gary1701
-
Content Count
722 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Calendar
Everything posted by gary1701
-
Chris, Just a heads up, RAF Typhoon units are now on a enforced 'break' from the Mach Loop - somebody has been a bit silly and it's been filmed and posted on Social Media (as it would) so it may well be a bit quiet over in the valleys. I don't know if this also applies to other UK military types or the USAF units. It's not the first time, when will they learn..! Gary
-
Hi gents, A few more from todays trip over to Mildenhall. I didn't actually plan on going over at all, popped over to Bury St Edmunds, which is just 10 miles from Mildenhall this morning, intending only on visiting this! The opening of the towns annual Sci-Fi exhibition. Complete with actors on the opening morning. When I came out the weather looked good so figured I might as well carry on and see what was about. Got there late morning and RC-135S 'Cobra Ball' was just about to roll and head home. I'd forgotten he was in and if I'd been a few min
-
Hi Chris, Sorry bit late in reply. You seem to see most taken between 200 to 300mm for single fast jet types. A friend of mine usually uses a fixed 300. If you haven't got any alternative to the 200-500 in that range then you would probably have to bring it. I think some of those zooms up to 500 are quite heavy so understand why you wouldn't want to bring it. Gary
-
Gents, A few more from this morning, I had to miss the weeks action at Lakenheath with all those jets operating in perfect weather, but I did put a run into Mildenhall this morning. I did have my doubts that anything would be operating as we have very strong winds from the South directly across the runway today. If it hadn't been for the USN flights still supporting the Harry Truman in UK coastal waters then it would have been pretty much dead. First up was C-40 'Convoy 6326' arriving and departing back to Oslo. I shot these down at Folly Road even though the base was
-
Hi Chris, No worries and hope it helps. If you post up when you're going to be about I will let you know if there's any unusual exercises or deployments here in the UK. That won't tell specifically if they're doing the Loop or when, but would be more general. Also, have you looked at this site, gives some good info on locations. http://machloop.co.uk/ Gary
-
Hi Chris, I've never been myself, must be the only UK based military photographer who hasn't! That said, I know enough who do and am familiar with how it works. The 'loop' is supposedly active on any normal weekday when military flying is scheduled, both by the UK and USAF. I wouldn't say that nothing goes through during the weekend, as it does occasionally happen, sometimes when there's a major UK air show it's become the done thing for overseas visitors to make a run through - they can't just do it, overseas visitors have to pre-book well in advance of their scheduled visit. UK m
-
Thanks and good point Andrew. Mind you in this case they were airborne again within the hour, apparently filed for Norway. No idea why! I'm sure they'll be back during the deployment. Gary
-
Gents, Just to complete the pics from the end of last week this was what I shot at Mildenhall. As soon as I took this it was back across the road to Lakenheath and the F/A-18's. If this hadn't been late, and the Hornets early I wouldn't have missed the first four bugs. Interesting aircraft that I've never seen before, but not worth losing four F models Horrnets for! Italian Navy ATR P-72A MPA. Funny looking thing. It was a fuel stop whilst providing SAR coverage to some Italian EF-2000's departing Keflavik for home. Gary
-
Hi and thanks. No, its not. Or certainly not in the UK, can't comment elsewhere. In fact this is the first time since the 50th D-Day anniversary in 1994 I think, back then a load off the George Washington came ashore at RNAS Yeovilton for the anniversary flypast. A couple here and there have diverted to the beach during exercises or attended local air shows if working locally, but it's certainly not routine. Lakenheath public affairs and the DoD have publicly announced that both the Hornets and F-22s will be flying locally, presumably with the 48th. Two waves of the transiting Mountain Home F
-
Gents, Just caught up on a few more of the locals from the last couple of days. Some Reapers working the circuit on Thursday prior to the navy turning up. Some from the 492nd down by the lights as the sum moved round. Need a pretty fast camera to try this... Gary
-
Thanks gents. Todays arrivals follow below. The grapevine got the basics right, but screwed up the details. It wasn't 12 Tyndall F-22s out of the US, but 6 Langley birds coming back from the desert to operate in Europe for a while. They did the same last year, same month and wing, but the jets were so worn out at that point that they didn't fly a lot, so hopefully better luck this time. The F/A-18s have already flown a mixed flight this afternoon with the locals, after I left...grrr! 'Tabor 41' flight, in landing order.
-
Gents, Bagged these today, which was a big surprise as I didn't know they were coming until a couple of hours beforehand. USS Harry Truman is due off Portsmouth this weekend to give the guys a run ashore, but CVW-1 flew off eight Super Hornets to Lakenheath early this evening. I have a couple of days off and the weather made a trip worthwhile but I did not know they were coming until I got there. That was the good luck, the bad bit was I was caught between Mildenhall and Lakenheath when they turned up early! I missed the four F models that came in first, but nailed the four E's.
-
Gents, As requested, here's a link to the new thread. Gary
-
Hi gents, As previously said or threatened, depending on your point of view here's the start of the RAF Lakenheath photo thread. Same format, as I'll be going back through the archives so again there will be repeats from previous years. It won't be as varied as the Mildenhall thread, as obviously there isn't the variety of types that go into Lakenheath compared to neighbouring Mildenhall. As it generally isn't open at weekends, I don't go there as frequently as Mildenhall so many of the visitors I tend to miss. Visiting or transiting deployments have picked up in recent years, with
-
Hi again gents. Many thanks for the kind words. I still intend to add to the thread as and when able to do so, but it will mostly be new material when able to shoot it. My trips over are a lot more infrequent than they used to be due to a change in work and more family pressures. As the quoted dates show, the vast majority of the above were shot in the time period of 2006-2014, when my unusual annualized hours made it easy for me to go over quite frequently, not to mention working a lot closer than I do now. What I can do is do another thread for other locations that I
-
Hi and thanks, If it's the older MC-130P's with the smaller nose as in the 'Son Tay Raider', then I believe - and the real experts, please correct me if I'm wrong - it's a carry over from when the model was fitted with the Fulton recovery system on the nose. If not familiar, details below; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulton_surface-to-air_recovery_system It's used by James Bond at the end of the film 'Thunderball', although the aircraft deploying it is a B-17. The large radome on the MC-130H model is for the AN/APQ-170 radar. What the capabili
-
Hi Gents, Not new material this time, but going back to my archives and continuing on there. I'd left it with my first post on the usual residents, concentrating on the 100th ARW, so will carry on here, looking mostly at the MC-130s. The ancient MC-130P's were flown by the 67th SOS, now the MC-130J operator. This example is pulling off a approach to runway 11. One of their party pieces whilst doing circuit work is to make an approach to the wrong end, then pull off to the South and make a tight circuit to the other end. Makes for some interesting pics if correctly judge
-
Hi again, Thanks for that. Just to go into further details on Tornados, RAF Marham Tornado operations finish in April, and the fleet has been worn down heavily in recent months. The local enthusiast community keeps a running log of extant airframes and no more than 21 remain flying as of last week, that includes aircraft deployed to Cyprus for Syrian operations. They probably fly 4 to 5 a day at Marham at the moment at that will obviously only go down. Gary
-
Gents, Today, this came very close to the farce I made of last years Cobra Warrior exercise. Cobra Warrior is a joint RAF/Luftwaffe exercise (with some Italians thrown in this year, although operating from Waddington for some odd reason) that involves assets from several units from both air arms, but is generally centred around RAF Coningsby, where the Germans normally deploy Eurofighters (don't call them Typhoons!) and a number of their shrinking fleet of Tornados. Last year I managed to book a complete week off work, go up on the Monday with supposedly the best light, and then fi
-
Hi and thanks for the kind words. I also was around in the 80's and remember the swingers, although back then I relied on my dad to take me over. Not a lot has changed really, as we still park, watch and photograph from the same locations now, 30 years later. Luckily, at least Lakenheath has a reasonably secure future. The SR-71 should mean Mildenhall, as that was where the 9th SRW detachment was based, although there may have been occasions when it maybe diverted into Lakenheath. I did photograph it from the fence back then, rather than just the same air show pics that everybody s
-
Gents, Popped back today in the hope that either the broke one would go or rumoured next arrival would turn up, and that was a no on both counts. I think they engine ran the broke one as they had the engine covers off and the fire wagons around it, bit to far on the other side of the field to hear. Only movement I caught today on a Sunday, Kansas ANG '135 that came in yesterday when I was down the wrong end waiting for the bone leaving. I didn't even look at the early shots from yesterday morning when 'Mytee 92' came in with the sun s
-
Gents, This one was a exercise in patience earlier today. 'Mytee 92' blasting out of runway 29 homeward bound. Mildenhall has had more B-1 movements this week than in the previous 10 years. 2 have already transited through, another sits broke after coming in Thursday and may depart tomorrow. 'Mytee 92' came in from the desert this morning at around 9AM local to 'quick turn' and in their own words 'get the hell out of here' - obviously this crew are familiar with Mildenhall... As usual, refuelling problems, flight plan issues and Mildenhall's general attitude soon changed that and
-
Thanks gents for the kind words, another Saturday morning trip over today, given the nice weather, although thankfully the heat wave has gone for the time being. Runway 29 today, which is a pain as it means that the sun tends to be up the stern of anything arriving, although it didn't cause too much of a problem to the two inbounds this morning. Nice to see the civil 747's making regular runs in again, a Atlas 747 came in last weekend, so maybe they're back on a timetable. Years ago you would always get a 747 freighter in on a Thursday.
-
Gents, Been a while since I added to the thread, so here's a few from this morning. Nice bright morning expected with runway 11 in use, so arrivals into the sun in the morning made a Saturday morning run over worth a punt. I also expected some movement due to a certain high profile visitor to the UK. The HMX-1 VH-60's and MV-22s were working out of RAF Northolt this time rather than Mildenhall but the C-17s were expected to drop into Mildenhall for fuel before heading back with their cargo as Northolt only has a short runway and I doubt could work a fully laden C-17. Sure enough wh
-
Gents, Here's a selection of pics taken today at the RAF 100 years flypast. These were taken towards the start of the run in just South of Ipswich, Suffolk. It required pumping as many sources as possible to try and find the exact route this far North, and quite a bit of guess work. As it turned out the positioning was fine, although the blue skies the UK has had for the last couple of weeks unfortunately deserted us today. Leading off, two Shadows. Two C-130Js. A400 Atlas C-17 and BAe 146. I had to
