Northolt Night(ish) Shoot – 26May11

Not sure what Phil is doing, but his sacrifices to the weather Gods seems to be working with the rain dissipating for the start of the evening and the threatening clouds parting. A slight change to the format of this night shoot as it was an evening/sunset/night shoot. There was an opportunity to photograph the visiting aircraft in sunlight and once the flying had stopped at RAF Northolt, we had access to the pan to photograph in the late evening sunshine the An-28 of the Polish Navy, a Belgium A-109 helicopter, a French Alpha Jet and a Squirrel helicopter from RAF Shawbury. The Sea King that was expected had cancelled due to the possibility of the Icelandic volcanic ash cloud reaching RAF Valley the next day. A pair of 32 Sqn 125s had touched down just before we arrived along with a 146 and were available for the shoot and the hangar doors were opened so we could get the local A109’s. Many thanks to Phil, Lee and the rest of the volunteers at Northolt for a very enjoyable evening but especially the visiting crews from the continent for winding up their respective aircraft and the Belgian pilot of the French Alpha Jet for a bit of posing in his flight kit inside and outside of his aircraft.

Brian