RAF – Fooyah – Ian Parish

July 10 2022July 10 2022

CCF Camp HLW

I’ve just returned from the first summer camp we’ve had for three years. In pre-pandemic times we would head off for a week each summer and spend that time at a RAF Station and have great fun doing activities. This year we booked accommodation at RAF Henlow and organised our own camp. Normally HQ would allocate us to a camp somewhere in the country but all the systems aren’t working very well yet, they’ll get there. So we drove ourselves to RAF Henlow and settled into the cadet block there, Barrack Block 56.

Our first day at camp was getting unpacked, checking the block and sending the cadets on a FAMEX. We also booked into the cinema in Royston to see Top Gun Maverick. It was much better on second watching and I didn’t expect that to happen! Sunday was a trip to Wyboston Lakes and an assault course in the morning followed by time on the inflatables in the lake. It was great, even with the A&E visit that was required.

LJ and I had a bit of a prank war going on and the picture above was the point at which we decided just to make it a verbal roasting war rather than anything physical. We could both see it was going to get out of hand! Monday was a multi-activity day with some cadets going flying with 5AEF at RAF Wittering, some cadets went to the Imperial War Museum at Duxford and others went for a trip around a nuclear bunker and some high ropes. Great fun was had by all. In the evening a pilot mate of mine came and gave the cadets a talk about the flying industry.

Tuesday we visited RAF Honington to see what the RAF Regiment and Force Protection get up to. We might have had some instruction on small burst weapons during the day and then had a visit to the heritage centre detailing all the exploits of the Regiment.

Wednesday was a visit to the RAF Centre of Aviation Medicine at RAF Henlow followed by weapon training. In the evening I ran a DCCT range over the other side of the airfield at the Force Protection flight.

Thursday was a trip to the Shuttleworth Collection for a private tour and trip on a bus that was over a hundred years old. There were a few planes flying and that was nice to see. RAF Henlow not being a flying base.

Thursday evening was another session in the DCCT range and virtually all cadets gained their L98A2 trained shot badge with the excellent guidance of the staff. It’s a pretty good achievement. Friday was the reverse of Monday with 12 more cadets getting airborne at RAF Wittering and the others heading to the bunker and high ropes.

Friday evening was paper plate awards and chill time. TR and I went to visit the Officers’ Mess and checked out the bar. Saturday we tidied up, somehow loaded our transport of all the kit and headed home after lunch. It was a great week and another memorable camp. Such excellent fun and hopefully an amazing experience for our cadets. RTU was around 1500 hours and then the buses were tidied and parked up. We arrived back at the same time as the Army section which caused some issues in the car park but it all worked out in the end. I’m looking forward to next year.

July 31 2020July 31 2020

Nice To See – But Disconcerting

They are always practising. If you want people to do their jobs in extreme stress then they must always practice. That’s what this RAF A400 Atlas was doing at Biggin Hill yesterday. I was looking at 360 Radar because something interesting flew over or I heard something interesting fly over. I then noticed this A400 practising approaches at Biggin Hill. To get home from there the Atlas would have to either fly low over the Cities of London and Westminster or head out over me keeping a low level to avoid the approaches for City Airport. It headed out to me.

I rushed to get my camera and headed outside performing a lens change while walking. I got out just in time and saw the A400 pretty much fly over my house and head north to go home. These guys tend to practise approaches to unfamiliar airports but normally at other military airfield where the noise and sight isn’t that bothersome. This year they have been doing plenty at civilian airports such as Edinburgh, London City, and Biggin Hill. This means the pilots and crew are used to going new places. This is so that when there’s a massive need for moving people to decent hospitals they can fly them for Covid treatment. Either that or they’ve been told to look good by the government. I’m quite convinced that the weekly Chinook flight through London is a “show of force”, a reassurance to the population that the boys in blue are there and ready.

April 15 2020April 15 2020

Globe Master

This morning I was watching my MagicMirror and up popped a RRR callsign on the aircraft near me section. Well, it wasn’t near me but it was close because there aren’t really any aircraft out there at the moment as the world has gone to shit. I checked with 360 Radar and it looked as though this RAF Cargo flight would pass quite close. So I got the camera and headed out to the garden to see what I could get.

Here’s a cropped view, which looks a little better.

Also, because the weather’s been nice here’s a photo of one of the plants in the garden. It was taken by son #1 and is a pretty good shot.

November 12 2019November 12 2019

Atlas Rising

Last weekend the Lord Mayor of London had a show, much like the Lord Mayor has a show every year. I wasn’t aware of it as I just happened to glance at 360Radar and see an A400 flying low over the City. A couple of messages later and I learn it’s to start the show. I have never seen the show, even when I could have been part of it. The A400 then turned east and stayed low to avoid all that traffic heading into Heathrow. It flew about three miles from my house and I managed to snap a little picture of it.

April 17 2019April 17 2019

Early Air Pioneers

Until about four days ago I didn’t know that the first powered flight of an aircraft in the UK occurred on the Isle Of Sheppey. The island isn’t that far from here and so I went to have a look at a beach.

Upon some investigating it turns out that the first purpose-built aircraft factory was on Sheppey and built by the Shorts brothers. Then it turns out that they then build the first airfield nearby in 1909. This is amazing and I don’t know why I didn’t know this before this week.

I had previously known that Shorts used to make aircraft at Rochester and used the Medway there as the aerodrome. It is here that they made the Sunderland and other famous planes.

Eventually they moved production to Belfast and now the company is known as Bombardier. It would have been magnificent to see sea planes taking off and landing on the river Medway, such an age of exploration and adventure. This would have made Rochester such a target during the second world war as there was a Royal Navy shipyard and also an aircraft manufacturer there.

On Sheppey I drove to the old RAF Eastchurch site which is now three prisons built on Crown land. It was strange driving to the museum as there was lots of security along a public road. It felt like entering an RAF base. Two of the prisons there are high security and the walls were impressive. The third prison is an open prison and the museum is on the land of that prison with a cafe nearby run by inmates.

The key to the things I have marked in the above photo runs such:

The museum
The first aero hangar in the UK
The RAF base water tower
The original airfield control block
The E-W runway
The N-S runway

There are plenty of features there to see and the person running the museum was really friendly and told me loads about the history. It’s strange to me all these old air force bases that are now re-purposed. I guess I hanker for the old days of aircraft everywhere.

One of the buildings on the site still shows the scars of war with bomb damage on the brick wall:

The museum is based in one of the original base buildings and certainly contains lots of lovely information about the early days of aeronautical exploration in this country.

Inside the building was a photograph taken at Muswell Manor on the east coast of the island and one of the early headquarters of the Royal Aero Club. In that photograph the following people are pictured:

The Short Brothers
Frank McClean
Frank Hedges Butler
Warwick Wright
JTC Brabazon
Wilber Wright
Orville Wright
Charles Rolls

That is an amazing collection of rich people who had the money to start the aviation industry in this country and the world. The Wright brothers had come across the Atlantic with their flyer to try and create interest and also start manufacturing the product. This they managed and the Short brothers built the Flyer under licence. The rest is pretty much history as we know. I hadn’t even been aware that the Wright brothers had come over here!

Near Muswell Manor is a statue to the Short Brothers. It stands as a marker for the start of aviation in this country and the adventuring that started at Shellness.

February 6 2019February 8 2019

RAST Heats

I have spent some time recently at an Army Training Camp with a team of CCF cadets whilst they trained to compete in the Royal Air Squadron Trophy. They worked very hard and won the South East heats and so now move on to the national finals in a month’s time.

I can’t show you any photographs of that because they all contain the cadets. What I can show you are two pictures of Crowborough in the lovely sunny snow.

Another:

I’m very proud of the work the cadets put into the competition.

Also, while at the defence training area I found an old safe. I thought it looked particularly picturesque and so here it is:

September 3 2018September 3 2018

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.

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.

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.

August 30 2018August 30 2018

Hendon Views

I went to visit the RAF Museum at Hendon. It’s a lovely place, partly because it costs nothing to go in* but also because it’s full of aircraft.

*there are parking charges.

My main issue with the museum is that the aircraft are parked close together and it’s hard to get decent photographs of them. Also, some of the rooms are pretty dark and getting the white balance correct is a pain. Maybe I need to be a better photographer!

Anyway, here are a selection of shots.

April 9 2018October 22 2018

RAF 100 Baton Relay

As part of being 100 years old this year the RAF has a specially designed Baton travelling around the UK.

I was lucky enough to be at Amport House for its visit there.

I do have a picture of me holding the Baton but instead I’ll settle for this picture of all the group. I’m in there.

July 9 2017

CCF Camp ELW

Well, that was a busy week. Even the bonus of sleeping in my own bed for most of it didn’t really help!

So, back to the beginning. We traditionally have a cadet camp around this time and spend a week on an air force base doing loads of lovely stuff. The RAF couldn’t accommodate us when the school expects us to go so we organised our own things.

Our plan was to have day trips locally along with an overnight at Wittering before a day of Air Experience Flying. We looked into visiting many places and the programme was quite fluid until the last moment but we succeeded in delivering a great experience for the cadets.

Day One was spent at the Swattenden Centre near Cranbrook and we had the climbing wall, low ropes / assault course, a raft building challenge and the telegraph pole of hell. It was a hot day. In fact, everyday was hot. We were quite lucky with all the dry weather.

The second day we visited St Martin’s Plain near Folkestone. We had all day inside the DCCT building along with cadets learning how to cook ration packs. Kent Police came to visit and showed us all their armed response weapons from the BMW X5.

Middle of the week and we had numerous visits planned: a few hours at IWM Duxford, a few hours at the RAF Regiment Heritage Centre and then on to RAF Wittering to overnight there.

As we were approaching the Duxford exit of the M11 two Mustangs flew overhead in formation. They then proceeded to practice their display for the weekend airshow. It was incredibly impressive and great fun to see. If nothing else exciting happened all week this would have made the week worthwhile.

After a while to soak up the rays at Duxford we drove to RAF Honington to visit the RAF Regiment Heritage Centre. This was particularly interesting and there was a lot of pretty impressive kit on display. We even managed to bump into the Station Commander and SWO. They gave us permission to have a photo taken at the gate guardian, which we duly did.

Buccaneer - RAF Honington — Buccaneer – RAF Honington

After time looking and playing with kit we drove to RAF Wittering and booked into our accommodation for the night. The showers here were very welcome as spending four hours driving a minibus with no air conditioning took its toll. We had a lovely evening meal in Stamford at the London Inn.

Our original plan was for a day’s worth of AEF with No.5 AEF but this failed for reasons that we don’t know. Fortunately, and with good contacts, we managed to see 5131 Sqn, the Harrier Heritage Centre and then spend a few hours with the Fire Section next to the runway.

The firemen a great at showing off and also managed to effectively cool us down on this baking day.

5131 had some curious stuff including this:

Finally, we reached Friday and we had sorted out some rocketry for all to enjoy. The morning was spent building the rockets and lessons on the physics and then we flew the masterpieces in the afternoon.

Overall this was a good week. Not quite as good as a proper camp, but we did well and I am pretty sure everyone had a really good time.