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RAF Benson Families Day 2007


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Thanks to a good mate, I was fortunate enough to be on base Thursday 30th August for the Families day. Had a ride in a Merlin fist thing in the morning, and we were booked in to go for the Chinook and Puma too. Alas, an airspace restriction curtailed those plans and with more than an hours wait after our pre-flight briefing, we got within about 30 yards of boarding the 'Wokka' before the news came through that no further flights from either the Chinook or Puma were to be conducted. Bummer!

Still - a good day was had. Photography conditions were fairly challenging, with a white featureless sky for most of the day and not much light.

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How was it flying in the Merlin?

Good fun. Was only up for 15 minutes - went up for about twice as long last year. Went weightless for a bit.

It's a very smooth ride - never flown in anything else to compare it against (shame the Puma and Chinook rides were cancelled!!), but you'd expect a helicopter to be shaky and it just isn't. They say it's really quiet compared to Puma and Chinook too, but you still come out with your ears ringing, so I can only imagine how noisy the other two are!

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Good fun. Was only up for 15 minutes - went up for about twice as long last year. Went weightless for a bit.

It's a very smooth ride - never flown in anything else to compare it against (shame the Puma and Chinook rides were cancelled!!), but you'd expect a helicopter to be shaky and it just isn't. They say it's really quiet compared to Puma and Chinook too, but you still come out with your ears ringing, so I can only imagine how noisy the other two are!

:rofl::taunt:

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Fantastic, not trying to kiss a** or anything but everytime I troll through Real Aviation and see your Screen name here I know there's going to be some great pic's, and I'm never disappointed. Your almost head-on shot of the Merlin and the Hawk pic's are awesome. As you said the conditions are not great but i'm always amazed at how super sharp your pic's are, I dare say straight from the cam they are even better. Love the close up detail shot along the side of the door too.

I, like many others I'm sure, like to think I've got an eye for a great pic and have snapped one or two gem's with a bog standard, very cheap 35mm camera, but I'd love to be able to afford a good camera and learn the art of photography. Your pic's continue to inspire and one of these day's my credit cards going to get seiously dented. I'd be interested to know what you'd recommend as a starters set-up bearing in mind I know very little about photography. Digital or not? Manual SLR or all-singin, all-dancing?

Keep posting these super pic's here, fantastic work,

Regards,

Eng

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