The static displays at RAF Cosford’s air show included quite the variety of out of service types that are kept at Cosford for training purposes. This included the first generation of Harriers. A pair of Harrier GR3s were on one lineup while a Sea Harrier FA2 was on another. The sun was out on the GR3s which made their ‘80s camouflage look great. Funny how, after years of Harrier IIs in service, when I think of Harriers, it is still the GR3s and the SHARs that come to mind.
Parked in the static at RAF Cosford’s air show was a Chinook. Nothing too special, you might be forgiven for thinking. However, this is a Chinook with some history. Known broadly as Bravo November, despite having worn many markings over the years, this aircraft was delivered to the RAF in 1980. In 1982, it was one of four that went south to the Falklands on Atlantic Conveyor. It was the first to have its blades fitted and flew off the ship shortly before it was hit by an Exocet. The other three Chinooks went down with the ship.
As the sole Chinook with the task force, her lifting capacity was in high demand. There were missions when she was seriously overloaded compared to what the release to service might have said. Some rapid leaps forward were possible by carrying way more troops than would have been the case in peacetime. There was also one flight when the crew got too low and hit a lake. As they skimmed across the surface, water sprayed up towards the engines which began to spool down. A chunk of collective pulled them up and, without the water hitting them, the engines were able to come back up to power. Amazingly no serious damage was done, and she served throughout the remainder of the conflict.
The Falkland’s conflict was 1982 and there were then decades of service in all sorts of operations – both peacetime and conflict. Finally, the airframe has come to the end of its life and now it is on the ground at Cosford. Plenty of visitors were checking out this historic helicopter. Towards the end of the day, the sun came around nicely and it looked great.
The first Red Flag of the year has traditionally been the one where the closest allies are invited with the RAF and RAAF being frequent attendees. The RAF brought a selection of Typhoons one year when I was there. The Typhoon fleet is not totally without squadron markings, but they can be a bit sparse. Fortunately, the jets that had been brought across had a few squadron markings on them. This spruces up the otherwise bland look of the grey paint finish.
I am far too young to have seen the Bristol Belvedere in flight, despite what some might think! Given how old it is, it really does seem like quite a large helicopter to have been developed and operated. I bet it looked pretty cool when it was flying. Even now, when see in a museum, I think it is still quite a beast. The example at the RAF Museum in Hendon was there when I first visited in the late 80s and it is still on display. Getting shots of something this large in a relatively confined space is tricky but worthwhile. Do you think it looks as good as I do?
Early January of 1989, I had just got back to my college accommodation in London and decided to pay a visit to the RAF Museum in Hendon. I had a good time wandering around and looking the various old aircraft (and some that were not so old). There was a Lightning that was on display and they had only been withdrawn from service a couple of years before. Until recently, that was my only visit to the museum. I decided it was time for an update.
Plenty has changed in the intervening years (although some things haven’t – the Lightning exhibit seems to be exactly as it was back then judging by my old photos). The Beverley has gone from the car park, and a new building has gone up. Plenty of exhibits have changed around with some having relocated to other museums and others having been added.
The place was very busy. It is free to visit so, I suspect that makes it a popular place for families on a rainy weekend. Lots of young kids there including some that seemed young enough that they wouldn’t really be aware of what their parents were desperately trying to get them enthusiastic about. They did have a lot of learning exhibits which gave the kids things to try out.
I wasn’t there for that stuff, of course. I was just interested in the planes themselves. It was a lot of fun checking out the various hangars with their different subject areas. I wish I had noticed that the battery in my camera was not fully charged as I got to the end of the visit and was nursing whatever juice was left in it. There is always the phone to use, of course, so I wasn’t stranded but I might have been a bit miffed to carry around a body and two lenses if I couldn’t use them!
As is the way with this blog, I will be finding some specific exhibits from the museum that will get their own posts, so this is a more generic look at some of the other bits the museum has to offer. Looking at planes is not going to be everyone’s thing but, if you have even a passing interest in this sort of thing (and the fact you have got this far down in a post about the museum suggests you might have), I would recommend you spend a day in Hendon.
The provision of airborne early warning seems to be a topic that is vexing countries currently. The RAF retired its E-3 fleet without a replacement. They then ordered five Wedgetails only to later reduce the order to three. Now there is discussion of increasing it again. Meanwhile the US decided to similarly replace the E-3 fleet with Wedgetails and ordered two.
A change of administration brought a plan to scrap that idea, use satellite surveillance and buy some more Hawkeyes in the interim. Congress is pushing back on that. Meanwhile, NATO had planned to go down the Wedgetail route but is now looking elsewhere given the lack of commitment from the US to the platform. SAAB’s GlobalEye has since picked up more orders including one from France and NATO might follow that route. All a bit of a mess.
Anyway, all of that is a long prelude to the fact that the first of the RAF’s Wedgetail fleet made an appearance at RIAT in 2025. It was supposed to appear on one day but apparently scrubbed. Consequently, it was rearranged to come in the following day. I imagine the RAF didn’t want the embarrassment of it failing to appear. It made a run in with the Red Arrows providing formation support. Then it made solo passes and an approach for a touch and go.
I don’t know how far off service entry it is, but testing continues at Boscombe Down. I have seen its distinctive outline on the airfield when driving along the A303. Hopefully they will be active before too long and also that, this time, the funding is provided to keep the systems current unlike the issues that led to the E-3 fleet fading away.
The RAF’s base at Odiham is not too far from where we live and it has been home to Chinook operations since the type was first introduced to service. I guess that there are training requirements for instrument approaches for the crews because it is not uncommon for them to show up over our house as they head to Southampton Airport. They will fly a few patterns which can include coming over the house.
Usually, they are a bit offset from us if established on the localiser and, while the Chinook is a large airframe, they are a bit distant for a good shot. However, I have managed to get a few when the light was more favourable. At some point I will get a closer encounter with them.
My Voyager ride with 101 Sqn ended back at Brize Norton and we pulled into the line with some other Voyagers. This included Vespina, the jet that is painted in national markings rather than the usual grey. We hung out on the ramp to get a group photo before heading back to the terminal. I got some shots of the Voyagers on the line while I was there (including the jet that we had just been in).
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.
