gary1701

Interesting pics. I can understand the locals not being used to seeing that but it's pretty much the standard height over the fence at the 07 end of Coningsby, where the fence has been blown over several times! Have been looking at the pics of the four jets that have arrived and all have been stripped of external tanks, with all besides one just carrying a single ASRAAM training round, the fourth carrying a full load of inert AMRAAMs/ASRAAMs. Be interesting to see if they are able to operate out of Northolt with external tanks and warshots when they do go 'live'. If not, I wonder if any planning has gone into AAR? Gary

Gents, Aircraft is ZJ936, which replaced ZJ922 as 3 Sqn's QO-C, which in turn has been relegated to a spares source following damage. It's nice that they've finally done something, and I'll be tracking it down with the camera as soon as I can get up there, but It just looks slightly disjointed to me. A 100th anniversary tail I think needs to make it obvious to even a casual glance what it is for, and I just think that unless you already know why, anybody looking at that is going to think it's bright and different, but what's it all about. It doesn't even say 100th Anniversary. Gary

Gents, An unusual venue to catch some aviation, but Framlingham College yesterday afternoon held a forces charities fundraising day. The centrepiece of this was the visit by a Wattisham Apache, flown by 663 Sqn/3 Reg. Arriving and departing in rain, the AH was billed to land on the grass outside the main building, but I had my doubts given how soft the ground was, and the AH crew wisely decided to side step onto the hard surface just outside the entrance to the college. I wanted to get the shot of the AH arriving with Framlingham Castle behind but the weather put paid to that. Still, worth a few hours to catch something a little different. Nope, not taken on the wonk - they landed on the slope. Departure. Gary

Hi, sorry a bit late in responding. Not really sure why the Germans don't call the Eurofighter EF-2000 (that's what they call it) a Typhoon. I remember when the name was first announced there were pics of a Me-108 and a Eurofighter taken on a publicity shoot as the aircraft had been named after both British and German aircraft (apparently the Spanish and Italians didn't merit any consideration), so it at least was intended to be that way. However several people I know have mentioned Typhoon in the presence of Germans and have been quickly corrected! German F-4s have been on the alert detachment in Iceland. Since the permanent USAF F-15 squadron was disbanded in the early 90's, USAF and other NATO countries have taken turns to provide the cover. The Wittmund F-4s were actually on the detachment when we were there, which partly explains why so few F-4s were at home. NATO units also provide a alert det for the Baltic states on rotation, and I think Wittmund was also doing that at the same time. Gary

Superb stuff James. As you say, it's hit and miss and also a very long way from East Anglia! Maybe one day... Gary

Hi, That looks excellent. It looks spot on when compared to the local SAR flight. Weathering is very good as well - it's there but not over done. Just like the real thing. Gary

Gents, These guys formed up with several circuits over Wattisham (and my head!) for a flypast down London this evening. Event was apparently something to do with Operation Ellamy last year, which came as a bit of a suprise, but makes sense as all four types were involved. Taken from my garden as they orbited at about two thousand feet. Enjoyed listening to Wattisham ATC telling the local light private stuff to watch out as this is what is heading your way! There was only three GR4's, one jet was acting as a 'whip' ship and was darting between the two formations. Gary

Thanks all for the kind comments. Advice on a trip to Wittmund...well, I can't really give much advice on the trip and arrangements themselves as it was a small private group of four rather than one of these enthusiast tour groups that do trips abroad and nobody had been to Wittmund before, although the other three do a lot of these trips. The visit inside was arranged by a local German and several groups including another large group of 30+ Brits all met at the gate but I don't know how us four came to be on the tour as well as I didn't have anything to do with the arrangements but one of our group is quite well connected so I guess he found out about it. If you're thinking of a visit to the fence of Wittmund and photographing from the outside then I would say that it is very doable. It's a strange place and is very small and compact, it struck me as looking more like a private aero club than a frontline fighter station. We got there from Leeuwarden quite early with several hours to spare before the 12:30 visit, so after seeing two jets depart on the way in (I thought they were F-4s from a distance, but turned out to be the BAE A-4s!) we parked up on the 26 approach which is very accessible and has many spots to view/photograph from. Talking to a couple of friendly locals we found that there were numerous tracks along the Southside fence to take a car down and virtually the whole fenceline is accessible by walking around the fields, the locals seem to have no problems with doing it. The link below shows what we used as a guide initally. They seem to have a very relaxed attitude to security and the locals didn't think there was any problem with photographing around the fence. http://www.scramble.nl/airports/publish/etnt.htm For activity I can only go on what I saw on the one day, which before the PM visit was just the two BAE A-4s sortie and a single Luftwaffe Eurofighter visit. Afternoon saw a two ship F-4 flight sortie at 2pm (I was told this was the QRA practise but the jets did not look armed with live rounds), and a three ship depart at 4pm from the shelter area we had looked around earlier. I gather that as many as 10 jets were away at the time with some on the Icelandic alert detachment. I was also told that there were no more than 10 active jets left on the base and I can only account for seeing at most seven different F-4s, including several hangared that did not fly. There were quite a few closed HAS's when we went around one of the two HAS loops so there could well have been more there. Only advice I can give is if plannning a trip for the F-4s make it sooner rather than later and try and find out if all the remaining F-4s of JG71 are at home when you visit to hopefully get as many up as possible. To be honest, and not putting down our hosts who ran an excellent visit with what they had, Wittmund looks run down and was practically deserted of planes and personnel. The base infrastructure - what there is of it - is in need of massive investment and besides the 20 HAS's there is hardly any hangarage on the airfield - how they could run a wing of F-4s from here is bewildering. When speaking to one of the locals, one of our guys found out that large scale investment was planned for the base some years ago but was put on hold until a decision was made about whenever to put Eurofighters in our close it once the F-4 finished next year. After a lot of politics the base will now recieve Eurofighters, with the first batch arrriving in a few months, but no infrastructure work has yet been carried out and there was no sign of any work that I could see. I hope that helps but if there's anything more specific I'll do my best to answer it. Gary

Sorry about the links on the second post, I think they're sorted now. Silly error on my part about the Learjet. A Falcon 20 was supposed to be doing that role on the exercise and I just typed it in without thinking. Now editing. Gary

...from above and following on with a visit to JG71 'Richthofen', the last German F-4 unit at Wittmund, and due to convert to the EF-2000 next year. This was a visit by several groups joining up and going inside to see as many F-4s as possible. A good and willing host was rather frustrated by a lack of F-4s on the base, with many away on Icelandic QRA duty. A few were still around including this example which alone would have made the trip worthwhile. The few fliers usually missed the light. At Wittmund BAE operate a flight of A-4's on various support tasks. Fortunately, there was a chance to have look around these before they were put away for the day. They even have a couple still looking slightly military, but they were in the hangar. Not to bad for a three day trip. The weather could have beeen better, although far worst was forecast and it was still far better than Harwich first thing this morning! Gary

Gents, I don't very often venture abroad with the camera hunting planes, but with a little help from some guys who frequently do, I spent a few days earlier this week at the Dutch base of Leeuwarden and also visited the very last operational German F-4 wing at Wittmund. The weather rarely goes for me when I do make a trip, and the forecast for the last three days was awful, but happily the monday and wednesday were slightly better than expected. Just one word of warning, if you don't like F-16s scroll down quickly! Frisian Flag is a big multi-national exercise usually held bi-anually at Leeuwarden, a Dutch F-16 base in the North of the country. The last one in 2010 was abandoned due to the Icelandic Volcano episode. It's not restricted to NATO countries as both Finland and Sweden took part this year. It usually attracts 40-50 fast jets, with others operating from their home bases. This is a selection from aircraft recovering on Monday, while dodging the hail storms. German EF-2000's (they don't like them being called Typhoons apparently); A few of the local F-16s. The Dutch were launching over a dozen in each wave. The ones I most wanted to get were the new Polish F-16s. They frustrated a little with missing the light but still got a few. Leeuwarden was caught with strong crosswinds both days, and some of the Polish landings were a little 'hairy' to say the least. Next up the Norwegians, who had a large deployment of jets and usually flew eight each sortie. These recovered just as a large hail storm was building behind, lighting the unique RNoAF light grey F-16s rather well. The RAF had deployed a half dozen Typhoon's from the Coningsby wing. More F-16's, this time from Belgium. The Swedes seemed to enjoy smacking the Gripens down as hard as possible. It doesn't seem as that undercarriage would have a problem on a new RN carrier! The Finnish and their F/A-18's missed the sunlight completely every time. This Learjet was involved in the electronic aspects of the exercise. I took these two pics to either side to show how much interest an exercise like Frisian Flag generates amongst enthusiasts. I suppose it helps that the Brit's and the Dutch probably make up 80% of the worlds aviation enthusiasts! Wittmund to follow... Gary

Gents, Old thread I realise but the mystery of this aircraft and the possible special scheme has been - at least partially - solved. It's been seen at Coningsby in the last few days remarked back in to standard 3(F) badges and codes and has adopted 'QO-S' rather than it's former 'QO-U' identity. It has retained it's LGB marks and deployed for exercise Frisian Flag at Leeuwarden yesterday - which is where I'll be on Monday/Tuesday camera in hand! Strangely the existing 'QO-S' (ZJ936) has been recoded 'QO-C' but has been stripped of it's 3(F) Sqn markings, which is interesting and keeps alive the rumour of a special scheme this year as there is surely no need to remove the badges for a simple code change. Just to confuse matters even further this in turn replaces the existing 'QO-C' (ZJ922) which has been a hangar queen for several years followed unspecified damage so that aircraft is presumably a write off...everybody with me so far!!! Gary

Hi Ian, I'm off to Exercise Frisian Flag at Leeuwarden on Monday/Tuesday and RAF Typhoons are due to take part, I think a RAFAIR flight of 3 left yesterday so some are already there. Be interesting to see if the HMSS is in use. I'll keep an eye out for it. Gary

Hi Ian, That's the one. ZJ927 flew on Ellamy marked as QO-M of 3 Sqn, and I caught it on a local sortie just a few days after it came back in September. Very shortly after that it disappeared into Maintenance Flight and wasn't flying again until just over a month ago, and was remarked for 17® Sqn, although it's kept the 56 LGB symbols. That's rather ironic considering that jet was previously with 17® before going to 3(F) a couple of years back! 17® have been flying with the HMSS for at least most of last year, maybe longer. I haven't been upto Coningsby since November so it's use may have spread to the regular squadrons as well by now. I know the pics are on the site elsewhere, but just once more... Gary

Hi, Oops, didn't notice that you're flying in from Northern Ireland. Better bin the info about the stepladder and the fence then, although you might be able to shoot through the fence. I've never been any good at it but I've seen some good shots elsewhere. The locations for the approach at both ends are still valid though although the 'mound' at the 07 end would be dependent on what size lens you had available. I forgot, there's a car park fairly central in Coningsby town centre with public toilets if required. Gary

Hi Gents, Nice stuff in good weather Mark - it's so frustrating I can't get up there at the moment! Just to pitch in on the locations. As Mark says these are shot from the Eastern end of the airfield, where the B1192 runs North to South directly against the fence of RAF Coningsby at that end. There's a layby directly against this fence where you can get probably 6-8 cars in at a push. Aircraft landing from the East (as in Marks pics) will land right over this road. You don't need a long DSLR lens for this as you can just walk up towards the landing lights alongside the road (have to be careful as it's a straight and fast road with not much of a grass verge) and photograph as close as you like. Also, just around from the layby on the South Eastern corner of the airfield is a farmers field in which the local farmers appear to have no problem with people walking down to be beside the fence. The taxiway from the Southern HAS sites is right up against that fence at that point and some very close up pictures can be taken as they come out. They will usually hold short here directly infront of you. There is the usual tall barbed wire topped fence at this point but many photographers just take step ladders and shoot over the fence. Example linked below was taken on a DSLR camera, but only with a 28-135 lens fitted - they are very close. Again, there's no issues with doing this and you will often get a friendly wave from the crews as they taxi past. http://www.airliners.net/photo/UK---Air/Eu...hoon/2031094/L/ Usually you get a wind out of the West, so they'll land and take off from the Eastern end (runway 25) but you can go up the other end if they are working with a Easterly wind. If you're at the Eastern end then the already mentioned Dogdyke Lane runs from one end of the airfield to the other, and is just to the South of the airfield. It runs from the village of New York (less than a mile South of the Airfield on the B1192) right to the Western end of the airfield, turns North on the corner, and then runs alongside the Western end of the airfield. Here you'll find the landing lights at the Western end, the car park just beside here on the Northern side of the lights, and further up you can see the main Apron where the Typhoons flown by 29®, 17® and the Tornado's of 41® Sqn are operated from. The BBMF hangar is the one right against the fence here and anything from them flying will be parked within a stones throw from the fence. The Spit below is again from the step ladder as it's again a high fence but can be photographed over. Same lens as above - the Typhoon behind is on the main apron already mentioned. Sunlight will only be behind you here late in the day. http://www.airliners.net/photo/UK---Air/Su...fire/1721672/L/ If they are landing/departing from the Western end you have two options. Either park in the car park that is just on the Northern side of the landing lights and walk down the road to the other side to get the sun behind you, or just on that South Western corner of the airfield is a small entrance to a piece of waste ground and a earth mound that many photographers use for a elevated view across the 07 threshold. To take pics from this location you will need a longish lens in the 200-250mm range for a Typhoon sized aircraft. This is again a local farmers property but there's plenty of room to park beside the mound and as long nobody blocks the track in they seem perfectly happy for people to go there. Another example from this location below, also shows the BBMF hangar behind with the two Spit's infront and the Typhoon line on the apron. http://www.airliners.net/photo/USA---Air/M...-15E/1721764/L/ You can also put a stepladder up beside the fence on the Western end and photograph aircraft at close range taxiing between the 07 threshold and the main apron. The Rafale linked below was taxiing from the apron to the runway. You can only get the light behind you here late in the day. http://www.airliners.net/photo/France---Ai...le-B/1732377/L/ If feeling adventurous you can take your step ladder further down and set up directly inline with the main runway and photograph aircraft as they taxi off towards you. Only do this when they are landing from the 25 end, not landing over you at the same end or the base will not be impressed and will send somebody out to have a word - there's a reason that fence that you're now above has been replaced several times! Again, only works late in the day and sometimes aircraft will turn off short onto the old cross runway and take a short cut back to the apron. If you can catch a Typhoon still with the foreplanes rotated it makes a good shot here; http://www.airliners.net/photo/UK---Air/Eu...hoon/1562286/L/ There is a gate and fence on the Northside that looks across the taxiway on that side, you would need to go into Coningsby town, turn and go past the main gate to get here, but because it faces the sun for most of the day I rarely go there. Monday to Friday is normally quite busy, although it usually tails off quite early on a friday afternoon. You tend find they will launch early/mid morning and recover late morning, repeating the same pattern in the afternoon, sometimes with a late and early afternoon wave. There can sometimes be a lull over lunch, although that can be covered by circuit traffic from elsewhere. If it's a week when they're working 'nights', then they will usually knock the morning sorties on the head and start late. Having a look at the number of aircraft on the main apron can be a good guide. Hope that helps anybody heading that way. Gary

Gents, I haven't posted anything for several months due to the usual lack of chances to get out early in the year, and the weather. I recently had a look back through some Mildenhall shots from a few years ago and thought I'd put together a selection of some of more unusual visitors from about 2006 onwards. Just a warning to anybody who is thinking of visiting Mildenhall and unfamiliar with the traffic locally - you won't get these visitors on a regular basis. It's generally very quiet nowadays, even during the week. You do sometimes get a surge in transisting aircraft, usually when the '135's rotate in and out of the Middle East. Here's a few pics with some background info. Three brand new F-16's on delivery to Poland diverted in to Mildenhall in February 2007, departing on a cold but clear Saturday morning. These carrried their Polish serials but the national insignia was covered in favour of US identity. The first USN Orion to be publicly photographed outside the US fitted with the Littorial Surveillance Radar System pod (LSRS) under the fuselage made a quick stop one Saturday in April 2007. Up until then, a shadowy outfit at Dallas Love Field called NAWC-23 were the only known operators. Since then, the pod appears to have been used by regular USN P-3s. More information at the link below; http://www.p3orion.nl/sneaky.html One of a pair of NASA operated WB-57's arriving in August 2007 for the latest in a series of short detachments to Mildenhall. They used to come over every couple of years but haven't been seen for a while now. Somebody else pretending to be something that they're not. Egyptian Air Force E-2 stopping over enroute home following work in the US in December 2006. The hastily applied USN markings and covered Egyptian insignia is fooling nobody! Another shadowy outfit. Two C-32Bs (second hand 757-200s) were flown by the 227th Special Operations Flight (since renamed) at McGuire AFB, attached to the ANG tanker unit there. Their published task is stated as supporting US Foreign Emergency Support Teams operating overseas and are frequently seen at civil airports in Europe. Little else is known and even the actual history of the airframes is difficult to trace due to them having operated under different civil and military identities. Nice of this one to come into Mildenhall on a bright saturday in February 2008! The two Open Skies OC-135's tend to use Mildenhall when working in Europe and can usually be seen over here a couple of times a year, this was April 2008. Nice to catch a white top against that backdrop. Everybody uses the Russian and Ukrainian heavies for airlift nowadays, including the USAF. Volga-Dnepr used a An-124 and IL-76 to move equipment for Mildenhall's SOG back from a deployment to Africa in May 2010. Yet the USAF says it doesn't need any extra C-17s as it has enough airlift capability? More 'sneaky' stuff. USN P-3s and EP-3s used to be fairly common at Mildenhall when transisting through, but have hardly been seen in the last couple of years. This was February 2010. Civil 747 cargo types on military charters are increasingly common nowadays. Atlas and Southern Air are two of the regulars. USN E-6B Mercury's are also infrequent visitors, and sometimes stay for a while, operating sorties around the UK. Although they have several roles, it was designed as a communications relay and command post for nuclear weapons, in particular USN SSBNs - the infamous 'boomers'. A very strange beast, which confused me greatly when it turned up out of the blue in December 2010. It was around the time that the MoD had stupidly said that the Sentinel would be axed from RAF service when the commitment to Herrick was finished. I thought at first we had sold one to the civil market straight away! Turns out this was the Sentinel prototype that has kept the now empty 'lumps' and has been configured for the Battlefield Airborne Communications Node role and was one of three Global Express aircraft used by the US DoD on a civil registration. The other two had a more conventional appearance and all have now been allocated a military designation and serial as E-11's. The US Army deployed a couple of their RC-12K aircraft for about a month in 2009 as their usual base in Germany was undergoing runway work. Quite hard to get as they tended to disappear for 5 to 6 hours and come back at sunset. Obviously not a rare type here, but the operator certainly is...Hawaii ANG! You don't get many fast jet types through Mildenhall. Those that come this direction tend to go next door but a flight of Turkish F-16s returning from the US dropped in during August 2008 Hope that's a decent selection of some of more stuff I've caught at Mildenhall, although I've missed far more than what I've caught. Some may be a little soft as some of these edits were done some years ago and are a bit dated now. Just a warning again though, don't expect this traffic to turn up on a regular basis, there's about six years worth above. Gary

Thanks Mark and will do. Unlikely to be before June due to my annualised hours, and even after then it will probably only be fridays when the weather is decent until my first block holiday in late July/early August. Gary

Gents, The change was done when the withdrawal of the Widenrath squadrons freed up enough FGR2's to allow 74 to get rid of the 14 remaining F-4J's. As already said it was purely for a logistics and financial reason that the aircraft were changed, as I believe the F-4J was thought to be a superior aircraft. I know an ex-liney who was with 74 when they flew the F-4J and he the said the thing was a nightmare to support, on deployments the usual ratio of support was one C-130 fully loaded for every F-4J deployed! The differences in aircraft and aircrew equipment meant that there only a few bases set up that could even start them when deployed away from Wattisham, unless the equipment was brought in. I think in the UK it was Valley and Coningsby, and also Leeuwarden in Holland. Wattisham airfield museum has just taken delivery of FGR2 XT914, which has been on the gate at Brampton and was one of two (XV393 was the other) that had a enlarged Tiger head on the fin and were the preferred mounts of the display crew in the final season of 1992. It will eventually be brought back upto a display standard and will be housed in one of the HAS's at Wattisham. Gary

Hi, Although I didn't see them myself, I gather Wattisham had four 1 Regiment Lynx AH7's in sometime today. Not that common to see aircraft from the Germany based Regiment pop over. The Marham Tornado's have been quite active in the Wattisham circuit for several weeks now. You can often go months without any fast jets visiting, but there's probably been a couple of Tornado's a week using the Wattisham circuit since the new year. Haven't seen a Typhoon for ages though, they did also frequent the Wattisham circuit but seem to have lost interest recently. Sentinels, King Airs (one this week), Tucano's (also a couple this week) all sometimes pop over for some circuit work - and to wind the AAC up as well obviously! Also had a civil registered Challenger Biz jet in Wednesday. This belongs to Marcus Evans, the reclusive millionaire who own Ipswich Town Football Club (brave man!). He's used Wattisham before when coming over to make some transfer deals and has never been publicly identified. You'd think somebody who values their privacy that much would not have his jet registered M-EVAN! Good pics Mark, I hope to get up there again starting sometime in June. Gary

Hi, Late 2008/early 2009 is about right. I saw my first couple of MTADS fitted aircraft at Wattisham in February 2009 and the AAC said a small number had already been deployed on Herrick. Anything else that I can help with on the full size aircraft by all means ask away, I'm not going to be a lot of good with the actual kits though as I'm not a builder. The Heritage kit was developed with some input from me and was designed to represent the early TADS and HIDAS fitted aircraft from the inital Herrick deployment by 656 Sqn in 2006 through to when the later HIDAS fit and MTADS appeared on the fleet (2008/9). The whole fleet is now MTADS fitted but fly with either of two different HIDAS configurations, or as is often the case with the training aircraft down at Middle Wallop, no HIDAS at all. Details of what these configurations actually are in the walkaround section. Gary

Hi Mark, These any use to you? Practise EPW II rounds on a bird late last year. Pilot saw the pics and was intouch afterwards and said they were dumped on Aberporth range. Pretty poor light at the time I'm afraid. Gary

Gents, I will ask Julien to put the new pics up in the Apache Walkround section but shot two AH's in some detail last night, including some new cockpit stuff and also finally got a close look at a RCEFS tank, although not actually fitted to the aircraft! Just a single pic below for now but will hopefully have a load more up soon. Something else that may be of interest. Naturally I was quite keen to know if the AAC are planning on putting a AH on the display circuit this year, as they had a singleton do about five events last year. Nothing conclusive yet due to the usual reasons of resources and cost, but the AAC are keen, and they don't want to do just a solo display either...fingers crossed! Gary

Perhaps they've marked ZJ940...four years and six months since delivery to Coningsby and never seen whole since! Gary

Bugger! Three months before I can get up there as well...Makes sense though, the old Harrier callsigns from 1 Sqn have been heard up at Leuchars for a few months now so it was on the cards. One more squadron left to go if the last known deployment plan is still current. Gary