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gary1701

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Everything posted by gary1701

  1. Hi gents, Big gap from the previous visit but having finished for Christmas I thought I'd pop over and see what was going on as it was a bright (but cold!) day. Lakenheath was NOTAMed as open but a drive past at 8 this morning and it was clear that nothing was going to happen so I turned for Mildenhall which ended up being surprisingly good on the last day before closing for Christmas. 'Mario 64' was on a early dawn launch to go snooping out East. This was more difficult to get than usual as some strange reflections were dancing around the forward fuselage and engines t
  2. Hi again, That's the article I found when looking around the web. I was familiar with some of the article as the company that planned to base Su-27/30's out of Iceland was connected to a professional photographer who I know and around the time of the article he was quite keen on photographing them. I didn't for one moment think it would come to anything and obviously it never did. It still looks like a photoshop job on those two pics, an impression of what a adversary scheme could look like on a EF-2000. I doubt such a scheme on any of the airframes flying with the Euro
  3. Hi gents, A few more I've sorted out, all pretty standard fare. I missed the latest batch of Saudi F-15SAs transiting through by one day! One of my test shots during the afternoon that I take to keep a eye on the light, didn't see the CV-22 sneaking into the left side of the frame! Gary
  4. Hi, I had a look around the net and this appears to originate from a blog back in 2014. I've never seen or heard of a EF-2000 in that scheme, so I'm guessing it's a photoshop job. There is a possibility that some early RAF examples may end up in a aggressor type scheme in the future, but nothing yet. Gary
  5. Gents, It wasn't meant to take me until December but finally nailed the second heritage F-15 at Lakenheath this afternoon. I got the 492nd early on back in May, the 494th is a bust as their yellow tailed jet is now back stateside at Warner-Robins on rework so will come back clean. The dark painted F-15C of the 493rd was the one I was desperate to get and the 48th have already said they're going to be painted out soon I knew I was running out of time. Today was the first visit (weather has been awful - even by UK standards!) in blue skies since the AFRES F-16s back in May. Sure enou
  6. Thanks, glad they were okay. I must admit it was easier than I feared. A month or so before I was still considering not making the attempt as I feared it was going to be difficult, if not impossible to get pics of the IDF deployment. As it turned out it went pretty well. Hopefully they'll be back in 2020 - be nice if they brought F-15Is or F-16I's. Gary
  7. Hi Bee, Unlikely to be 48th FW jets. All three squadrons are at home, which is rare. They did fly missions direct from Lakenheath to Libya back in 2011, but there's no indication over here that has happened recently. As I've said previously, we wouldn't publicly monitor that in real time on the web, but the indications would be there and there's been nothing. Lakenheath has actually been closed and stood down for the last couple of days, not due to reopen until middle of next week. It usually goes very quiet in late September as I believe their fuel budget runs October to October a
  8. Hi again gents, The other day I went back and did some research on this and this was the results. This only covers the jets that were deployed to the UK. F-15Ds 715 (90-0277), 706 (90-0276) and 733 (90-0275) come from the final batch of five new built D models delivered to Israel (and would have been built after the US started F-15E production). F-15D 980 (80-0055) is one of the ex-USAF batch delivered through Lakenheath in September 2016. Having read how much work goes into overhauling and upgrading these airframes, that's pretty quick to see it now operati
  9. Gents, Open Skies OC-135 arriving early this afternoon from the East. No CFM56's on these! Gary
  10. Hi Bee, Sure. They arrived on Wednesday the 28th August. They flew direct from Israel, three 707's in support, two returned and one came all way through with them, although he has gone back. They've had various transport types in, including a C-130 apparently bringing in a engine or two for some sick jets that departed whilst I was there Thursday morning. They flew six of the seven during Fridays sortie, so they must be in quite good condition for old jets, although one came back with a IFE due to a hydraulics failure early. Some of these are original jets, and some are
  11. Hi again gents, This is the big one, the results of yesterday and Thursday up at RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire, although the majority of these were taken yesterday as the weather went bad quite quickly on Thursday. A few words on this exercise, it's normally held a few miles away at RAF Coningsby, one of my other regular haunts but this year all the visiting air arms went to Waddington instead, not sure if this was connected with the sensitive nature of the Israelis or not. Cobra Warrior started out as a RAF/Luftwaffe exercise at Coningsby, last year the Italians joined although t
  12. Hi gents, Here's a quick couple of highlights from my two day jaunt up to RAF Waddington and Exercise Cobra Warrior - including the first ever exercise in the UK involving IDF aircraft. Understandably very security conscious but if the weather co-operates and you get in the right places, it's still doable. Full post to come once I've sorted through 1400 images! Gary
  13. Hi, Very nice. I've just got back from two days up at Waddington earlier this afternoon. Yesterday was a near total bust due to weather but today more than made up for it. Pics to follow. I've got your PM and will get back to you later this evening. I did hear that one day for some reason the Luftwaffe A310 overflew Waddington (was it a day last week?) with the EF-2000s despite the aircraft working out of Brize Norton for the exercise. I reckon it must have been a photo shoot. I'm guessing these were last week as the IAF have pulled the tanks from the F-15's this week?
  14. Hi, Thanks for that. The sunset/dusk shots are something I tend to specialize in at Coningsby because it's quite easy to get around and get the angles when the light and conditions warrant it. Here's a few more that may or may not have been on here in the past. Gary
  15. Hi and yes I do. I vary where I go at Coningsby depending on runway in use and sun angle, but those were all taken from the same location, the fence line at the edge of the field on the South Eastern corner. I'm shooting from the top of a set of step ladders over the fence, in between the top of the fence and the barbed wire. The farmer is okay with people being down here as long as they leave their cars up by the road and walk down, there's a layby that you can use. From that corner you can swing left to the taxiway on the South side with anything coming out of the shelters, swing right and y
  16. Gents, I missed this selection the other week when I did Wattisham families day and the Saturday morning Mildenhall run. On the Friday (my 50th as well!) and with Lakenheath closed for the bank holiday weekend I decided to go up to Lincolnshire and visit the RAF Typhoon base at Coningsby. It's one of the easiest bases to visit, with easy access all around the perimeter, but with the loss of Tornados and the removal of the majority of squadron markings from the Typhoons it's become a rather boring place to visit, unless there's something visiting. That wasn't the case on this Friday
  17. Hi again Bee. Your question above concerns something that I meant to cover on my long post above but was out of time last night as I was up against the clock. The short answer is no the US military could not if using UK facilities, but the genuine enthusiast community is quite self regulating when it comes to circumstances like these. I'll explain. In the old days prior to Internet, mobile phones, social media...etc...and using Libya 1986 as an example it was difficult for the word to spread in real time because the technology wasn't there. You still had the same level of interest
  18. Hi Bee, That's a very good question and I had to think a little before answering it as over here what we see and hear is kind of taken for granted. To take the questions directly, it's not US specific, any and all military flights in and around the UK are pretty much monitored by the enthusiast community. Outside the UK services, US types would obviously be the next most common to be seen and photographed purely because of the numbers and bases here. The current Cobra Warrior exercise being hosted by the RAF up in Lincolnshire starting today has German and Italian EF-2000's and a
  19. Thanks for that. I find it quite interesting that I can post a pic on here and find somebody has flown on a particular airframe that I have photographed. I was a little disappointed that I wasn't there when he left as he left on the bank holiday Monday as he went right up to the underrun on 11 and turned - would have made for some fantastic close up images as he would have been about 50 feet away! Gary
  20. Gents, I haven't updated this long running thread for months because I haven't been over here since March. That changed this morning although I wasn't planning on making the trip after two days in a row out with the camera. Unfortunately, well fortunately I suppose word went out this morning that a E-4 was due in at Mildenhall as part of the presidents visit to the G7 in France. I haven't seen or photographed one of those for over 25 years so it was grab gear and make a straight run over as I had less than two hours lead time. Got to the field at the end of runway 11 t
  21. Hi gents, It's been far too long since I posted any pics but haven't been anywhere for the last couple of months. Yesterday I got myself a invite onto the Army Air Corps Apache base just up the road from me at Wattisham. The base is celebrating it's 80th anniversary this year as it opened in 1939, just in time for war and has been used by the RAF, USAAF, RAF again and now the AAC. It has a number of noteworthy achievements. Initially a RAF Blenheim base the very first RAF bombing raid on Germany was flown from here, just 24 hours after war was declared. Given over to the 8th Air F
  22. Gents, A selection from Tuesday at Duxford with the big gathering of C-47/DC-3s prior to the mass drop over Normandy yesterday. Duxford planned special events on the Tuesday and Wednesday but the weather on Tuesday was terrible with a low cloud base and rain that spread in during the afternoon - the first rain East Anglia has had in weeks! The planned practise para drop by up to 200 of the parachutists using the WW11 style chutes had to be cancelled because the wind was out of limits although they did board the Dakotas and launch prior to the cancellation. These are the best I coul
  23. Thanks again guys, I believe the 'Makos' head back on Monday, although there was some rumour that at least part of the deployment would stay to take part in the D-Day events. The 93rd FS lineage goes back to a C-47 unit active over Normandy in June 1944, so there may be something in that but not sure. As for Lakenheath and the F-35, the official date is 2021 for the first permanent assignment to the base and the 48th FW. There is a lot of building work going on as new infrastructure is being generated for them. Still not sure as to what the long term line up of the 48th FW is going
  24. Many thanks guys but my shots are nothing compared to what others have shot in the last two days. The base has stayed on runway 06 so all departures, including the first wave of the morning with the sun lower and further behind. Combine that with the 'Mako's really playing to the camera - it's hard to miss that number of cars and people at the end of the runway and I'm sure the locals have tipped them off - then the shots some of the guys have got on Tuesday and Wednesday have been spectacular. Here's a couple of sets taken by other locals, I should have booked some more time off...
  25. Gents, A post showing todays little trip out to one of my usual haunts, but not for the locals as the 93rd FS have brought a dozen of their block 30 F-16s over from Homestead for a couple of weeks ACM training with the locals and RAF Typhoons. These guys are now on their second week here and today was the first day of good weather, although they flew last week the conditions were horrible, so I booked a days leave to go and have a look. Good weather and sunshine were forecast for the first part of this week which was good, but also a Easterly wind which supposedly would have had th
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