Photography by Bob Sharples

Wednesday, 24 October 2018

Spitfire MK356 at RNAS Culdrose

A spitfire from the BBMF stopped over at RNAS Culdrose for a flypast over Mullion in tribute to the late Geoffrey Wellow, former WW2 spitfire pilot. Here are some of the images of the aircraft at RNAS Culdrose

Tuesday, 28 August 2018

Mach Loop July 2018 visits

Two visits in July prior and post a few days at the Royal International Air Tattoo 2018. Idid pick my dates across July 4th, mistake as this was the USAF holiday for Independence day!!! So the week including the 4th 5th and 6th July were very quiet in fact almost dead. The following week a couple of days before going to RIAT we had a visit from Canadian F18 x2, Canadion Hercules and a Czech Air Force Gripen so that was an excellent bonus. The week after RIAT was again fairly quiet but as usual enjoyable with good company on the hills and in the Red Lion.

F-15E Strike Eagle

RAF Hawk T2

F-15E Strike Eagle

Czech Air Force Saab JAS 39 Gripen

Canadian F-18

Canadian F-18 (Norad Livery)

Army Apache

RAF Tornado GR4

Canadian Hercules

RAF Atlas A400m

Mach Loop Visit in May 2018

This was one of those quieter visits where aircraft were pretty scare. Still managed to get some images but not as productive as hoped. So I will get straight onto the images.

RAF Tornado GR4

RAF T2 Hawk

Royal Navy Commando Merlin

USAF CV-22 Osprey

USAF MC-130J

RAF Atlas A400m

Watching and waiting

F-15C Eagle

Sunday, 26 August 2018

Minlynn Slate Mine, Dinas Mawddwy

Minlynn slate mine is situated above Dinas Mawddwy in Wales. The mine is a relic of our industrial passed and ceased production in 1925. There is plenty to see and explore, after about a 45 minute hike up the hill to the mine entrance. Wellies/Waders are needed to enter the mine but once inside conditions are fairly dry underfoot. Once inside there are 3 large mined caverns, some spoil piles, old machinery/boilers and a small pool which looks about 15/20 metres deep. So that is a brief description now onto the images from a superb day out exploring.

An old winch mechanism

Further exploration

One of the inner tunnels

Underground pool with equipment remains

Ancient boiler used for steam driven machinery

Pool/Tunnel and possible crane/winch remnants

Possibly another winch?

Friday, 3 August 2018

Royal International Air Tattoo 2018

My annual visit to the Air Tattoo this time was blessed with blue skies on some days which is a blessing for aviation photography due to the last couple of years being completely grey. As usual a good variety of aircraft and air forces from around the globe. Some of the highlights for me were the Canadian Norad F18 Hornet, Belgian Air Component F16 "Vador" (Dark Falcon) , French Rafales, A400m Selville, Finnish Army NH90, RAF and Italian Typhoon displays amongst others. An appearance by a UK based F35B was a first, but the show also witnessed the last appearance of the RAF Tornado GR4. This was also the centenary year of the RAF (RAF100) although it my view the efforts to celebrate this were somewhat under-whelming. (no special livery really apart from the RAF100 label and the last appearance of the RAF Tornado warranted a display in my view not just a flypast) Before everyone gets on my case, I am ex forces and understand some things are just not possible due to operational constraints, budgets etc. I tried to cover as much as possible of the flying displays but this year did not really get around the static display something I must address next year. I spent much of the show viewing from the FRIAT enclosure, with part of arrival on Thursday at the Park and View. A selection of images below I will upload more in due course on my aviation website, www.jetphotos.co.uk when time permits.