Europe Trip #6: RAF Museum Hendon - 1 - Introduction

Well, I'm back home in New Zealand now, and with the lasting effects of long distance travel almost gone, it's time to catch up on the photos form the trip.

This post is the first in a series of photos taken at the RAF Museum in Hendon. As you'll see over the next few days as I put the posts up, there was plenty here to keep me amused for the 5-6 hours I was there, and in fact it would have been better to spend a couple of days so that I didn't have to rush between some of the exhibits! After all my looking around, I didn't even get in to the hanger containing many of the WW1 exhibits which is a shame.

Getting to the the museum is super easy. The London Underground takes you very close - about a 10 minute, well sign-posted, walk to the museum after you get off the train. Entry to the museum is FREE [very surprising these days!], and even if I had had to pay it would have been worth it.

Anyway, enough of my ramblings and on to the pictures! The two gate guardians are fibreglass replicas of a Hawker Hurricane Mk II and a Supermarine Spitfire Mk IX. The museum [and apparently the RAF] use replicas for gate guardians to preserve the original aircraft in good condition. A good idea I think.

Following these are a quick taste of what is to come:

Hawker Tempest II
Westland Whirlwind HAR10
BAC Jet Provost T.5A
Hawker Siddeley Buccaneer S2B
Heinkel He 162

Europe Trip #5: Out of Salzburg, airborne photos

Salzburg is a wonderful place. I only had one full day there, and so I didn´t to do any tours or anything [I could have gone on a ¨Sound of Music¨ tour but I couldn´t think of much worse...! :-)]. The photos were taken in the 15-20 minutes after takeoff. I pretty sure that the first one is in Austria, but that others probably include Germany and France :-) Who knows, but it was nice scenery anyway!

Europe Trip #4: Out of Salzburg, in to London, Gatwick

After [almost] a week in Bled, Slovenia [click for details] a train trip and a couple of nights in Salzburg, Austria, we left Salzburg [W A Mozart] [ICAO: LOWS] Airport and in to London Gatwick [ICAO: EGKK].

The first set of photos are at the airport - the next set will be the airborne pictures.

Top to bottom are:

Salzburg Airport [W A Mozart]
Austrian Arrows, Dash 8, OE-LTJ
TUIFly.com Boeing B737, D-AHXH
EasyJet, Airbus A319, G-EZMH [the aircraft we took to Gatwick] x 2
Ryanair, Boeing B737
Business jet, Gulfstream G200, 4X-CLL
Cirrus airlines, Dornier 328, D-CCIR

Europe Trip #3: Into Ljubljana/ Slovenia

As mentioned in my last post, we left Stansted and flew on an Easyjet Airbus A319 to Ljubljana Airport [ICAO: LJLJ]. This was my first time in to Europe proper, and certainly the first time in to a country where English is not the first language for its citizens.

I need not have worried as there are a reasonable number of English speakers around, particularly in the town of Bled where we are staying for a while. Also, most of the signage is easy enough to work out if you have a rough idea where you want to go.

Ljubljana Airport is a relatively small airport but does host [at least] intra-European flights, such as our one from England. I didn´t have much time to hang about taking photos, so I only got a couple of pictures of an aircraft from Adria Airways, the national airline of Slovenia, who also appear to have a maintenance base here.

This aircraft is a Bombardier CRJ-900ER, registration S5-AAK. Other pictures are of the terminal and the control tower. I suspect that if I could have waited here for a while there would have been quite a few interesting pictures to take.



[Thanks to AndrewM for the corrections/ details for the aircraft type]

Europe Trip #2: Out of England via Stansted

After a 4 nights in England we left for Slovenia, departing London Stansted Airport [ICAO code: EGSS]. We travelled on an Easyjet Airbus A319 to Ljubljana Airport [ICAO: LJLJ]. Ljubljana is the capital city of Slovenia]. I have to say that the experience with Easyjet was nothing like the TV show Airport. There was no shouting, crying, begging, or film crews :-). I guess it pays to turn up with plenty of time!

It was obviously interesting being at a different airport and seeing some different airlines. I didn´t expect to see an old Russian built Antonov [see below] which was an additional bonus. As for photography - the windows were extremely dirty. They can have been washed on goodness knows how long, but I still managed to get some OK pictures.

What follows are the pictures I got at Stansted and soon after takeoff.

Easyjet Airbus A319/A320, G-EZIH, RyanAir Boeing B737
Jet2 Boeing B737, Easyjet Airbus A319?
Ryanair Boeing B737, EI-DPD
Air Italy Boeing B767, I-AIGH
UPS Boeing B767, N334UP
Aurigny Air Aerospatiale ATR72, G-BWDB
Antonov AN12BP, UR-CGW [no operator identified]
Easyjet Airbus A319
Airborne in the Easyjet Airbus A319 heading to Ljubljana

Europe Trip #1: Wellington to Heathrow

Well, the big trip has started [actually, it started several days ago, but I have only just come in contact with reliable, accessible, WIFI]. The flight to London Heathrow [ICAO code: EGLL] was on Air NZ via Hongkong International/ Chek Lap Kok [ICAO: VHHH].

Perhaps, surprisingly, the trp from Wellington [NZWN] to Auckland [NZAA], Hongkong [VHHH] and London Heathrow [EGLL] went surprisingly well. The service on Air NZ is superb [even in cattle class], and with the aid of some magic pills, I was extremely tired that evening in England, but had virtually no jet lag the next day! The IFE [In Flight Entertainment] system on the Air NZ Boeing B777 was excellent and managed to keep me more or less entertained for the entire trip, even though I only managed 4 hours sleep in total!!

As the flight from Wellington [and therefore Auckland] was in the dark, I have no photos from them, and I have nothing [well, one,below] from Heathrow yet as I was in a rush to join the immigration queue. I did get some photos during our brief pitstop in Hongkong, as follows:

Apologies for the lack of details for most of these aircraft - I may fill in more in the next few weeks, but at the moment, I am working on a 7-7.5 inch screen. Ouch! :-)

Air France Boeing B777?
Thai Airways Airbus A330
Orient Thai Boeing B747, HS-UTN
Cathay Pacific Boeing B747
Air New Zealand Boeing B777-200ER, ZK-OKB
Orient Thai Boeing B747 [same aircraft as above], HS-UTN
Air Macau Airbus A330??, B-MAB
Hongkong Express B737
Emirates Airbus A380 :-) - OK, I great advertising hoarding!

Enjoy the pictures! More from the trip to come in the next few days!

I'm off!

Finally... after several months of planning... and several minutes of packing :-) ... I'm off on my big holiday.

The main reason for the trip is for my little sister's wedding, but I'm hoping to get a few photos as I pass through Wellington, Auckland, Hongkong, Heathrow, Gatwick, Solzburg and Ljubljana airports over the next few weeks. Airlines are Air New Zealand between Wellington and Heathrow and Easyjet between England and the rest of Europe.

Depending on availability of internet connections, I hope to keep updating the site while I'm away, but worst come to worst, I'll do a series of updates once I'm back in about 3 weeks time.

Rainbow :-)

Here's a photo I got on a rainbow that appears to start at the Wellington airport terminal and finish at the runway threshold :-) Click on the image for a better look.

Air Chathams Convair

A regular visitor to Wellington is Air Chathams with their General Dynamics Convair 440/580's, in this case, ZK-CIB. Here are a couple of pictures of the aircraft, first arriving, then of its later departure.

More aeroplanes, more wind

I popped out to the aero club again today [I love being on holiday!!]. It was a typical windy day in Wellington, but this time with a crosswind component of around 12-20 knots all day. As uncomfortable as this may be for passengers [and as a private pilot, I didn't want to be out there is it], it makes for some interesting photographic opportunities.

For those that don't know Wellington, the city is very hilly, and the airport has steep terrain on both sides. That makes for fun times when there's a crosswind. Google Earth shows the terrain really well, so check that out [just search for Wellington International Airport, Wellington, New Zealand and ensure that you turn the satellite image layer on].

In this first post from today, here are pictures of a Pacific Blue B737, VH-VOX, executing a missed approach from low level, followed by one picture of the landing a few minutes later.