Night Eagles

I have been a regular visitor to RAF Lakenheath since the F100 Super Sabres were based there in the 1960's, as I am sure you have guessed I have a big passion for the truly awesome F15 Eagles that currently live there. After so many visits it is always nice to get shots that are different.

So when during November & December the usual pre-flight arming and check area was closed for resurfacing and the north EOR pan was used instead I spent several days photographing the action from so much closer than is usually possible. There were a few run-ins with security at first but once they got the measure of why the plane spotters were there, pressed hard against the fence, it all seemed quite relaxed.

 What I enjoyed most was the opportunity to get night shots, the like of which have not been possible previously, as well as some human element, I am especially happy with the second from last shot "Eagle dancer" which shows the marshaller with blurred jets moving around him,, a slow shutter to catch the movement, but his face, the expression of concentration on the job at hand, is needle sharp! 

A big thankyou to the guys involved and the friendly MODplod boys too!

A year already...

..since the Harrier disappeared from our skies.

The 1 (fighter) squadron association site is now up and running

Typhoons

A bit of balancing things up here, I seem to have several USAF aircraft and an increasing amount of airliner shots on this blog, so armed with a shiny new set of steps I headed to RAF Coningsby for some Typhoon action, usually when I visit this base I get cold and wet  and come home with a handful of pictures, but this was a full on day with loads of flying.. and a not bad sunset too!

Lots more on my Flickr http://www.flickr.com/

Loud Tonkas, and even louder Strike Eagles

It's many years since I went to Holbeach Range, a real sign of changing times this was too, once upon a cold war time it was non-stop action here, now its a long wait for very little to happen, however the straffing runs by a Marham Tornado GR4 certainly blew the wax from the ears!

Lakenheath however was about as busy as normal, after very many visits here I was in search of shots that were way different to usual so I got right under the final approach path and used a 20mm lens, the clouds on the day really invited this tactic, I am very happy with the images, but not so happy that I had left my ear-defenders in the car!

Oh no civvies!!!

I've had a couple of visits to Pinewood and Longcross studios regarding a possible movie job, as these places are a stone's throw from Heathrow it seemed like a good idea to avoid the queues on the M25 and shoot some airliner images, I enjoyed it so much I also had a trip to Luton airport as well!
With the ongoing defence cuts civvie stuff might soon be all thats left for us plane spotters to photograph !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ospreys at Mildenhall

I have been out and about photographing aircraft quite a bit but have not been able to update this blog for a while so this is a bit of a catch-up posting.
First up is an RC135W that visited Mildenhall, it's an electronic intelligence gathering aircraft that I suspect was here as part of the effort to solve problems in Libya, at around the same time a US Navy PC3 Orion visited, it's late afternoon departure made for some great full-circle propeller blur with the low sun glinting off the blades.
By far the best visitors and big crowd pullers though were the 4 Bell Boeing CV-22B Osprey tilt rotor aircraft of the 20th SOW (special operations wing) from Cannon AFB, a little frustrating to catch up with them flying, but generally about 20-30 minutes before sundown was when they took to the air!
82 more shots of the Ospreys here http://www.flickr.com/photos/nigelblake/sets/72157626240782571/detail/

Eagle sunset!

About six weeks either side of the shortest day there are a few days when the sun sets in line with the runway at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk, after many years of trying and seeing great sunsets and no aircraft landing and/or lots of jets but clouds blocking the sun I finally got the shots I was after on Monday, over 400 of them in fact, afterwards I viewed the pictures on the back of my camera, it was a Tourettes moment!