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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Anyone else like Birds AND planes? (5 Viewers)

Indeed, saw the last VC10 at Cosford show last year!

More wonderful photos, this time from John.

Oh, and a great story MJB.
 
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Indeed, saw the last VC10 at Cosford show last year!

More wonderful photos, this time from John.

Oh, and a great story MJB.

Just read the VC-10 had been retired, in September.
Banked "Lanc" that John has there is magnificent!
Thoughts of MJB, has myself remembering back, recollecting some conversations
of co-workers, mentors, my dad and uncle.
Can we help being drawn to mechanical apparitions, when the feathered wonders are considered.
Cheers, everyone.
 
The Tiger Moth flight I had in the photos I posted earlier brought back particularly poignant memories. The flight was a birthday present from my sons and there was a choice of location. The closest was Sheffield (about two and a half hours away), but I opted for Duxford, because I like the place and it was a better day out. There was no display, but the museum is a great day in itself.

It took some doing, with the first attempt aborted after driving three hours south to Newark before I got the message that strong crosswinds and low cloud had wiped the flight out (it was a lovely summer's day at home when we left and it still was when we got back). The rearranged date was a complete cancellation because of wet weather and on the third attempt we made it all the way to Duxford (250 miles each way) before increasing crosswind strength wiped out that one too. It was fourth time lucky.

The poignancy comes into it regarding my late father. When I was a lad he had a thing about two aircraft in particular, Tiger Moths and Hawker Hurricanes. Not for him the sleek grace of the top of the pops Spitfire. He liked Hurricanes. My first two aircraft models were a Keil Kraft rubber-powered balsa and tissue paper Tiger Moth (doped training yellow) and a Hurricane - both built by my dad, because I was too young, but they piqued my interest.

All those years later when I opened the envelope containing the details of the moth flight on my birthday, my thoughts immediately returned to my dad.

On the day of the flight, after the briefing and just as I was about to walk out to the moth, there was the roar of an engine overhead, and totally unexpected and out of the blue the plane in the photo below came in, flown by Carolyn Grace. I took the second photo from the moth cockpit as we were taxying out to the east end of the runway.

How I wished my old man could have been there to witness it.
 

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The Tiger Moth flight I had in the photos I posted earlier brought back particularly poignant memories. The flight was a present from my sons and there was a choice of location. The closest was Sheffield (about two and a half hours away), but I opted for Duxford, because I like the place and it was a better day out. There was no display, but the museum is a great day in itself.

It took some doing, with the first attempt aborted after driving three hours south to Newark before I got the message that strong crosswinds and low cloud had wiped the flight out (it was a lovely summer's day at home when we left and it still was when we got back). The rearranged date was a complete cancellation because of wet weather and on the third attempt we made it all the way to Duxford (250 miles each way) before increasing crosswind strength wiped out that one too. It was fourth time lucky.

The poignancy comes into it regarding my late father. When I was a lad he had a thing about two aircraft in particular, Tiger Moths and Hawker Hurricanes. Not for him the sleek grace of the top of the pops Spitfire. He liked Hurricanes. My first two aircraft models were a Keil Kraft rubber-powered balsa and tissue paper Tiger Moth (doped training yellow) and a Hurricane - both built by my dad, because I was too young, but they piqued my interest.

All those years later when I opened the envelope containing the details of the moth flight on my birthday, my thoughts immediately returned to my dad.

On the day of the flight, after the briefing and just as I was about to walk out to the moth, there was the roar of an engine overhead, and totally unexpected and out of the blue the plane in the photo below came in, flown by Carolyn Grace. I took the second photo from the moth cockpit as we were taxying out to the east end of the runway.

How I wished my old man could have been there to witness it.

That's a cracking story, what a wonderful present from your lads. Fair play for you persevering after 3 anti-climaxes, and enjoying your dream flight.

I live 5 miles from RAF Cosford museum, where there is a Hurricane, Spitfire, Mustang, and I think a Tiger Moth as well as loads more. I take my young lad there every week or so, as its free. Hope he enjoys the planes when he is older along with birds.
 
You're not alone Wolfie,
I grew up near Manchester Airport, & have been a spotter since the age of 10.
My next door neighbour at the time was a very keen Birder & already having a pair of 10x50 bins from Dixons, i began to view the birds in the garden whilst waiting for the next Dan-Air 727 full of holidaymakers to come screaming overhead.
Remember seeing a lovely brown bird with bright blue wing patches walking around the lawn one morning, & asked my neighbour what it was. He gave me a copy of the original Collins guide to look at, & having identified it as a Jay, i was hooked.
The 2 hobbies complement each other quite well, as the busy period of the year for air traffic is usually summer, whereas spring, autumn & winter are generally quieter - quite the opposite when it comes to birding.
 
Been into pretty much everything that flies/up in the air (birds/planes/astronomy/UFOs/insects) at one time or another. I blame my star-sign - Libra (its an air sign).

My local patch, Riverside Nature Park is next door to Dundee Airport so if anything interesting is around I tend to take a few photos (had 2 RAF Beech 200s on Monday). Also another of my regular haunts - the Eden estuary at Guardbridge is just down the road from RAF Leuchars with decent views of the movements from the hide. Spent more time photographing birds this year on the beach two days before the annual airshow than the planes (had a Sea Eagle and an Osprey close together while the Austrian Typhoons practiced their display).

A few planes from Dundee Airport in amongst my Riverside Nature Park set on flickr...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stonefaction/sets/72157628116956133/

More plane photos here...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stonefaction/sets/72157622693611581/

Birds are now my main interest but I do still keep an eye and an ear on anything else flying around. Some of the flight tracker apps are great for ID-ing contrails high overhead.
 
A nice story Barred Wobbler

I also flew from Duxford, I took my old mate (the cheeky chum I mention in the Lancaster story) for a flight in a 1938 DH Rapide for his 50th birthday - quite an experience :eek!: Sadly he passed away in 2009 but I have an everlasting image of his face, rigid with fear as we trundled through the sky over Cambridge in this distant cousin of the Mosquito :-O

Happy days
 
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I'm not such a plane nut as others here, but my father served in the RAF in WW2 and was a keen model plane maker in his youth so something rubbed off. Also as a kid growing up in the 1950s you could hardly be unaware of the air of excitement regarding aircraft development - something which "Empire of the Clouds: When Britain's Aircraft Ruled the World" by James Hamilton-Paterson conveys perfectly.
 
A nice story Barred Wobbler

I also flew from Duxford, I took my old mate (the cheeky chum I mention in the Lancaster story) for a flight in a 1938 DH Rapide for his 50th birthday - quite an experience :eek!: Sadly he passed away in 2009 but I have an everlasting image of his face, rigid with fear as we trundled through the sky over Cambridge in this distant cousin of the Mosquito :-O

Happy days

Thanks.

These Rapides were taking flights up on the day we were there, 5 July 2009.

Maybe one of them was the one your pal rode in. I would like to think so.;)

Another thing that was memorable about that day as we flew a circuit over Saffron Walden and points eastward were the number of now cultivated fields that still showed (through the variation in growth) the outlines of the old bomber runways on the airfields that were constructed during the war. They fell into disuse when they were no longer needed and reclaimed. From the ground they look like any other field, but from the air it's different.

The third shot shows the USAF hall, opened in the late 1990s to commemorate the 8th Airforce that flew from Duxford. When I first visited it on the way home from East Sussex, where I'd been visiting friends in 1997 it still smelt of fresh paint. It holds American aircraft, including B24, B52 and an SR 71 Blackbird among others. At the rear of the building on the way to the entrance is a wall commemorating the USAF fliers.
 

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Hi BW, that's quite a place eh? IIRC there's a B52 strung from the ceiling that's at eye level in the cafe - extraordinary :eek!:

Thanks for the pic of the Rapides, it was the black one wot dun it!
 
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The B52 is right in your face at eye level as you walk in the door. What I found striking was that although the aircraft is huge in overall dimensions, the cockpit is about the size of a photo booth. It's tiny.

I was also struck by the size of the tail turret of the Lancaster in the entrance hall. Men flew out and back in the dark at 20,000 feet without contact other than intercom with their crew, knowing they were number one target for any night-fighter in a space about the size of a computer chair, without heating.

I knew a man, gone now, who volunteered and was a tail gunner in one of those. He didn't have to. He was a coal miner - a reserved occupation during the war. That's bravery.
 
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While we are on the subject of Duxford:
- it was the first place to have an operational Spitfire Squadron (No. 19)
- it was the principal location for filming Battle of Britain (during which one of the historic hangars was blown up for an airfield attack scene after permission had been denied
-it holds a cracking all-piston warbird airshow every July called Flying Legends which I would only miss for a tick
-it is probably the best place in Britain to listen to the song of the Merlin

Here are some Duxford Spitfires:
 

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Wow 16 Spits in the air! Must have been a hell of a sound. Love that 4th image especially of the Spit closing in on the ME109.

The sound was amazing. Unbelievable. Every hair on the back of my neck was on end. The crowd was silent apart from the sussuration of camera shutters and more than a few had a sly wipe at the corner of their eye as the planes roared through.

BTW currently there are 32 airworthy Spitfires in Europe. Now that would be a real sight......

John
 

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