Prestwick Spotting

by | Aug 15, 2021 | Spotting

Quick visit to Prestwick yesterday to catch the two Huron’s before they headed westbound accross the pond, to find that it was a bit like USAF Prestwick. There were already a couple of C-17’s and a couple of KC-135’s, and just after the second Huron took off – we were graced with a third KC-135.

Reminiscent of the 1970’s to some extent, when there was even a MATS desk in the Prestwick terminal. It has been a pretty good year all in all for stuff staging through Prestwick, both east and westbound. There is a Turkish Airforce A400 and a C-130 due today, but they have been due a number of times over the past week.

The place was busy yesterday, I’d say that there were around 40 or 50 spotters there. The weather was pretty fair, although not that great for photography – Grey on Grey never is that good.

Over the next few weeks I think that there will be a number of movements through Prestwick, with stuff that is returned from Afganistan – on the assumptions that the US forces managed to extract the equipment.

On the stuff in Prestwick, here’s a quick Military log – well most of it;

60-0333 KC135R
00-0181 C17
62-3512 KC135R
02-1112 C17
09-0662 MC12
09-0686 MC12
58-0045 KC135T

Finding a Registration

by | Aug 11, 2021 | Spotting, Wrecks and Relics

The challenge is to find the registration and any history regarding this Air Tractor, it is or was lying at Chandler Memorial Airport Arizona with this particular phorograph being taken in 2002. There is very little known about it, a bit more on what I know later.

I have a pretty exensive database, particularly when it comes to US Civil Aircraft and as it turns out there is not sufficient information to identify the frame in the database. As there are no identifying marks whatsoever on the airframe, so this is likely to come down to good old contacting people.

As a start I posted a request for information in “Aviation for All”, which is a primarily UK based plane spotters forum – which has elicited a single response so far.

What do we know about the aircraft at the moment?

  1. It is an Air Tractor
  2. It was at Chandler Memorial in 2002
  3. Chandler – Gila River Airport effectively closed to movements in 1983, so this aircraft could have been lying there nearly 40 years ago.
  4. Before closure Chandler was a base for Biegert Aviation – who’s fleet were all spray converted aircraft.

What other uncoroborated information do we have?

  1. It apparently belonged to two brothers who fell out over it.
  2. It was almost complete in 1998, missing the registration panels and with the word “Enigma” painted on the later removed engine cowl.

More information as the search continues.

 

 

Young Spotters – “The very Few”

by | Aug 10, 2021 | Spotting, Spotting News

It is always a nostalgia trip looking through old photographs of your friends, the photograph that captures an instant in time where you are all together. These are quite rare beasts in the plane spotting world, as when you hit the show it was as if the convoy had been ordered to scatter and the photo op was gone.

What has become more apparent over recent years is the lack of younger people coming into plane spotting, I’m sure it is probably the same with other variations like train or bus spotting – but I see it from the plane spotting side.

I’m note sure how we would or if we could get young people to engage in the hobby, the traditional routes into the hobby like the A.T.C. and the R.O.C. have all but gone.

Young people have a much more technological bent and seem to be quite focues on instant gratification, plane spotting has seen an increasing focus on technology. But the underlying intrest in the aircraft information and detail doesn’t seem to engender the fascination that it once did, with the improvements in technology the predominant focus of plane spotters seems to be photography.

It could be that there are lots of young people in the hobby and I just don’t see them, but whenever I go to the favoured spotting places I’d say that around 80% of the spotters are 60 years old plus – even online places seem to be full of old codgers like me.

I’d ask where are all the young spotters, have events since 9/11 just made the hobby too much trouble for the younger spotter – or are young people just not interested anymore?

 

Can COP 26 be Justified?

by | Aug 9, 2021 | Spotting

As someone who loves to see aircraft flying, I find myself in a quandry about the attendees for COP 26 in Glasgow this November. What has prompted this is the recent report on the climate, the warnings in it are pretty clear. There has to be a great deal more done to reduce emissions of CO2 and Methane, it has to be done quickly and it has to be a global effort.

For the most part the western world has had it’s dirty polluting industrial era, the rest of the world is queueing up to have theirs. The world leaders are supposed to be meeting face to face in Glasgow this November to come to some fairly monumental decisions on how to avert what is shaping up to be a global calamity.

As I said in an earlier post, there are currently 46 aircraft rumoured to be arriving between the central scottish airports, but there is still effectively three moths to go so those numbers are likely to increase. There are rumoured to be thousands of people likely to attend from all over the world, so it is also likely that a lot of them will arrive via scheduled flights.

So as the conference has the stated goal of mitigating the effects of climate change and reversing them if possible, how can the meeting be justified. Wouldn’t it be a suitable candidate for people to Video conference, this would certainly mitigate the transportation effects on the climate. Or do our leaders around the world feel that the face to face option is so advantageous that the means will justify the end?

It is not as if we have an other planet, this is the only one that we have. I can remember the day when the population clock passed four billion in 1974, it will probably pass eight billion in 2022. These world citizens have every right to expect that they will be able to consume resources tha same way that our generation did, what they can’t possibly realise is that we’ve already used everything up and are continuing to use it at an increasing rate – what is likely to be left for the next generation, probably not much.

Our legacy isn’t going to be very pretty, I think that the next generation will have every right to be well and truly hacked off!

Electric Flight is it practical?

by | Aug 8, 2021 | Aviation News, Spotting

Right now, electric flight is a niche corner of the aviation world. But given the way that the world is going, there are significant changes in the pipeline. The Seatle based Magnix has already modifies Harbour air’s float equiped DHC-2 and a Cessna C208 Caravan, with further types under active consideration.

Magnix have signed agreements with a number of companys and have put forward a proposal to electrify a Dash-8, reducing the passenger compliment from 50 down to 40 – with the 10 passenger seats replaced by a H2 fuel cell.

So right now with the flight times being in the tens of minutes region, it is not a practical option – but with Hydrogen fuel cell technology likely to increase that by orders of magnitude it will be practical.

Although I personally don’t see an electric aircraft with performance approaching that of say a Boeing 777 any time soon, smaller aircraft like the ATR’s and the Dashes will be in the frame in the next five to ten years in my opinion.