Civilian Aviation

well the weather forecast was as accurate as michael fish's in 1987 when he promised there wouldnt be a hurricane.!

Bright sunny skies were forecast so I took a trip over to Stansted as Saturdays are quite reasonable for STN at the moment
but unfortunately the skies were far from bright for much of the time so not the results I had hoped for.

they were using runway 22 and for starters i tohught i would go down towards Hallingbury for some departures - hoping for the Pan Alpina 747-8 which went back to stand until well after i had moved on and the Atlas 747-4 which diverted in - that was still on stand when I left around 14.00 so those plans were shot to bits!

anyway these two departed and got a reasonable angle on the Ryanair:




then I went off to the Molehill Green area to capture the Cargolux 747-400 arriving:

approaching:


passing:


going - about to drop below the trees:


a couple of others to pass the time whilst I waited for the Martinair MD.11 which was running late:




I gave up on the Martinair as it was running even later than expected and walked back along the footpath to my car and half way back to the airport the flight called up so round I turned and parked in a layby near Brioxted (hadnt tried this spot before) and got these shots of it:





looks like Ben got a nice one of it landing and he managed one of the Pan-Alpina departing, maybe I should have gone to the mound after all! Never mind, it got me out of the house for a while. C&C welcome

Thanks Ben - the sun had moved round a bit too much by the time I took the last ones, I thought about coming round to the mound to find you but decided to go home as there was no sign of the MD.11 and nothing else worthwhile was due, then it called up just as I was driving away so nipped back to Broxted to get some pics. Looks like you were in the better position for the light by that time

some cracking shots, i made the same mistake, checked the weather early this morn and sun all day. so took a trip down too luton and heathrow. In the whole day i must of had 30 mins of sunlight. Even had the cheek to tell me it was full sunshine at heathrow as i was stood there under the cloudy sky. . lets hope tomorrow the forecast is correct.

chriswade wrote:some cracking shots, i made the same mistake, checked the weather early this morn and sun all day. so took a trip down too luton and heathrow. In the whole day i must of had 30 mins of sunlight. Even had the cheek to tell me it was full sunshine at heathrow as i was stood there under the cloudy sky. . lets hope tomorrow the forecast is correct.

It wasn't YOUR mistake Chris, it was the forecast that was wrong! it ddi clear here mid afternoon but by then it was too late

Well full sun up this way tomorrow all day. so lets see if they are right this time

chriswade wrote:Well full sun up this way tomorrow all day. so lets see if they are right this time

looking promising at 7a.m. for those that can get out! think I'm house bound today unfortunately - good luck Chris, I expect to see some gems