This Brussels Airlines A320 came into Heathrow one weekend. I am not sure even now what the livery is supposed to represent. All I know is that I love it and am delighted that they went to the effort to paint the jet like this. I am assuming there are a ton of vinyls involved in this rather than having it all hand painted but, either way, it looks amazing. If it was painted, that is even better. What a great change from the average livery.
At the end of a walk we took in the New Forest, we were almost back at the car when we saw a gate with a load of little birds on it. At first, I didn’t understand why but then it became apparent that someone had left a load of seed on the gate for them. Then a lady walked up and told me that she was the one responsible for the food. It was very effective!
There was a wide variety of birds including blue tits, coal tits, great tits, finches and nuthatches gorging on the goodies. This meant getting shots was relatively easy. Small birds don’t hang around long in any one spot – they are pretty twitchy (see what I did there?). Consequently, getting photos can be tricky. However, when you know where they are going to be it makes getting shots a lot easier. I even got some of arrivals and landings. However, these were not well focused or with fast enough shutter speeds to be worth sharing but that is something I can fix another time.
Little birds are really interesting when you get close to them. They have colouration that is worth checking out and adopt poses that make them look like they are curious about what is around them. I spent a fair bit of time getting pictures, but it was still a cold winter morning, and Nancy was beginning to lose enthusiasm, so I headed off. Now I know what food they like, I might have to look out for good lighting conditions and go back with more of a photographic focus (no pun intended).
In September 1990, I started work at what was then British Aerospace at Warton in Lancashire. I was part of the aerodynamics department so couldn’t have been happier fresh out of an aeronautical engineering degree. The walk from our office to the staff canteen could be done along the road but, why do that when you can cut through the hangars. 2 Hangar was the easiest route and also happened to be the location where the front fuselages for the Eurofighter were being assembled.
The programme went through a reworking as the German government considered its continued role post the end of the Cold War, but it did end up continuing even if one of the prototypes was deleted and the others got renamed. The first two planes were P01 and P02 which were German and British respectively. They became DA1 and DA2. DA2 made its first flight while I was away on a project, but I got to see it fly shortly after I returned.
I then got to see it fly a lot over the coming years. Initially it was in a grey paint scheme but, when it had the pressure mapping sensors fitted, it was painted black overall. I recall there was a justification for this, but I always felt it was because the initial Rafale had been painted black and looked really cool.
Military aircraft prototypes don’t usually have a long life. Usually, the development programme means that they are quite different from the final article and so not a useful platform for continued development. As instrumented versions of the production aircraft come online, the prototypes are superfluous. That was the case for DA2, and it found its way into the RAF Museum’s collection at Hendon. It is suspended from the roof of one of the hangars. This makes for a dynamic pose rather than just standing on its gear. However, it is a bit more limiting from getting angles on it.
Thankfully, the museum has a couple of balconies at that end of the hangar that you can access so you can try a variety of different positions to get a shot. There is always a problem with a black painted aircraft when photographing it indoors. The light is a bit limited and the backgrounds are quite bright compared to the subject. Definitely some challenges with taking the images and then processing them to show what you want without making it look wrong. Then again, that’s part of the fun, I guess. It was fun being reunited with a plane that I haven’t seen for a very long time, and I am glad that it has found a home that means many people can get to enjoy it too.
The end of the year is the time when there is an exhibit of the wildlife photographers of the year. The display is held at the Natural History Museum in South Kensington. We went to see the images and there were some truly amazing shots that had been selected. It was also a chance to have a wander around the museum while we were there. Having lived in South Ken as a student, it was a nice return to familiar territory.
With a historic building like this, things don’t change dramatically but credit is due for the improved entry route that they have created from the subway that comes in from the tube station. The ramp brings you up through a nicely landscaped area which I am pretty sure was nothing like that when I lived there. Then again, I didn’t make the most of the museums when they were on my doorstep because you figured they would always be there.
It was a lovely day when we went so the light on the gothic structures was really good. However, I became quite fixated on the internal architectural elements. There are so many details to find whether it is the large-scale stuff like the roof framing or the little details on the railings and walls. Even if the exhibits are not of interest, you could spend an age checking out the building itself. Of course, a skeleton of a whale or a dinosaur is not going to pass you by while there.
British defence projects have a bit of a reputation for trying something that will boost domestic content but that compromises overall performance. In fact, some civil aviation projects would probably fit that description. One such project was the procurement of the F-4 Phantom. To boost UK content, the J-79 engine that was used in all other variants was replaced by the Rolls Royce Spey. This engine made it into various civil and military aircraft over the years. For the Phantom, it needed an afterburner.
An example of the engine is on display at the RAF Museum in Hendon. I was first interested by the patterns of the flameholders in the afterburner so took some shots looking straight up the jet pipe. Then I moved around to the side. It is so easy to see where the original engine ends and where the added afterburner starts. It does not look like an integrated design whatsoever. It worked well enough although the redesign of the fuselage to accommodate it resulted in significantly increased drag. Top speed was reduced as was climb performance. One upside was that the Spey was a turbofan so, in the original ground attack role the Phantom had in the RAF, it actually improved low level fuel burn. It probably wasn’t so welcome once they moved across to the air defence role, though.
Three years ago, en route to a family wedding, we made a stop at Welford Park to see the snowdrops. It is not normally open to the public (although you can see it if you watch Bake Off), but they open for a few weeks each year when the snowdrops are in bloom. This year, we decided to go back again to see the flowers. They will appear in a separate post but, for this entry, I am focusing on the rest of the estate.
It is not a grand location like some in the area, but it certainly isn’t shabby. The house is big enough, the landscaping is lovely, rivers flow through various parts of the grounds, there are bridges, gardens are laid out, there is the church and churchyard next to the house so, all in all, it is a pretty nice-looking place. On our previous visit, we hadn’t explored some parts of the grounds, so this time it was good to check things out in a bit more detail.
If you are a regular reader, you will know I love an A350, you will also know I like late day light on planes. How about the combination of the light and the plane. In this case, it is Cathay Pacific – an airline that has a livery that works quite well with a warmer lighting set up. In this case it is an A350-1000 which has pleasing proportions although the -900 is not a bad looking jet either. I was happy to get this one.
Randomly came across this photo recently and it made me smile so here it is for you. Maybe it will make you smile too. A feeding duck will often up-end like this. Nothing unusual. Just something silly for a morning.
For a brief period, the UK was a space power with the ability to launch satellites into orbit. This was a brief moment, and the launcher was called Black Arrow. I am pretty sure I have posted something about this launcher before because it was developed on the Isle of Wight. The test facilities out near the Needles are now part of a National Trust location and you can see where the rockets were test fired over the cliffs.
The FAST Museum at Farnborough has the remains of the one Black Arrow that was launched into orbit. The first stage is not designed to go to orbit and is discarded early in the flight to follow a ballistic trajectory back to the earth. It was launched from Woomera in Australia and the stage fell back into the desert. Consequently, it wasn’t hard to find unlike anything dropping into the ocean. It has now on display.
It looks in surprisingly good condition. I thought it would be totally crumpled but the cylinder is basically intact. The engine nozzles on the base have taken a bit of a beating but are still clearly recognisable. The shapes they formed particularly fascinated me so that is the top picture on the post. There is also a high-speed wind tunnel model of the launcher on display so you can see that it was a pretty compact rocket. A small payload although one that is apparently still happily orbiting the earth to this day.
Every time I go to Crewe, I find myself looking out of the window of the train is we pull into the station wondering where the Class 89 is going to be. I have posted about it before, so I won’t waste your time repeating my reason for being interested in it. Instead, because it happened to be in a good spot to get a shot as I walked out of the station, here is another shot. That’s it! Nothing more…