Aircraft General Discussion

The sun has come out, and with it more aeroplanes. Just had a Spitfire fly over the bungalow, heading back to Duxford.

Andrew

Old Warden had its first show of the season the other weekend and during the display by the Red Arrows the new display rules kicked in and they had to stop the display when Air traffic controllers, possibly Stansted, reported a helicopter had strayed into the now very large show space causing the Arrows to abort, once it had cleared they restarted their display.

Martin P

Quite so, the RA(T) was Notam'd as 6nm radius from Old Warden. That meant it was within a couple of miles or so of us at Gransden Lodge. To avoid the embarrassment of a glider infringing the zone it was mandatory to attend a formal briefing before flying that day.

Andrew

> Quite so, the RA(T) was Notam'd as 6nm radius from Old Warden.

Sounds rather small to me.

Neil: I think the RA(T) is intended to protect tha actual display rather than aircraft waiting to rejoin the formation. If you're 6nm from the airfield during the display the paying punter isn't going to see much!

Andrew

PS: If you recall some while ago we had a PM debate about when the undercarriage is lowered on commercial jets. I finally got round to asking one of the commercial pilots at the gliding club. They lower the undercarriage at about 6 miles and 1500 feet on finals. It's illegal if the undercarriage isn't down and locked by 1000 feet.

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MichaelG.

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nm is considerably smaller than NM

(1nm = 1/1000000000 metre)

Come on you earthbound lot - you know that Andrew has his real focus ( quite rightly) in the clouds (or maybe just under the clouds) and the lack of operation of the shift lock button is of small consequence to one of his high ambition.

Andrew I hope it's a bit better where you are but here in the SW it looks like a workshop.  ( or maybe housework !!! ) day not a flying day.

Norman

Edited By NJH on 22/05/2016 12:13:48

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Please Sir ... It was the Moderator wot started it.

I did workshop, or at least carport, yesterday. The weather was awful. I spent hours welding and grinding the T-rings into the wheel rims for my traction engine rear wheels. Still quite a way to go, but the neighbours will get upset if I do too much grinding in one session.

Today wasn't as advertised, blue sky here this morning. I'd already agreed to go over to the club to collect the paperwork and do the survey to issue an ARC for a glider. Before that I nipped over to Screwfix to pick up a new (bigger) angle grinder and some discs ordered the night before on a 'click and collect'.

Having got to the club my syndicate partner had the Nimbus out of the T-hanger and fully rigged. Since his other half is indisposed there was a spare seat going. So I looked over the glider paperwork, did the survey and then rushed out to the launch point to jump in the back of the Nimbus. Definitely not a great day, a lot of high cover and no sun on the ground to the west of Bedford. We tiptoed out west and then I followed a sort of cloud street east to Newmarket. Oddly enough despite complete overcast we only lost about 1800 feet getting back from Newmarket into wind. By no means a good day, but we had a couple of hours, and it makes a change to look out the window and watch the world pass by.

Andrew

NB: ARC loosely equals an MOT certificate

Andrew,

You should have got your friend to head South East, I was at a museum in Essex, museum of power, and the weather was excellent and around lunchtime I watched six Red Kites thermalling above and in front of us and they went higher and higher until I couldnt spot them.

Martin P

We dropped into Old Warden for a nice, quiet lunch today. It was only when we got there, we found that every flight-worthy DH Chipmunk in the world had beaten us to it. They had dropped in to celebrated the 70th anniversary of the type. I trust that those from North America had not been flown all the way from home, but had had a helping hand from a cargo 'plane.

Typical of me to wonder off else where but then living so close to Old Warden I can go any day except I'm never around when something interesting happens

It also brings fond memories of a spotty ATC Cadet going to Cambridge on a Saturday morning for an air experience flight in the University Squadrons Chipmunks, donning the walk restricting parachutes and being told that if we missed the sick bag we would polish the aircraft internals until every thing gleamed, I've still got my log book somewhere with all off my flights in.

Martin P

The trouble with going south east from Cambridge is that we bump into the Stansted airspace; so of course that's where the good weather would be.

Andrew

Of interest, I hope ...

Episode 2 of 'Storm Troopers' ... shown last night and tonight, on BBC 4

It's about weather forecasting.

MichaelG.

Gentlemen,

I've been outside all day, in gorgeous weather, preparing for a Vintage rally next weekend. The sky has been very busy with vintage aircraft so I'm assuming that Old Warden has a show on, about 12:30 a Fieseler Storch took several minutes to trundle over, then about 13:00 I heard a Merlin so looked skyward again to see a Hurricane with the Sea Vixen in formation, they circled over the top of me for several minutes and then went off to do their bit, then another Merlin was heard, this time a Spitfire who then circled around until the Hurricane returned and they both formed up circled and then went off towards old Warden, as I type another Merlin has just passed over.

Martin P

Forgot to mention this - talking the dogs a few evenings ago two pairs of Apache 'copters went ominously across the A38 at probably around 200 feet. Surprisingly quiet compared to police/civilian copters.

www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/506471/20160309-Low_Flying_Leaflet_-_Essential_Facts_Final.pdf

The .gov website says "Aircrew do not use specific properties as navigation markers, as this would severely restrict their tactical freedom. It is not inconceivable that aircrew might, on occasion; select an isolated/prominent building or static vehicle for this purpose, but it is most unlikely that the same marker would be chosen on a regular basis."

The number of military aircraft that come directly over our house (flying at 90-degrees to the Trent, the railway line and dual carriageway, so not following them) always on the same heading (and never the other way) suggests they are following a regular flight path - it MAY be the most convenient route that avoids overflying the urban area (by about 300m, but my guess is they navigate by a now-demolished power station or a large lake behind us as their route takes then straight over the centres of both.of them. TBH I don't mind, although Hercules scraping the 250-foot limit and Chinooks scraping the tree-tops can be a bit disconcerting.

Plenty of civilian aircraft navigate using the lake as well.

Neil

Yep, in the NOTAMs this morning as an airshow/aerobatics event. The ATZ was listed as being activated along with a larger circle to avoid. Of more concern as today's tug pilot was big EARS. For the uninitiated:

EARS = East Anglian Rocket Society

They operate from Elsworth, a few miles to the north east of us meaning that we modify our tow out patterns, particularly today as we were towing out to the north east. Mind you I've never seen, or heard, a rocket going up, or coming down on its parachute. They're usually NOTAM'd to 10,000 feet, so could make your eyes water if you met one.

Andrew

My wife spotted an ad in the local paper this evening saying that it was a Navy aircraft event, hence the Sea Vixen appearance, I've seen plenty of pictures of it but not in real life, and it circled the village a couple of times and my camera wasnt accessible so just had to watch

Good grief, I didn't know there were any Sea Vixens still flying. Funnily enough I was talking to my mum about the DH110 crash at Farnborough last weekend - we couldn't remember who the test pilot was and had to look it up. Once they sorted out the wing aerodynamics the DH110 became the Sea Vixen.

Andrew