Annual Photographic Competition

This year's Photographic Competition took place on Tuesday 8 November and attracted many interesting entries.
The membership present selected their three favourite entries and those selections were gathered and counted by Clifford Hill.

The winning entry, by Theo Claassen, pictured the Grace Spitfire TR9 accompanied by the Seafire III at the ASDA Day at Bruntingthorpe on 6 August 2016.

Grace Spitfire TR9 and Seafire III

The second entry, also by Theo Claassen, depicted P-51D Mustang, Miss Helen, at the 2016 Cosby Victory Show on Sunday 11 September 2016.

P-51D Mustang Miss Helen

The entries submitted by David Brown (Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning II in the hover) and David Smith (Bristol F2 Fighter in formation with a feathered variety of bird) shared third place. 

Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning II

Bristol F2 Fighter

Another enjoyable evening that was rounded off with a picture show.

MCR Viewing Area

On Sunday 18 September we were on our way home from Liverpool from a wedding when we called into the Viewing Area at Manchester Airport. It was a glorious day and there were plenty of arrivals and departures throughout the 90 minutes or so that we were there.

For those folks that have not been there before it is a well laid out area with two reasonable sized raised areas to take pictures over the top of the fence. There is a place to eat, inside the building that houses Concorde, and a place to spend your money on models. Considering the directions in which the parallel runways are laid photography in the morning will always be into the sunlight as it was on this day, but on the positive side it does allow for a bit of artistic use of reflections. There are two aircraft on the edge of the carpark, a Trident and a Nimrod, both of which are opened up at times for tours. Unfortunately not when we where there. Photographing either aircraft is impossible without lots of ground clutter. On the opposite side of the area behind the Concorde building is the BAe-146 that looks in need of some TLC. Again this aircraft was not open for viewing either. 

The following pictures give an impression of the traffic on the day and what can be seen and photographed from the raised areas.

With cropping some of the pictures the ugly barbed wire can be removed, but as the A380 image shows sometimes that just is not possible.

Worth a visit, especially when passing on a sunny day and a couple of hours to spare.


Theo Claassen
6 October 2016

The Victory Show, Cosby 2016

The annual Victory Show at Cosby in Leicestershire is mainly a show for military hardware of the Second World War, from a variety of nations. The days are noisy filled with the sound of heavy engines driving tanks and armoured vehicles and the firing of large and small guns and machine guns. During the afternoon there is an airshow that is an enthusiasts dream, especially those amongst us that enjoy a bit of aviation photography. This, of course, is due to the proximity to the action, runway and the static aircraft. 

This year the weather was nowhere near as good as last year and there had been some cancellations of aircraft that have been part of the air display in recent years. The biggest disappointment was the move of the display line from the runway to the road at the southern end of the runway, leaving those of us at the top end of the runway with takeoff and some early landing shots as the wind direction changed marginally favouring landings from the bottom end of the runway.

Ken Ellis explained to me why the display had to be moved and the direction of the display line was not a direct result of the new regulations following the Shoreham disaster last year, but and indirect result to do with the farm situated on the the eastern side of the runway. This was explained to me again by Rod Dean, who is the Display Director at Cosby.

Here are some of the images of the static, mainly taken with my mobile phone.

Let's start with some of the great large scale models.

And then the real stuff.....

There was a strong crosswind in the morning and some pilots, notably Charlie Brown in that lovely war veteran Spitfire, were thrown about a bit before touching down. Peter Teichman in his P-40 Warhawk had obviously decided to make a turning approach before settling on the Cosby grass. No such issues for John Romain in the Blenheim.

  

And finally, some black and white images........

.....so, as P-51D Miss Helen cleared the Cosby runway on her way to Goodwood, the show came to an end. There was no point rushing to the car as the exit routes were already filled with vehicles of all sorts queueing to be on their way home. 

Theo Claassen
1 October 2016