Bristol - Lulsgate Wed 21.3.07

Bristol - Lulsgate Wed 21.3.07

KLM Fokker 70 PH-KZP arrived as KLM 1055

Today was a very sunny day so I took an afternoon trip up to Lulsgate. This regional airport is high up on top of a hill. In recent years the volume of scheduled traffic has dramtically increased with low cost carriers such as Go ( since "gone !" ), Ryanair and Easyjet opening up many new scheduled routes. Bristol also has regular charter holiday flights from airlines including Thomson, Thomas Cook, First Choice and Excel plus seasonal Turkish, Spanish, Austrian and Bulgarian carriers.

Easyjet A319 G-EZIJ departed as Easy 425

Thomson 757 G-BYAT arrived as Thomson 662N

In addition Bristol has scheduled services including Continental ( 757 to New York ), British Airways Connect ( to cease operations late March 2007 ), Aer Arran, Aer Lingus, KLM, Air Southwest, SN Brussels, Eastern Airways, OLT, and Scilly Skybus,

Eastern Airways Jetstream J41 G-MAJN departed as Eastern 86J to Aberdeen

All the images below were taken from the south side of the runway, near the 09 ( Western ) end of the single runway. A short step ladder is need to get good runway views over the perimeter fence. There are parking spaces here and this area can get very busy with spectators at weekends - just ensure you keep your ladder off the fence itself and remember to take your litter home too please.

AirSouthwest Dash 8 G-WOWD departed as Swallow 485B to Newquay

A three hour stay saw 25 different airliners logged with half a dozen general aviation movements too. Easyjet dominate these days with 9 airbus A319s and 1 737 seen.

British Airways Connect EMB-145 G-EMBW will disappear from Lulsgate in April 2007 having been bought out by FlyBe recently

Yeovilton - Wed 14.3.07

Yeovilton is my local base - 22 miles from home. Usually plenty of activity although many of the based helicopters have been resident here for over 20 years so many of these airframes are very old friends indeed !

All the photos below were taken near Yeovilton viallge church which is approx midway along the runway on the south side.

Visitors - 6 RAF Tucano T1 trainers visited from their home base at Linton On Ouse in Yorkshire. All were in the black colour scheme with one example wearing squadron marks from 207 sqd.

Above - ZF137 Tucano T1 departs as c/s CORDITE wearing 207 sqd markings of 1FTS

Above - ZF491 Tucano T1 departs as c/s LOP 63 wearing generic 1FTS marks

Among the resident Lynx helicopters were active examples of both the HAS3 and the HMA8 - compare the major differences to the nose and extra lumps and bumps

Above - XZ732 Lynx HMA8DSP "673" of 702 sqd departs from RWY 22 heading South

Above - ZD264 Lynx HAS3GM "306" of 815 sqd departs as SKUA 27

Recent new residents at Yeovilton are 727 sqd with their fleet of Grob G115E Tutors - these were previously based down at Plymouth and transferred to Yeovilton in December 2006.

The Royal Navy website describes 727 sqds role as...

""727 Squadron's primary role is to grade young Naval and Royal Marine officers to assess their suitability for further training with the Fleet Air Arm. This takes place throughout the year and each student is with the Squadron for three weeks. During those weeks, he or she will fly twelve hours with an instructor before flying a Final Handling Test with the Commanding Officer""


Seen here today were G-BYVF, G-BYWM, G-BYXK and G-BYXS

727 sqd Grob Tutor G-BYVF at Yeovilton using c/s TAMAR 11 with Sea King "ZA" behind

727 sqd Grob Tutor G-BYXK at Yeovilton with just "X" on tail rather than "XK" used c/s TAMAR 15

The Royal Navy use a small number of Jetstream T3 aircraft as HMS Heron hacks based at Yeovilton.

Above - Jetstream T3 c/n 647 ZE438 "76" takes off as c/s NAVY 751

Yeovilton also plays host to a small detachment of Royal Navy FRADU Hawk up from their own home base at RNAS Culdrose. The only one seen today was XX160 devoid of any Royal Navy titles - it arrived and departed as BLUE 1.

Royal Navy Hawk XX160 was delivered to the RAF back in May 1982

For me this Hawk photo was my picture of the day - low and fast.