planes take vary and the moon is constantly moving in the background so, while you can anticipate it might work out at some point and hope accordingly, that doesn’t mean it will work. Of course, you can also forget about it for a while and miss a perfectly good moon shot too – who would do that though?

At various times when shooting departures are Seattle Tacoma International Airport, I did get the moon to show up in the shots. Would it be with the most interesting aircraft in the foreground? Probably not. More likely to be an Alaska Airlines jet since they are the most common departure (and also the one more likely to have made me not be getting a shot) but that is still fine. Here are some results from across various shoots.

Return of the Reds

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One of my days at RIAT was spent down towards the threshold of the runway. This meant I was able to get shots of the approaching planes and, hopefully, their touchdown. I say hopefully because a couple of things were working against me. First, there were some distance to go boards that could be in just the wrong spot depending on where the plane touched down. Second, because I was close in and there was a lot of distracting stuff in the background, I was going with a lower shutter speed to give the sense of motion and blur out some of the distractions.

I didn’t have a high success rate with some of these shots which was expected. When going through them, I can be pretty aggressive at culling anything that is not super sharp (at least on a part of the airframe that will be the first point of interest for a viewer) but I do have to bear in mind that I am looking at a high resolution version of the image zoomed in to 100%. When it is a 1600 pixel image on a screen, it will forgive a lot of the detail problems.

Anyway, I got some shots of the jets on approach and then as they touched down. Some of them came out pretty well. I did also use the location for take off shots where, since the planes were just beginning their take off rolls, they weren’t going that fast and getting the blur required was a bit trickier. Some of those will, at some point, show up on here too.

The Spanish Typhoon Gets Some Speed

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The weather for RIAT was variable over the course of the show. We did get some quite humid days. This did make for some spluffy performances from various fast jets. The Spanish Air Force brought a Typhoon for the show. The Luftwaffe had some on static and the Royal Air Force and Italian Air Force were displaying theirs so there was a chance to compare. Of the three displays, the Spanish jet was my favourite by a long way.

It is sometimes hard to justify what it is about a display that makes it better or worse than another. In the case of the Spanish Typhoon, I think the thing it achieved better than the others was to focus on what appeals to the casual viewer. As an aero guy with an interest in stability and control, I am more than willing to marvel at some of the cooler display manoeuvres that are really testing the technology of the planes. However, while some of those might be technically fascinating, they often do not make for a good “show”.

An example of this is high alpha rolling manoeuvres. The way a jet will roll around its velocity vector is great from an aero point of view but is rather dull to watch. Many displays include the same basic elements, and they all get a bit repetitive – particularly if you are spending several days at the show and see multiple performances. The Spanish display seemed to mix things up a bit. There was a lot of speed, a lot of tight turns, no messing around with the slower stuff and the sort of routine that has everyone watching. It didn’t hurt that it pulled a lot of moisture from the air too. Top marks to this pilot from me.

Arajet But Without the Paint

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Having Boeing on your doorstep means the chance to photograph airlines that you have a good chance of never seeing in their normal operations. Arajet, of the Dominican Republic, is one such airline. As they were taking delivery of some 737 Max jets, I was able to photograph them. On one occasion, I was out at Boeing Field when one of their jets was on test and I was looking forward to getting a shot. Unfortunately, I didn’t know it hadn’t yet been painted. Instead, I got a green plane with only the rudder and winglets giving away who the ultimate operator would be

I like the green of the unpainted jets and primer finishes on other planes also look good to me. I wasn’t so upset as a result, but it wasn’t exactly what I was hoping for. Still, it looked pretty good on approach. I did get another airframe in the finished livery so I will stick that at the bottom to show what this one would ultimately look like. Not a dramatic livery but something different.

Gateway Airliners

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Mesa Gateway airport in Arizona does get some airline visitors. Allegiant was bringing some jets in while we were visiting early last year. GlobalX also had some coming in. Judging by how many of their jets I saw off to one side not looking too active, I assume they undertake some maintenance work there too. Not a ton of variety with these two but here are some shots of their planes. Makes a change to not show a GlobalX jet at Boeing Field!