Anyone else like Birds AND planes? (3 Viewers)

[crazyfingers]

A Jet Blue airliner headed into Boston Logan airport. From my yard about 20 miles south of the airport. Zoomed and cropped.

The Boston Celtics (Basketball team) must have spent a fortune on this advertising.

Airbus A319 I think? It has been many years since I had to fly a lot.

 

[Andy Adcock]

Several (5-6) sonic booms woke me the night before last at 0400hrs local time. The aircraft are supposed to head out over the sea before they achieve this speed so they must have been in a hurry. Several guys I know who work on Akrotiri, also reported high activity on the base with Typhoon fighters heading out on an unusually steep trajectory, straight from take off.

 

[Farnboro John]

Several (5-6) sonic booms woke me the night before last at 0400hrs local time. The aircraft are supposed to head out over the sea before they achieve this speed so they must have been in a hurry. Several guys I know who work on Akrotiri, also reported high activity on the base with Typhoon fighters heading out on an unusually steep trajectory, straight from take off.

Given the position of Akrotiri by the time they went supersonic they would have been over the sea.

John

 

[susan webster]

I mention this, as sporadically (as is highlighted within another thread at present) it is clear people have an interest in aviation as well as birds.

Just wondered whether there was a link due to a fascination with flight?

Of course the vast majority will have no dual interest, but I suspect there are more than just a handful, tho this thread may prove otherwise.

I actually grew up as a child preferring planes, loving to go to local airshows, then national ones, and also loved the occasional day out at the airport. I love WW2 planes too, and have quite a collection of a variety of aircraft types.

Birding came along when I was about 36, and for the last 15 years I have never looked back. I still retain an interest for planes too, and on a recent birding trip to Hungary, I was fascinated to see a collection of ex Malev airliners at Budapest airport Terminal 2, where I paid the small fee to enter and was shown aboard and into the cockpits of 1960's Russian built airliners.

Anyway, just wondered..................

I'm quite an aircraft enthusiast too. Love the spitfire. Also train spotter.

 

[Farnboro John]

I'm quite an aircraft enthusiast too. Love the spitfire. Also train spotter.

Interesting that both plane and train enthusiasts embrace the word "spotter" while birders hate it!

John

 

[Andy Adcock]

Interesting that both plane and train enthusiasts embrace the word "spotter" while birders hate it!

John

At least when you go to an airfield, it's fairly unpredictable as to what you'll see but with trains, 99% they knw wxactly what they see, never got it.

The only thing worse than train spotters is the saddo bus spotters who stand outside our bus stations and don't get me going on Eddie Stobart spotters!!!

 

[Farnboro John]

At least when you go to an airfield, it's fairly unpredictable as to what you'll see but with trains, 99% they knw wxactly what they see, never got it.

The only thing worse than train spotters is the saddo bus spotters who stand outside our bus stations and don't get me going on Eddie Stobart spotters!!!

It's not quite that simple: if you are a number-cruncher (I think the train ones are called gricers, or used to be) then it's not so easy to know exactly which Class 78 will be pulling the coal train to Drax on a particular date. You can get so far with random visits but eventually you need to start hunting individual locos or EMUs down, and that takes intel....

Aircraft-wise I still don't have digital photos of eleven of the RAF's Chinooks: ZA674, ZA675, ZA679, ZA682, ZA707 (all original buy, from circa 1980); ZD980, ZH775, ZH895 and the recent ones ZK557, ZK558 and ZK563. And they are all based at either Odiham, down the road from me, or Benson, less than an hour away by road.

Conversely when I wanted to photograph the three British Airways retro-scheme 747s, I hunted them down coming into/departing Heathrow using Flightradar 24 to determine when they were arriving/departing and ADS-B Exchange to ascertain, close to the time, which runway was in use in order to position myself appropriately.

Sometimes twitching looks easy....

John

 

[Stonefaction]

It's not quite that simple: if you are a number-cruncher (I think the train ones are called gricers, or used to be) then it's not so easy to know exactly which Class 78 will be pulling the coal train to Drax on a particular date. You can get so far with random visits but eventually you need to start hunting individual locos or EMUs down, and that takes intel....

Aircraft-wise I still don't have digital photos of eleven of the RAF's Chinooks: ZA674, ZA675, ZA679, ZA682, ZA707 (all original buy, from circa 1980); ZD980, ZH775, ZH895 and the recent ones ZK557, ZK558 and ZK563. And they are all based at either Odiham, down the road from me, or Benson, less than an hour away by road.

Conversely when I wanted to photograph the three British Airways retro-scheme 747s, I hunted them down coming into/departing Heathrow using Flightradar 24 to determine when they were arriving/departing and ADS-B Exchange to ascertain, close to the time, which runway was in use in order to position myself appropriately.

Sometimes twitching looks easy....

John

Both twitching and plane-spotting have benefitted greatly from the availability of technology. Used to go to RAF Leuchars with no idea what might turn up - at best, you had heard a rumour from a friend of a friend of a friend, whereas now you can check a Facebook/WhatsApp group for those pooled rumours and check a flight tracking site to see if the aircraft is in the air, or not. Better in some ways, but worse in some too.

 

[KenM]

Interesting the way people perceive “train spotters” during the late ‘20’s (when he was a lad) my dad would walk to a pedestrian railway bridge just North of Liverpool Street Station (London), to note the numbers of the incoming Great Eastern Railway trains.

Which he would then look up, to determine their points of origin.
To a small boy, any of the “far flung” origins Great Yarmouth, Norwich etc. would have been positively exotic locations, in the same way as stumbling across a “sibe” would be on your local patch today.

I can certainly see a correlation between the two, comparing like for like then and now,
a hundred years ago the world was a much “bigger”place.
Can’t see any fist punching the air from that railway bridge today….with the incoming 8.20 from Norwich! 🤣

 

[Andy Adcock]

Affordable fighter jet, how many shall I put you down for John, you could have your own squadron?

Scorpion fighter jet goes on show

The Scorpion jet, which went from drawing board to first flight in 23 months, is on display at the Farnborough Airshow.

www.bbc.com

 

[Farnboro John]

Affordable fighter jet, how many shall I put you down for John, you could have your own squadron?

Scorpion fighter jet goes on show

The Scorpion jet, which went from drawing board to first flight in 23 months, is on display at the Farnborough Airshow.

www.bbc.com

Geben sie mir ein staffel Spitfire!

(Major Adolf Galland to Reichsmarschall Herman Goering at a critical point of the Battle of Britain. Yes, he really did say it and got away with cheeking his C-in-C.)

Most air forces in the market for a counter-insurgency (COIN) aircraft will go for an armed turboprop trainer and save a mint. Textron have been hawking this dog around with zero success for years. It's no more a fighter than a 747 is.

John

 

[Andy Adcock]

Had a very loud and very high, turbo prop aircraft over today. Confusingly, it looked to have six engines, anyone suggest what I saw, approximately 1200hrs zulu.

 

[Farnboro John]

Had a very loud and very high, turbo prop aircraft over today. Confusingly, it looked to have six engines, anyone suggest what I saw, approximately 1200hrs zulu.

I suggest a C-130 with underwing tanks (which project forward of the wing). AFAIK there are no six-engined turboprops.

John

 

[Andy Adcock]

I suggest a C-130 with underwing tanks (which project forward of the wing). AFAIK there are no six-engined turboprops.

John

Thanks John, I had realised this hence my puzzlement.

 

[KenM]

Seems the best place to present this, over the house last night whilst watching for incoming moth species, I espied this light in the sky coming toward and in a slight arc.

Albeit silently and slowly, I had no bins with me, just my smartphone, it “appeared” to slow on occasion before maintaining it’s arcing trajectory, it clearly wasn’t an aeroplane or chopper (being silent and too slow with intermittent “slowing”.

Drone would be the next consideration? however after imaging, I thought the seeming smooth elliptical light most odd? (between guttering and leafage)

FWIW, Image straight off the phone without any manipulation😮

Cheers

 

[SimonLS]

Seems the best place to present this, over the house last night whilst watching for incoming moth species, I espied this light in the sky coming toward and in a slight arc.

Albeit silently and slowly, I had no bins with me, just my smartphone, it “appeared” to slow on occasion before maintaining it’s arcing trajectory, it clearly wasn’t an aeroplane or chopper (being silent and too slow with intermittent “slowing”.

Drone would be the next consideration? however after imaging, I thought the seeming smooth elliptical light most odd? (between guttering and leafage)

FWIW, Image straight off the phone without any manipulation😮

Cheers

Most likely the International Space Station - could be seen over the UK 2 or 3 times last night.

 

[KenM]

FWIW, It was just before midnight Simon.

Cheers 👍

 

[SimonLS]

FWIW, It was just before midnight Simon.

Cheers 👍

Ken,

That's about right, going west to east (ish).

 

[KenM]

Ken,

That's about right, going west to east (ish).

Correct on compass points! 👍

 

[Barred Wobbler]

A Selection from Fairford last week.