RAF Coronation Review 1953

by | Jan 18, 2023 | Aviation News, Spotting, Website Review, Wrecks and Relics

The RAF Coronation Review at RAF Odiham on the 15th of July 1953, this was a spectacle that will probably never be repeated – almost one thousand static and flying aircraft. This was purely an Air Forces event, with contributions from Australia, Canada and New Zealand. The other services were all involved in their own Coronation Year reviews. The Royal Navy including the Fleet Air Arm had it’s own review on the 15th June 1953 with over 300 participating aircraft, the aircaft from Canada and Australia the Fleet Air Arm.

Below is a video of the event, somewhat condensed but it is pretty spectacular nonetheless. I’m pretty sure that the next Coronation Review will probably have fewer participants, so watch the video and feel the nostalgia.

I found the video purely by accident, but found it to be realy interesting. The whole flypast is there, representing all the RAF types in service at the time – some of which were in service for a number of years.

As a plane spotter I’d love to see an actual log, both the static and the flying aircraft. The sheer number of aircraft must have made for a real spectacle, they did allow paying members of the public in.

Obviously there will be an other Coronation later this year, at this time I’m unaware of any mention of a review of the armed forces – I found the above video while I was searching for anything about one. So I guess I’ll just have to keep looking, I’m sure that there will at least be a flypast on the day, or possibly soon after.

But in the mean time, enjoy the video!

Spotter Evolution – Notebook to Netbook.

by | Oct 29, 2022 | Application, Aviation News, Radio, Spotting, Spotting News

Since the beginning of Aircraft Spotting, whenever it was – things have moved on apace. As I’ve said elsewhere on the site, I started with a notebook and a pencil – while I was still at primary school. Now a pensioner, the hobby is still the same – but the goodies that assist have changed out of all recognition.

When I started spotting, the airport didn’t really have a fence and you could get close enough to identify the aircraft. Now you can see a contrail at 50 miles and identify the aircraft making it in just a few seconds, depending on conditions and location you can see contrails a lot further away than 50 miles. The advancing technology has changed the way that most people spot, I’ve seen us all trek out of the pub to stand and watch something go overhead on a clear night.

It used to be that there were a number of ways of finding information on arrivals and departures at an airport, there was many a time where you sneaked a look at the board that had the aircraft listed. Or you heard through the local spotters network, or you were just there at the right time.

Now you can identify an aircraft pretty much anywhere in the world, you can go further and show only aircraft that will arrive at a specific airport from the thousands in the air at any given moment. In an instant you can have all the information that you would need, information that you couldn’t get 20 years ago – when even if you could see the head of the trail and could identify the type finding out any more information was difficult.

 Now I have a second screen on my PC which has a permanent window on the aviation world, showing an area about 40 miles East and West of me and 25 miles North and South. It’s about as much as I can see given the obstructions around where I live, when I lived in Skye the settings were about twice that distance as I could walk up the hill behind the house which allowed me to see much further.

If I’m logging everything then I can generally log 100+ in a fairly ordinary day, I’m not really a civil spotter anymore – my focus moved to military many years ago. But it doesn’t mean that I’m no longer interested in civil aviation, just that it is a secondary interest now – there are exceptions I’ll make a trip to the airport to see something older and more interesting to me than the modern Boeings and Airbus that are now the mainstay of civil aviation.

Now I can see it a long way out and decide if I want to be there when it arrives, or if I want to just pop down and see it when it is in. All on my computer or phone, although I still write any details that I want to record in my notebook with a pencil or pen having gone up in the world.

 

Canadian Work Horse

by | Sep 25, 2022 | Aviation News, Website Review

The de Havilland DHC-2 “Beaver”, an aircraft for the bush pilots of Canada. Designed by a small team, with significant input from the potential customer base – yes the design and sales team actually did market research. Was designed and manufactured in Downsville Ontario, first flew on the 16th August 1947.

The original design called for the aircraft to be powered by de Havilland’s own Gipsy engine, but an offer of the Pratt & Whitney Junior Wasp at a bargain basement price was too good to refuse. The increased power of the Pratt & Whitney engine gave the Beaver outstanding STOL performance, this along with other design features were major selling points – although sales were slow at first.

The first production aircraft was delivered in April 1948, running all the way to 1967 where over 1,690 were finally delivered. With the United States Army being the customer for over half of the production. There are many sources of information available on the web for the “Beaver”, with one of the most comprehensive being Neil Aird’s site – with photographs of most of the production aircraft.

It is rumoured that someone once said that the “Beaver” only had to be faster than a dog sled to be a success, well it must have been faster than a dog sled – as it has been an outstanding success. It may well still be flying in it’s 100th year, with rights having been bought from Bombardier – we could even see it back in production at some point in the future.

There is now an “Electric Beaver” flying, a Harbour Air of Vancouver and Magnix collaboration. Although the infrastructure must be just enough for testing at the moment, I’m sure that there will be more available soon and the “Beaver” with it’s utilitarian function will be an aircraft that will be in the mix when the change to electic flight gains traction.

The definitive Boeing 707/C-135 book.

by | Jul 12, 2022 | Aviation News, Book Reviews, Spotting

The Boeing 707 was a great success, but it was probably most successful in it’s military guises. Known internally at Boeing as the ‘B717’, a designation that was re-used for the MD9 after the Boeing/McDonnell-Douglas merger. The militarised version had numerous military designations and although ageing, many are still in service with many of the worlds militaries today.

It is likely that a number of these will remain in service for an other 20 years or even longer, there are airframes that potentially could actually be flying antiques in the truest sense of the word.

Why was the aircraft such a success, it did what it said on the tin – the versatility and sturdiness of the militarised version have made it a winner. Operated in many varying roles by many air forces, the aircraft has a proven track record – delivering as they say a lot of bang for each buck.

The primary variants C, EC, KC, NC, RC, OC and WC only explain some of the geneology of the type. There were also the C137, E3, the E6 and a number of other variants – but ultimately these were all variants of the original Boeing 707.

All you ever wanted to know is covered in the book, it is a pretty definative work – very readable and great value. If you have an interest in the Boeing 707 or the C135, this book is a must extremely detailed and some fantastic illustrations just completes the book.

 

Prestwick and the C17

by | Jul 11, 2022 | Airport News, Aviation News, Database, Online Logging, Spotting, Spotting Locations

Prestwick, long used as the jumping off point or arrival point for transports crossing the Pond. The main recognition started during the second world war, when it’s excellent fog free record was pointed out by Captain Duncan Macintosh. During the war years, there were huge numbers of Lend Lease aircraft transiting through Prestwick.

Still used as a stopover location for trans-atlantic traffic, now experiencing a revival for military traffic especially given the situation in Ukraine. It is unlikely to see the kinds of volumes of visitors it attracted in the 1960’s and 70’s, but there has been more traffic about that is obvious.

Conveniently placed, Prestwick has over the years seen it’s fair share of traffic – both East and West bound. The table below is the C17 traffic for the past few years and is an extract from my Prestwick historical log going back to 2016, there have been a lot through over that time. As to searching the table, by default any search string will be automatically search any field, however there is a drop down at the right side of the search box – this can be used to filter searches.

 

The C-17 at Prestwick

Prestwick – 2021 Log

by | Jun 28, 2022 | Airport News, Aviation News, Book Reviews, Online Logging, Spotting

So the testing of the tables and the search facility continues, this data set now comprises a full year of visitors to Prestwick. The based aircraft are not incorporated in the log, mainly due to the fact that each one would add 365 rows to the table – and a search would likely return 365 rows of data.

In order that the table is displayed properly it is at the bottom of the post, where it should be out the way of the rest of the post. The next test will be to break the year down into individual months, I’m going to experiment with various layouts and content to see what works best.

Some additional search and filtering tips, there is now a dropdown at the right hand side if the search bar. This allows the fields searched to be toggled on or off, this will allow more controlled searching and should make life a little easier.

It is possible to order the data by any of the column headings, simply click on the heading to order by alphanumeric ascending or decending – this will work on search results if required.

The data comes from a number of public sources, I have automated some of the data collection and hope to improve it over time.

Additionally I have started on the automation of the building of the logs but there is still some manual intervention required, it is still a manual proces to put it in the database – but eventually I may be able to automate some of the steps.

Visitor Log Prestwick (EGPK) 2021