Saturday 8th June:
Not too much going on. Couple of the Daks were about but no photos of those, and Lynx G-NCKS stopped by for a couple of hours before heading out to Duxford. No light and feeling very cold in the wind. June, apparently…
Saturday 25th May:
Originally planned to visit Shuttleworth tomorrow for the Dakotas but thinking about it again yesterday, there wasn’t any need as they were due to depart North Weald on Saturday morning so the market side of the airfield would be open.
Turned out to be much better than I’d hoped for, as Gnat G-FRCE was also active, and thanks to the very kind hospitality of the airfield team, I was driven over to the Dakotas in the fuel tanker for a few minutes walkabout with the camera. Huge thanks to the tanker driver, nice to know that there are still *some* friendly people on the team at North Weald.
Saturday 3rd June:
Market day opens up some photo opportunities that otherwise are out of bounds – quite happy with today’s shots of the runway action. Main reason for the visit was to photograph the Russian Spitfire airborne with the bombs on it again, but the Gnats had G-RORI up for a flight to the coast and AeroLegends were flying passengers as always.
Thank you both.
Another quick visit this morning to catch the Sally B photo flight arriving, plus a few of the jets were up and about.
Aero Legends’ Dakota G-ANAF taxiing to the ORP for power checks with the photographers onboard.
L-29 and JP3 were active while the Dakota was away to meet up with Sally B.
And then the warbirds arrived. Messed up my B-17 shots with the nicer backdrop of trees so airfield clutter will have to suffice.
Popped in this avo for the annual visit to see the Clacton airshow movements – jets were all parked away from public areas on the old cross runway so set up camp at the Runway 02 ORP. Heat haze was really bad.
Hangar 11 Mustang also displayed at Clacton and the RNHF Seafire also came in for fuel having spent the last two days at Lydd, but didn’t get any pics of either.
And a bonus shot from a flying visit three weeks ago, well-timed to catch the L-29 landing.
Looked like it might be a slow one today but it turned out quite busy in the afternoon with the classic jets and the Aero Legends Dakota all going up in the nice weather.
Started off on the market side in the morning hoping for the Dakota to fly but they just repositioned it onto the old cross runway and shut down again. Aero Legends Spitfire Mk.IX was up and about all day flying with the helicopters but where they park it between flights, it’s always so awkward to find an angle with some light on it and I didn’t get anything else of it that I would publish for the rest of the day.
KP220/G-ANAF went up after lunch for the flight down to Lydd and back. Nowhere to really get close to the runway in the afternoon so it was backlit shots from the Squadron or nothing. It was parked fairly decently for close-ups once it returned.
XW324/G-BWSG went out on a couple of flights, not sure if it returned to NW though as it hadn’t by the time we left. Nice to be back over at Wings for this one, they’ve not had too much going on besides GA on my visists so far this year but it’s so much better for the light.
L-29 Delfin also made some noise this afternoon. Not a great shot but the end of the runway is just about the only place to shoot flyers once the sun moves round in the afternoon.
And a portrait of ‘Parky’ at the end of a long day’s flying.
Was asked to lend a hand at Hangar 11 today as Pete had a shortage of ground crew to get the Russian Spitfire out from the back of the hangar for a ground run. Had a short interlude with the camera while he was running the engine and tried to find some different angles.
Aero Legends were busy with their Spitfire, two Harvards and Tiger Moth. Their ‘new’ Dakota was on the ground but unfortunately didn’t fly.
And finally, the L-29 went out for a short local flight, seen here returning to park.
Hangar 11’s Mustang went out to Wellesbourne today. Missed the departure but did catch Pete taxiing back to the hangar. Same stuff I’ve taken (and you’ve seen) a thousand times over now…
Only other movement that piqued my interest was Bell-47 G-MASH. It’s a fairly regular visitor to North Weald but I’d not seen it in the sunshine before, so waited around until it departed around 5pm. Difficult to do much with it where it was parked though, there’s background clutter in pretty much every direction and the light was tricky.
A few from today. Peter took the Mustang out for lunch and Aero Legends were flying passengers again, although the Spitfire seemed to have a quiet day and was tucked away by mid-afternoon.
There were a few jet movements from the JP3 and L-29 too, but I tend not to bother with those now as there’s an awful lot of background clutter and they’re mostly backlit from where they now operate.
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