My visit to Brize Norton to have a trip with 101 Sqn wrapped up when we landed back at Brize. As we exited the aircraft and waited on the ramp to get some group photos, we were surrounded by other aircraft. More Voyagers were lined up but there were plenty of A400M Atlas transports ready for their next mission. It was a pleasant afternoon with nice light on the planes so I grabbed a few shots of the planes before we gathered for our group photo.
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.
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.
During RIAT, the RAF undertook a role demo with the Chinook. As part of the display, they picked up an underslung load to fly around a bit. The crew under the helicopter were ready to hook on the load and then let out the cables to make sure it was picked up properly. As I watched this happening through a long lens, I realised that they weren’t alone under there. There was a photographer recording their activities. He appeared to have a stills camera and probably a video camera mounted above it. I thought it quite amusing that I was photographing someone photographing the display.
A previous post had looked at what was, at that time, a development feature in Photoshop that removed reflections from images. Adobe puts development items in Photoshop first to get user experience with them before rolling them out to the software suite. Since Camera Raw and Lightroom’s develop module are basically the same, once it becomes a production item, it also makes it into Lightroom. Such is the case with the reflection removal tool.
I have used it a few times on shots, and it does work pretty well. It isn’t perfect but can be effective. I tried it out on a Typhoon that was refuelling from a Voyager. Shooting through the windows of the Voyager can be a bit tricky and the reflection removal tool can really help. I gave it a go, and the reflection was swiftly taken out. However, when I checked the rest of the image, I saw that a lot of detail in the shot was gone. It was at this point that I realised that the tool has three settings. I was on Preview. I switched to Best and, while the processing took a lot longer, lo and behold the detail was restored.
I have the overall photo above with the before and after versions for a comparison. Beneath I have two crops of the larger image with the Preview and Best settings. I won’t say which is which, but I think it should be pretty obvious. The tool defaults to Preview when you use it so, if you give it a try, don’t be put off if the initial results are disappointing. Make sure to experiment with the settings.
The Buccaneer Aviation Group has charge of a couple of retired Blackburn Buccaneers that it looks after at Cotswold Airport at Kemble in Gloucestershire. They held an open day in April that included some taxiing of one of the jets and I decided this would be a good way to spend a spring Saturday. They were going to start up the jet, taxi it around on the ramp, run through a sequence of tests on the airframe and then go out to the runway for a fast run before returning to the ramp to shut down.
There would then be a break while they repositioned everything to their ramp where everyone would be able to spend some time up close with the planes and get pictures as required. The jet that was going to be taxied was one of the last Buccaneers built and is painted up in retro Royal Navy colours as worn by 809 Sqn jets when serving on Ark Royal before the carrier was retired. I don’t think this jet actually had any RN pedigree but that isn’t a big deal.
The second jet that they have is in the process of being prepped for painting in the standard RAF camouflage. Currently it is stripped back ready for paint, and I have to admit I found it rather cool looking with the random patterns that are visible. This will show in another post. The two jets were lined up together in front of the hangar to allow everyone to get their photos.
I was one of the first cars allowed through the gate to the second part of the day which meant I was able to get some images before everyone else showed up and it started getting busy. However, they did have a good level of organisation to it all so, after giving everyone some time to get up close, they pulled everyone back a bit to leave it unobscured for photos. I did notice some steps off to one side of the ramp and asked I they might be moved in to get a higher angle on things, fully assuming that wouldn’t be possible. I was wrong. They were more than happy to bring them in which made for a better angle on the shots.
The day had started out with some damp and windy conditions. It did rain a bit during the taxi section of the day. This was quite handy in that it made the grey paint look like it would on a carrier at sea, i.e. wet! It also showed up the blowing of the wing when they carried that out and resulted in a cool vortex in the inlet being visible. As the day progressed, the weather got a lot better. It was quite sunny by the time we were on the ramp with the jets.
The team were in no hurry to kick us out and, as the afternoon wore on, the number of people thinned out and the light got nicer. I hung around with a guy called Matt that I had met, and we were able to pass the time talking about planes, cameras and places. Finally, we were the only ones around and the crew started putting the jets away. The steps were still out so I was able to get a high angle as they pulled a jet beneath me. It was a tight fit, but it all worked out well. A top day out and many thanks to the tea baggers at TBAG.
The RAF retired its Puma helicopter fleet at the end of March after 54 years in service. They undertook a tour of various parts of the country with three Pumas. Sadly, I wasn’t able to be in place for any of the flypasts. However, one of the last legs included a flight across London using the Thames helicopter route. I was working in the London office that day and so I did head up to the roof to see if I could see them. We are too far from the river to be in a good spot, but it was better than nothing. I also only had my phone. Stills were pointless so I decided to try and get some video instead. Here is what I got.
Why, when my last visit to RIAT was in 2019, am I still working my way through some shots from that show? There are many potential reasons but none of them reflect too well on me so we shall move past that topic and on to what I shot at that show. Specifically, let’s look at the Red Arrows. When we used to live in the UK, we would see the Reds on a regular basis and would sometimes get a bit blasé about them. When you live elsewhere, they become a bit more fun to see.
Consequently, I did make the effort to get a few good shots of their displays. It would have been nice to have some slightly better light to shoot them in, but that show was not the best for weather. Take off is always nice since you are close to the formations, and they are potentially tightly grouped in the frame. There are always the crossing shots to go for and then the bigger formation breaks will be a target. All of these were part of my efforts that year. When I was young, the rollbacks were a favorite of mine. They do a variation on this now, but I am not quite so keen. It is a tough one to shoot anyway since you really want to be on the display axis to get the best effect. Even so, I was still pretty happy with what I got overall.
Working through some older shots for another project, I ended up looking at some shots of an RAF Typhoon displaying. As I was zoomed in on some of the shots, it was interesting to see the air data vanes on the underside of the front fuselage as the plane maneuvered. There are several vanes around the underside of the front fuselage and the differences between them can tell yaw and pitch angles. In one shot when the jet was climbing straight up, the vanes are all pointing in similar directions. Shortly before this, as the jet was pulling hard, the angle of attack was higher and the flow up around the front fuselage results in some significant differences in vane angle.
This is the sort of thing that is very important when designing and clearing a flight control system. We had a front fuselage wind tunnel model for the Typhoon during the development program. This was used for intake design but also for air data system modeling. The way in which the various vanes move is vital to understanding the control law requirements. It is also important when considering failure modes. If one vane should fail, how much it impacts the flight control behavior and how much the system detect the failure. Will the aircraft be vulnerable to control loss in the interim? The Tornado did not have as complex a flight control system, but it did have augmentation of the controls and, as it rolled, you would get quite different readings from the angle of attack probes on each side of the fuselage. How much of a difference was normal versus what was a failure was an interesting analysis problem which I enjoyed working on. My days on Typhoon were relatively limited and shortly before first flight so I never got involved with the results of the testing program, but I do enjoy looking at the resulting aircraft whenever I get the chance.
There are many aircraft that the British aircraft industry produced in the middle to late 20th century that did not end up being terribly successful. There was the occasional commercial product in there but a lot that did not have large production numbers, even by the standards of the day. It was not unusual for the Royal Air Force to end up operating a few of these as the government of the day found a way to prop up an ailing manufacturer. One type like this was the Bristol Britannia.
A turboprop airliner, it was too large given that jets had taken over the market by the time it was coming into service. The Royal Air Force was the “willing” recipient of some of these airframes and, for transporting troops that didn’t have a choice in the matter, they were probably just fine. One of these airframes, Regulus, is not preserved at Cotswold Airport at Kemble in Gloucestershire. I didn’t know it was there until I was driving around the airport killing some time. It looks to be in great condition. I don’t know how well it is handling the corrosion risk that damp UK airfields offer but I hope it lasts a long time. There are a few of these around but not many.
