Civilian Aviation

Day 2 of my visit to Yorkshire, Lincolnshire & a bit of Notts and it was back to Doncaster for the departure of the An.225 'Dream'. Hundreds or maybe even thousands turned out to see it depart. High Common Road was packed (and Old Bawtry Road looked pretty full as well - good job it wasn't the Vulcan otherwise the authorities might have gone into the threatened 'lock down'

The aircraft taxied out and lined up and then (as pre-warned to the tower) sat at the end of the runway for 4 minutes to get the engines fully wound up, lots of smoke made it a bit of a spectacle even if we couldn't hear it 2 miles away! Here's a sequence of pics through the take off and on it's way to Germany, well worth the trip....

rolling..
1977 An225 take off by Andrew Goldsmith, on Flickr

nosewheel just starting to lift
1981 An225 take off by Andrew Goldsmith, on Flickr

airborne..
1988 An225 take off by Andrew Goldsmith, on Flickr

climbing
2007 An225 take off by Andrew Goldsmith, on Flickr

a close up view of the front end
2014 An225 take off by Andrew Goldsmith, on Flickr

overhead
1833 An225 take off by Andrew Goldsmith, on Flickr

off she goes
1847 An225 take off by Andrew Goldsmith, on Flickr

a partly cloudy background for a moment
1859 An225 take off by Andrew Goldsmith, on Flickr

the same picture cropped - which do you prefer?
1859 An225 take off cropped by Andrew Goldsmith, on Flickr

climbing away
2016 An225 take off by Andrew Goldsmith, on Flickr

smoking well
2037 An225 take off by Andrew Goldsmith, on Flickr

and that was that, a 2 day feast of the world's largest aircraft and you are probably thinking 'was it worth the journey?' - Definitely!!!

C&C welcome

Andrew

Superb job Andy .... the front end close up is mmmmmm !! I saw it again today but only on FR24 ! was it worth it ?? of course it was it's unique ....

Keith

Another fantastic set, I missed the departure so it's been great to see the pictures online.

yunglee wrote:Another fantastic set, I missed the departure so it's been great to see the pictures online.

sorry to hear you missed it Lee, there was an amazing number of people there, loads of cars parked along High Common Lane - and a lorry or two!

thanks for the comment

andy

Great shots Andy. Always nice to see engine smoke (well, as long as they're not on fire).

Great shots Andy.

Looks like it was well worth making the trip up to Doncaster!

Dan

talldan76 wrote:Great shots Andy.

Looks like it was well worth making the trip up to Doncaster!

Dan

thanks Dan - it certainly was! Hard bit is going through all my pics now

Great set Andy, it's very hard to pick a winner.

Mike wrote:Great set Andy, it's very hard to pick a winner.

thanks Mike, picking the best is a bit of a dilemma but a nice dilemma at that. I've only been through a small proportion of my pics so far , took loads on the Wednesday when it arrived and then there's all those from the other airfields that I visited (and I want to write some airfield guides for them as well).

Andy - really like them all but No 3 just edges it for me. I was lucky to see this monster in Manchester in 2013,, hadn't seen it before and not since.

Mike

What a monster of an Aircraft this is, great sequence of roll and airborne shots impressive stuff alright Andy

doesn't seem like a year ago - and coincidentally she is in the air again today as I type (en route to Iceland and eventually south america).