Night-time visitors

[John Tapsell]

I made a semi-regular visit to my favourite Night Shoot location last week - not the best turn-out ever but definitely colourful

 

 

[Cajun21]

Nice shots, thanks.

Cheers

Itch

[southwestforests]

Nice sharp and clear photos.

Helo is a Westland Wessex, right?

Built an I think Fujimi one of them way back in late 1980s early 1990s then it got cut up for sci-fi parts.

That blue French one is sending me off to Google Shorts Tucano, bye!

 

[Hajo L.]

Southwest, the helo is a Westland Scout:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westland_Scout

 

Great to see one still flying!

 

 

HAJO

[barkin mad]

On 3/23/2023 at 9:50 PM, southwestforests said:

 

That blue French one is sending me off to Google Shorts Tucano, bye!

 

 

The French blue one is a PC-21, built by Pilatus, The French AF did use Tucanos but they were built by Embraer. Shorts license built the Tucano, after quite a few design changes, for the RAF.

 

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[habu2]

As a fellow photographer I'd be interested in learning more about the gear and lighting used in your shoot.  

[southwestforests]

2 hours ago, barkin mad said:

The French blue one is a PC-21, built by Pilatus, The French AF did use Tucanos but they were built by Embraer.

Ah, thanks. They do turn out to have a resemblance.

The last Pilatus I can identify at first glance is the Porter, PC-6.

[John Tapsell]

On 3/26/2023 at 4:05 PM, habu2 said:

As a fellow photographer I'd be interested in learning more about the gear and lighting used in your shoot.  

Hi Habu,

 

apologies for the late reply.

 

My kit this time round was a very slimmed down rig. I normally go armed with a DSLR (Canon Eos 7D) and a couple of shorter lenses; a 17-40 and a 24-105). However, this time I took just my Sony RX10 bridge camera with its built-in zoom. I specifically wanted to experiment to determine how lightweight I can get my kit.

 

All shots were taken using timed exposures with a tripod and cable release. Film speed setting is typically ISO200. Flash photography is verboten as it's an active military base and there is the potential for traffic 24/7. London Air Ambulance also leases one of the hangars which is why they are included regularly in the line-up.

 

I used between f8 and f16 for the exposures (the RX10 only goes as high as f16) and use the camera on the manual setting, typically 15-20 seconds per exposure, bracketing if I was unsure.

 

Aircraft participation is always a lottery. The organiser sends out invites through his (vast) network of military and civilian contacts and it then depends on who can make it (and who can justify the visit as a 'night navigation exercise' or familiaristion flight) and what the operational taskings are on the day (short-notice cancellations are not uncommon). 

 

The underlying purpose of the Northolt events over the past 15 years is to raise funds for the restoration of the RAF Northolt Ops room to its original WWII condition.

 

https://www.northoltnightshoots.com/

 

This was an Irish Air Corps AW139 Wolfhound from a few years back

[Loach Driver]

Nice shots of the MD902 Explorer and the Westland Scout. The MD902 is not currently in production and no new ones may ever be built. 

 

Great to see a few Scouts still flying in private hands, It's not the prettiest helicopter but it has its charm, nonetheless. 

 

LD.