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Pilots - Know what you fly!


Gary West

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Dean and I did Kemble yesterday and a very good display it was too. Got to the see the much publicised RAF role demo finally - F3's back in the air again :yahoo:

Anyway after the flying we did the mandatory walk round taking some detail shots for modelling etc and we end up at the Harrier GR9 - Jockey was a Fish head so maybe that explains a lot. Dean notices that the Harrier was in an all over "one tone" Grey so I ask the Pilot if all the fleet will be rolled out this way. Pilot looks at us and tells us that Harriers have never had a 2 Grey finsh and they have always been like this...

Car004.jpg

Then he surpasses himself, "your probably getting confused with the Sea Harrier, they were 2 shades of Grey" :confused: - What? Do these guys ever look at what they are driving?

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Yep- we went too.

I missed a fair bit of action due to pukey child, but the airfield attack job was pretty goos stuff with the awacs n all. 7 Jets all screaming around at once- does it for me!

The Typhoon really set the sky on fire, great aircraft- boy does it move. Im sure it shouldnt do what it does, but I love it.

We spent time looking at the 3 F-3 tornados, and to be quite honest, they all looked slightly different in colour to me. Really difficult to nail it down the way we want to. All scruffy and used but with flash paint jobs- yummy.

After some of the ghastly British schemes of not so long ago, a new classsy look is getting onto our aircraft, back to the way it used to be- somehow, tough, but very cool. In my dreams I would love to be able to go to the shop tomorrow, buy a couple of 1/48 Tamiya F-3 Tornados, some totally accurate and quality thin decals, and just make those three display jets for the rest of the year..

Edited by Mentalguru
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buy a couple of 1/48 Tamiya F-3 Tornados, some totally accurate and quality thin decals, and just make those three display jets for the rest of the year..

Ahh dreams, yeah that would be a nice dream. By the way, of the 3 F3's there, The older 111 bird and the 43 a/c wore the 3 Grey older scheme, and the newer 111 wore the newer all over one shade Grey. Such a business like looking aircraft.

Agree about the Typhoon display, and did you notice as loud as it was, he took off on dry thrust (I think it's called) he didn't even use reheat!

Edited by Gary West
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What? Do these guys ever look at what they are driving?

Only to check that nothing is about to fall off, otherwise no. Other than jocks who post on forums like these mostly they don't give a toss about the colour of the aeroplane. Flying an aircraft and being fanatically interested in aviation/military aircraft colours are two different things. Occasionally there are folks who are into both but in my experience it is the exception rather than the rule.

peebeep

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Bloomin' Fish-heads :closedeyes:

Like you guys say, that Typhoon is awesome - saw it again at Cosford the other week and it really does look impressive, set of so many car alarms where I was! Doesn't appear to be the most out and out agile thing I've ever seen, the MiG-29OVT and F/A-18E/F seem to have it beaten at absolute low speed agility, but neither of those seem to have quite the same raw power or noise! The rolling zoom climb to finish the display is just insane.

The Tornado fleet is a right mix of colours at the moment, what with the GR4s grey or black radomes, two different colour schemes, some with squadron markings, some with partial squadron markings, wome without, then theres the 3 digit tailcodes or the old squadron specific codes....so many combinations, it makes deciding what aircraft to model a chore but gives you an excuse to do more than one ;) (as if I needed another excuse..)

Gary, whats the old 3 grey scheme on the F3? I thought it was two tone (Barley grey/LACG)?

Edited by WolvoWill
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What? Do these guys ever look at what they are driving?
Hell, I saw an F-16 driver (Danish, on telly, seen by half the nation as it was for the royal wedding a couple of years ago) point to a GBU-24 Paveway III and say it was tv-guided!

:viking:

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Yup, did Kemble yesterday......great show.

Someone mentioned insane in a post here....I'll tell you what was insane....that Extra 300 doing a display whilst towing that glider.!Then releasing and re joining at the low level towards the ned of the glider display to do a straight run through inverted with the Extra underneath it. Real airmanship!

Also love the Wokka display.....gotta love that 270 'handbrake turn!

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Yup, did Kemble yesterday......great show.

Someone mentioned insane in a post here....I'll tell you what was insane....that Extra 300 doing a display whilst towing that glider.!Then releasing and re joining at the low level towards the ned of the glider display to do a straight run through inverted with the Extra underneath it. Real airmanship!

Also love the Wokka display.....gotta love that 270 'handbrake turn!

Hi rich- we were just leaving as the beautiful VC-10 arrived- such grace- THE most beautiful British Military jet aircraft...

But- we were dead level with that bloody wokka when it did that- and we wondered just WHAT it feels like to be INSIDE the bloody thing when that happens- Wotchunder

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Hi rich- we were just leaving as the beautiful VC-10 arrived- such grace- THE most beautiful British Military jet aircraft...

But- we were dead level with that bloody wokka when it did that- and we wondered just WHAT it feels like to be INSIDE the bloody thing when that happens- Wotchunder

I'm lucky to live close to Lyneham, we get a fair few VC10s doing circuits....love 'em.

Won't be too long before Lyneham gets infested by Wokkas......poor old Alberts.

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Wont be too long before Lyneham closes either...sadly.

As a Hercules base...scheduled for 212 but will be before that. Don't think it'll close, the word is that it'll be used for choppers in future, possibly including some Navy stuff as well as RAF types....we'll see at politicians can be so fickle. Only rumours though.

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