Interesting or unusual planes?

[ElyDave]

May well explain  the inordinate noise round here lately, thing circulating  y the regular Increase and decrease of volume for about ten minutes yesterday. I could hear,  not see, until they popped in and out of  the clouds.  Did not recognise  what they were

[mrcharly-YHT]

Osprey thingy

V low, flew over Lewis, turned around and flew back.

On a sort of West-East track.

Trainee pilot getting in some hours?

[TheLurker]

Lost Yank.  Looking for St. Louis. 

[Jakob]

And here we have the wild EC120 in it's natural habitat:

[mrcharly-YHT]

Fancy paint job!

Is it true that Canadians plant helicopters in the hope that a baby helicopter will grow? Looks like that one is starting to take root.

[Jakob]

Yes, leave this one for a season or two and it'll grow into an EC130T2

[Mr Larrington]

Is that D Attenborough lurking behind the shrubbery on the right?

[“No.” – Ed.]

[GdS]

Osprey thingy

V low, flew over Lewis, turned around and flew back.

On a sort of West-East track.

Trainee pilot getting in some hours?

they hatch on Portland (Dorset not US) seen them take off there. They also have Sea Kings 

re F-16s only ever seen the Belgian NL and whatever ones were at RIAT this year;

Polish air force are due to receive some although that may involve donating their Su's to a neighbour 

[TimC]

Osprey thingy

V low, flew over Lewis, turned around and flew back.

On a sort of West-East track.

Trainee pilot getting in some hours?

they hatch on Portland (Dorset not US)

No, they don't. Portland has no military facilities any more - and the last went many, many years ago. There are V-22's based at RAF Mildenhall (7th Special Operations Sqn), but nowhere else in UK.

[Hot Flatus]

Osprey thingy

V low, flew over Lewis, turned around and flew back.

On a sort of West-East track.

Trainee pilot getting in some hours?

they hatch on Portland (Dorset not US)

No, they don't. Portland has no military facilities any more - and the last went many, many years ago. There are V-22's based at RAF Mildenhall (7th Special Operations Sqn), but nowhere else in UK.

Not quite fully the case, yet. There is a magnetic range by the Bill, called MOD Portland Bill, and another Qinetic site at Grove Point. There are civilian refuelling facilities that are sometimes used by the military, and Ospreys are seen in the area sometimes although as you say they are not based there. There are civilian Sea Kings, however, which are used for Air Sea rescue training.  There is also the Sir Tristram moored in Portland Harbour, a decommissioned landing ship used for SF training, which doubtless involves helicopters.

I lived near RNAS Portland the mid 70s for a while, and at that time there were all sorts of things going on. The Underwater Weapons stuff (infamous for the Portland Spy Ring)  left in the 90s along with the naval base. The SBS had their minisubs there too.

[TimC]

It was RNAS Portland I was referring to, HF, though I wasn’t aware that the range was still active. HeliOps have, I think, the last remaining operational Sea Kings in UK. Is anything else operating from the site? I remember there was a coastguard SAR flight there, but I think that closed about 5 years ago.

[Hot Flatus]

It was RNAS Portland I was referring to, HF, though I wasn’t aware that the range was still active. HeliOps have, I think, the last remaining operational Sea Kings in UK. Is anything else operating from the site? I remember there was a coastguard SAR flight there, but I think that closed about 5 years ago.

Bit of googling suggests that HeliOps have a new Leonardo AW139, as well as two old Sea Kings. The actual coastguard helicopter (often seen near Swanage) is based at Lee-on-Solent, according to Google.

I found this, about the US Ospreys landing on Portland (as suggested earlier, probably refuelling at HeliOps)

https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-and-latest-activity/news/2021/april/01/20210401-osprey-mounts

Of course, the confusion might be that the Naval base was called RNAS Osprey....and was renamed Osprey Quay.

The Qinetic magnetic range is quite interesting. It is used for all sorts of calibration purposes, degaussing ships and so on.

[mrcharly-YHT]

Osprey thingy

V low, flew over Lewis, turned around and flew back.

On a sort of West-East track.

Trainee pilot getting in some hours?

they hatch on Portland (Dorset not US)

No, they don't. Portland has no military facilities any more - and the last went many, many years ago. There are V-22's based at RAF Mildenhall (7th Special Operations Sqn), but nowhere else in UK.

Well, quite.

So where was it flying to/from?

I don't think they have the range to get here from Mildenhall.

[pcolbeck]

The ferry range of an Osprey is 2,570 miles apparently so its possible.
Only 1000 miles normal range though.

[Mr Larrington]

Range is a tad over 1,000 miles according to Wikinaccurate.  And they can be refuelled in flight.

XP with pcolbeck

[mrcharly-YHT]

Unless they are deciding they need to rehearse emptying their tanks and doing mid-air refuel . . .

Hmm, nato exercises started on Fri. I wonder if it was actually from a carrier, somewhere in the minch?

[TimC]

Well, quite.

So where was it flying to/from?

I don't think they have the range to get here from Mildenhall.

Of course they have the range to reach Lewis and return to Mildenhall (the return flight is about 800 nautical miles), but that wouldn't give them a lot of flex. However,  Mildenhall also is home to the MC-130Js of the 67th Special Operations Squadron. One of their roles is to refuel the Ospreys in the air, and that's a skill that needs regular practice (I used to teach it, both as dispenser and receiver), so I'd be surprised if that wasn't part of the trip. In UK, air-to-air refuelling is normally practised in one of several oversea AAR areas (it's not normally allowed over land at the altitudes the V-22 can do it), and the role of both aircraft also requires them to be able to fly at low-level over land. The west of Scotland provides the largest and best low-flying training area in UK, so to combine refuelling practice in AARA 14 (see here) with some low flying over the Highlands and Islands makes for a good day's work.

If AAR isn't part of the trip, they have the option of stopping for lunch and a top up at Lossiemouth or Leuchars (now Army, but still available to aircraft) before or after the low-flying bit before returning home. Prestwick also has frequent USAF visitors, though I don't believe there's any permanent military support any more. And of course Stornoway is also very familiar with military users having been part RAF until 20 or so years ago, and still used for exercises from time to time.

[Mr Larrington]

Vanguard Self Storage have form for putting odd things atop their building's tower on the A40 just west of Hanger Lane and today was no exception.  They have a Spitfire.  Not to be outdone, their branch on the A406 just west of Staples Corner has, in its multi-storey glazed atrium, a Hunter.

[GdS]

Osprey thingy

V low, flew over Lewis, turned around and flew back.

On a sort of West-East track.

Trainee pilot getting in some hours?

they hatch on Portland (Dorset not US)

No, they don't. Portland has no military facilities any more - and the last went many, many years ago. There are V-22's based at RAF Mildenhall (7th Special Operations Sqn), but nowhere else in UK.

Yes sorry I didn't mean they were based there I've just seen one landing / taking off at the HeilOps site

Vanguard Self Storage have form for putting odd things atop their building's tower on the A40 just west of Hanger Lane and today was no exception.  They have a Spitfire.  Not to be outdone, their branch on the A406 just west of Staples Corner has, in its multi-storey glazed atrium, a Hunter.

There's still a gate guardian RN Hunter outside the former RAF Ford on the road South of Arundel, rode past it many times whilst trying to relieve lockdown boredom before AUKs started up again

The Selsey Arms on the A272 at Coolham built a life sized (ish) wooden Spitfire in their garden, it's looking much the worse for ear which is a shame as the pub has a Polish / RAF memorial near the former WWII airfield. I saw B17 Sally B fly over it several times in the summer think they were filming a documentary.

[Steph]

That Ford Hunter is easily visible from the train. If you ride on down towards Climping, there some Commonwealth War Graves in St Mary's church yard

[TimC]

There's still a gate guardian RN Hunter outside the former RAF Ford on the road South of Arundel, rode past it many times whilst trying to relieve lockdown boredom before AUKs started up again

While Ford was indeed RAF for a couple of years after WW1 (it had been one of the first British military airfields adopted by the Americans), and a couple of years of WW2, the majority of its military time was as HMS Peregrine, a Royal Naval Air Station. It closed in 1958. There's a decent history here: http://www.royalnavyresearcharchive.org.uk/FAA-Bases/Ford.htm#.Y2XcX-TP1qg

The Hunter is an ex-FRADU GA11 (WW654) which ironically never operated from Ford and is now in very poor condition.

[pcolbeck]

My uncle used to say the Hunter was his favourite of the many types he flew in his career.

[Steph]

There's still a gate guardian RN Hunter outside the former RAF Ford on the road South of Arundel, rode past it many times whilst trying to relieve lockdown boredom before AUKs started up again

While Ford was indeed RAF for a couple of years after WW1 (it had been one of the first British military airfields adopted by the Americans), and a couple of years of WW2, the majority of its military time was as HMS Peregrine, a Royal Naval Air Station. It closed in 1958. There's a decent history here: http://www.royalnavyresearcharchive.org.uk/FAA-Bases/Ford.htm#.Y2XcX-TP1qg

The Hunter is an ex-FRADU GA11 (WW654) which ironically never operated from Ford and is now in very poor condition.

It would be a shame to see it go the way of that Lightning at Newark

[JonBuoy]

It looks like we might be getting a replacement An-225   

[spesh]

It looks like we might be getting a replacement An-225   

"The project, he says, costs €500,000,000"

Yikes...

A breakdown of the project cost would be handy, to see how much covers new manufacturing facilities, personnel, testing and so on, as opposed to the materials and parts to build a new Mriya. And if anything, half a billion is low-balling it compared with estimates from earlier this year - per The War Zone in late May:

Last week, Zelensky announced his intentions of building a new Mriya during an online meeting with Ukrainian students.

"We wanted to build it, we needed $800 million,” he said, according to the Interfax Ukraine news agency. “I appealed to the President of Turkey with a proposal to build the 2nd MRIYA, but we did not find the money," he said.
...

Zelensky’s estimate to build a new Mriya, however, is far less than what Ukroboronprom, the Ukrainian defense industry conglomerate of which Antonov is part, said it would take.

Ukroboronprom said on Feb. 27 that building a new Mriya will cost more than $3 billion and take five years. This seemed like a massive figure at the time.

The funds, it said, will come from Russia via war reparations.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/800m-needed-to-build-a-new-an-225-mriya-cargo-jet-zelensky-says

By way of a comparison...

The cost to procure each B-2 was US$737 million in 1997 dollars (equivalent to US$1126 million in 2021), based only on a fleet cost of US$15.48 billion. The procurement cost per aircraft as detailed in GAO reports, which include spare parts and software support, was $929 million per aircraft in 1997 dollars.

The total program cost projected through 2004 was US$44.75 billion in 1997 dollars (equivalent to US$68 billion in 2021). This includes development, procurement, facilities, construction, and spare parts. The total program cost averaged US$2.13 billion per aircraft.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_B-2_Spirit#Program_costs_and_procurement