Practise Refuelling

I’ve written here quite a bit about ADS-B and stuff along with tracking aircraft and multi-lateration. Well, I was looking at the aircraft tracking website 360 Radar this evening and spotted an amusing thing.

Almost A Penis
Almost A Penis

The route shown on the picture is that taken by an RAF Voyager aircraft over the North Sea. The plane took off from RAF Brize Norton and headed out over the Scottish area of the North Sea. The green area is rain and the purple highlights are RAF airfields along with the blue highlights showing civilian airports. What particularly struck me about this picture was the almost-penis drawn as the second area of activity. I think they should have tried a little harder [but would probably get “moved” assignment].

Let’s put this thing into some perspective by adding recognised Danger Areas in red and refuelling training areas in green.

AAR Ranges
AAR Ranges

Now we can see that the Voyager has maneuvered beautifully through the danger areas and maintained some lovely flight paths in the AAR areas. The plane is currently at 16,000ft and moving at 330 kts. Pretty standard stuff.

It’s amazing to see that this is practiced and practiced to make sure that when it comes to doing this in a real theatre everyone knows exactly what they are doing and it all goes to plan.

An Air Powered 5k

This morning I spent a lovely few hours with old friends beating up an inflatable assault course and generally having a lovely time. First thing to note and to be honest although I’ve had the race number for a couple of months now today was the first time I noticed the devilish connotations:

The Number Of The East
The Number Of The East

The running was great fun. The obstacles more so as I tried to make sure I vaulted or somersaulted as much as possible. I even bunny hopped up all the “steps” on one of the obstacles. It was great fun, although I might have a nap soon.

Leaping Over A Wall
Leaping Over A Wall

My time doesn’t matter because we ran as a team. I’m almost tempted to do the 10k next year!