I do find aircraft inherently interesting. I’m not sure why. Perhaps it’s the idea of defying gravity (I know they don’t really do that but it’s a simpler explanation to what’s going on). I’ve recently mentioned these items at work and searched this site but they didn’t exist here. So this is to make up for that. There are a couple of other communications about the aviation collection, search them by the tags at the bottom of this page.
My first diecast model was a Northrop F5 Freedom Fighter. I bought one of these from a stall at North Weald many years ago. I can’t remember if it was an airshow or just some event I was at. That F5 represented the VF111 Sundowner United States Navy unit. I used to have it on display at work because I would use it for cadet type things, especially explaining the dynamics of aircraft and airflow. This model was lost. More accurately I think it was stolen. It was in my room and then it wasn’t. This was a shame but I knew I needed an F5 because they are cool and also it’s an F5.
Northrop F5
I can’t remember which unit this F5 represents. It might be an aggressor squadron. It just looks nice. The second diecast aircraft I bought was from a stall at the Royal International Air Tattoo in 2019 (I think). I took my kids there and enjoyed the day I spent watching displays and seeing the static aircraft. I wanted a memento of this trip and so I bought an A400M at, what I thought was, a reasonable price.
Airbus A400 M
The A400M sits atop my NAS drive in one of the tech corners of the house. It looks pretty there, guarding the dining room.
The third and final model I have is tiny. It’s a pretty small model of a small and cute plane. I’ve written about the Baby Bus here. I couldn’t find a British Airways version of this plane, there’s still an Air France version flying I think. But this is a lovely plane.
Airbus A318 – The Baby Bus
Those are my aircraft and apart from some trinkets I have from a 1980s Brize Norton that is pretty much it for collections related to aviation.
I finally managed to upload a video to YouTube after about a month of trying now and then. I don’t know why things didn’t work well for that time. But, I’ve managed to upload two videos recently. I’d been trying for ages to upload my V22 flying video. It’s now done.
Every now and then it’s well worth jumping around in front of a crowd and hitting things. I would always suggest that you do this in a safe space and also where everyone knows what’s going on. I did this recently and I had a great time. Not sure what to do if we play more songs though. How do I top that?
I have been flying in the Simulator recently and trying out a new aircraft. I’m learning how to use the V22 Osprey and this time, compared with X-Plane 11, I am actually reading the manual! There’s a really good plugin for X-Plane that shows an on screen version of the checklist and this has made it relatively straightforward to know how to start and operate this aircraft. When I say straightforward I mean it’s ok once you have learnt where all the switches are.
V-22 Flying over the south coast of UK
Because I love how X-Plane looks and how the aircraft operates I’ve been wanting to share my experiences via YouTube. Multiple times over the last month or so I have recorded by screen and sounds using OBS and then tried to upload the resulting video. It turns out that YouTube doesn’t seem to like this. I don’t know why but after an initial decent upload bandwidth the video stops uploading to YouTube. I’ve tried leaving the upload running for a while and although the percentage seems to increase the rate is very low. I can’t wait all night just for a video to upload.
When you search for help with these problems I love the way the websites reckon it’s my fault. Have you checked your wifi? Have you checked your broadband? Have you checked the firewall? All of these things I have already checked. I’m not stupid. I just want to know why my video fails to upload. I suspected it could be that the video is approaching 1GB in size but when I downgraded the quality it still stopped uploading. Maybe I should try a PS5 upload to see if it’s me.
I really want to share some videos covering night flying, the flares being released, landing, vertical take offs and the wing blade fold system, which is really cool. I will keep trying. I know it’s not really like my “followers” are demanding this but I do want to keep adding stuff to my channel. I like the idea of sharing things people would actually appreciate. Here’s a previous video I uploaded:
There’s a company who design aircraft for flight simulators called AOA Simulations and I have to say they have the perfect mix of aircraft I really want to fly and excellent quality so I have, over the years, spent some money getting their aircraft. The most recent addition to my collection is the CV-22 Osprey. I owned this aircraft before on a previous version of X-Plane and so decided to get it again. The company do have an F35 but I have other fast jets and I’m not fussed about that.
Wind Farm Views V22
Look at how ridiculously pretty this aircraft simulation is. I’m not sure the actual aircraft is pretty, I will need to reflect on that.
Heading To The Loop V22
I’m slowly learning how to take off and also control the direction of the prop-rotors. I needed to assign extra buttons on my set-up to make sure that everything was within easy reach.
Mach Loop Journey – V22
Today I managed to transition to vertical flight mode from standard flight and I will say it is not an easy conversion, you spend some time in a stall actually!
Bridge Inspection V22
I’m looking forward to spending more time with this aircraft.
I spent some time with my offspring in Wales over the summer. We wanted to go see metal birds flying close to the ground and so took ourselves to the Mach Loop. The Mach Loop or LFA7 is a designated low flying area for military aircraft in Wales. There is an area where they can go lower than 250 feet and that’s called LFA7(T), the T is for tactical but that is slightly south of the Mach Loop. A lot of people think the Mach Loop is so called because of how speed relative to the local speed of sound is measured in Mach, but that is not the case. The Mach Loop is named for the town at one of the entrances to the loop: Machynlleth.
The first day of the trip was to drive to Wales and set up camp. Two Texans flew over at relatively low altitudes and that was nice. We were camping near the town of Dolgellau. Dolgellau looks quite large on the map and perhaps it is large for a Welsh town. It’s at the confluence of some A roads and on a river. The town itself has a few pubs, some restaurants and a single Co-Op. It’s very pretty.
Golgellau nestled in the valley
The first full day in Wales we drove to Machynlleth to see what it was like and have breakfast. I booked some tickets for a tour of a mine and we headed to Castel y Bere which was marked on road signs. It was the ruins of a castle but it was such a lovely setting, miles from anywhere, sitting in a valley overlooking the lands, no phone signal, dodgy roads. “One of the most beautiful places I’ve been” was a comment from one of our party (not me). Driving to our afternoon activity we stopped briefly by Llyn Mwyngil for some photographs and then reached our destination of Corris. We had a tour of the old Corris slate mine – it was lovely and cool, the outside was pretty hot. The Barmouth called and we headed there. There was a pedestrian and railway bridge across the mouth of the river and so we walked on that.
Barmouth Bridge
Once we were bored of this view, which took quite a while we walked back over the bridge. A train came over the bridge which was pretty exciting. Then we headed back to the campsite via the Penmaenpool Toll Bridge, a wooden bridge crossing the river and one that I had to pay for the privilege of using.
The following day was a trip to what could be the place we use to see metal birds flying. I had studied maps and there are a couple of places that are suitable for observers. We had driven past one on the way to the campsite originally so this time we walked up the hill to get to know where we were going. It was a Sunday and so there was no chance of anything being in the air but it was good to check out the land before we actually did try and see planes. Then we went to the Dovey Valley Shooting Ground for a go at clay pigeon shooting. We also had lunch here. The less said about the clay shooting the better. I am a rifle target shooter and not particularly good at shooting flying clays (terrible actually).
After a good night’s sleep we wanted to see Harlech Castle and so drove there. The closest car park was super busy with idiots trying to manoeuvre their massive cars to get out, so we drove past and looked at another car park. But, this one was down quite a hill and all of us decided that walking up a hill was not on the plan for a few hours and so we left. We had lunch at Llyn Trawsfynydd overlooking a couple of disused nuclear reactors. After that we went to watch metal birds. We parked at the crest of the road pass through the valley and climbed a little to a place known as Blywch. To be honest I think Blywch is just a word for “crest” or similar but in terms of birdwatching that’s what this place was known as. It was quite windy up the top and we found crevasses to sit and wait. There were other people up there and they had radios and aircraft trackers and all sorts so we spent our time listening to what they were saying.
Trawsfynydd nuclear power station
It took two hours of waiting and so false starts with aircraft not quite making to our spot – we saw a Phenom in the distance. Then we had four F15s fly by, probably the same two twice. Then there were two Typhoons and a single Hawk. This was well worth it. The RAF planes were flying below us!
Our final day of being away from Kent involved us packing up and driving home. We did stop off for a little while at the RAF Museum at Cosford and we walked around enjoying the sites, but I think we all just wanted to get back to relax!
Every time I see an aircraft type that I know I have flown in I check its details with this website. I have a couple of pages covering my flying while in the RAF Air Cadets. Powered flight is covered on this communication. Recently on a visit to the RAF Museum, Midlands, at Cosford I found out two things. One, there is a VC-10 on display that I have been inside and flown with. Secondly I got the serial numbers wrong in either the communication or my original log book, F3822. The VC-10 at Cosford was serial XR808. In my communication I had put XV808. Now, it turns out that XV808 is a Harrier and I have NEVER flown in a Harrier. So, XR seems to be the correct letters. Whoops.
XR808 at RAF Museum Cosford
This particular aircraft has a long and interesting history. I found this page detailing her life. My two hours on 26 August 1987 were spent mainly trying to catch up on sleep – summer camp is a very tiring week!
