Wonderful Warbirds

Duxford "Flying Legends" is for me the best show of the year, at 3 hows the flying display is not the longest show, but the sky is always busy, after last years loss of "Big Beautiful Doll" and damage to one of the Skyraiders after a midair collision the show was noticably toned down to add a margin of safety to it. In my view it did not detract at all and possibly made it a little easy from a photography viewpoint! 

Coningsby nights

The RAF Typhoon base at Coningsby were doing night flying so I had the chance to get some dusk shots at last, the late midsummer evenings pointed towards a lingering afterglow from the sunset that would hopefully leave some colour rather than blackness in the sky, with a good evening forecast after a wet day I headed off to Lincolnshire. I arrived in time for clearing skies and some very peachy late afternoon light, not to mention several aircraft being readied to fly. The light when they took off was superb, and even better when they returned about 50 minutes later enabling me to get some very nice head on shots. Later as it got darker about 16 more aircraft rolled out in darkening conditions, but the navigation, formation and other lights glowed in the humid evening softness, and shimmered in the heat haze from the engines, it was a mad rush setting up the shots for exposures of 20 and 30 seconds, some failed because the Typhoons moved during the time the shutter was open, however I got a pile of shots I was happy with, you can find more on my Flickr pages within the Typhoon set! 

Belgian F16 at Duxford jubilee show

I think the pictures tell the story! 

Run to the hills!

Sometimes you have to make spur of the moment decisions, and as the result of an early evening e-mail, after being out shooting bird images all day, I put everything on charge, grabbed some sleep and at 3:30 a.m. rushed off making sure to pack the charged batteries etc to be at Corris corner for 9:30 am the following day. It was a hard walk but a glorious morning with great light and a clear view, the first jet around the corner was a Hawk T2 and 20 minutes later 2 F15Es from Lakenheath growled down the valley, and just about 4 minutes later they did it again but just a little more spectacularly. There were more due later but with changing light it seemed a good idea to move to Cad east for a different veiwpoint, sadly the Strike Eagles stayed high this time, but 2 Tornado gave us a great wings-swept pass, a great day out! 

A wet day at Luton

Not that I was there all day, I had spend much of the day at my accountants and decided to go home via crash gate 5 at Luton, it had been OK weather but when I arrived the rain started and all the other aircraft enthusiasts headed home! I got soaked through but really enjoyed the challenge that the weather presented, a few images below, and lots more in the Luton set on my Flickr pages  click here!
 

Typhoons

A dawn until dusk day at RAF Coningsby in February that despite being cold and grey was very enjoyable, some great light first thing and an opportunity for some night shots late afternoon and evening and loads of action in between!.

 A great place but you need to have a step ladder in some positions as the fences are just too high for tip-toe shooting!