Steve at Dubai
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One of the QintetiQ Mil-17s at Boscombe Down 19-Dec-08. It was out in the early morning sunshine outside the Rotary Wing test Squadron hangar with a Merlin, Apache and Sea King for a photo shoot with all the aircrew. No doubt the photo will appear in 'QintetiQ News' soon. The sun disappeared but as you can see from the grainy enlargement here, the c/n has disappeared from the tail boom and the UK serial appears to be in black on the boom. I couldn't read it though.
Chinook HC.3 ZH898 flew in formation with an ETPS Gazelle as Blackbox formation, then did several approaches of 23 and 05 at Boscombe Down callsign BDN35. The Gazelle changed to BDN34. Another Chinook HC.3 arrived as BDN64. The serial could not be read from my vantage point but it is believed that ZH902 is the only other flier and this has recently been at Westlands, Yeovil.
Thanks to my DA-42 expert we think that OE-FOG may be the previously sighted G-DOSC (albeit at the delivery centre in Austria). Like G-DOSA and G-DOSB it has 'de-blinged' prop spinners and a UHF antenna. Maybe the antenna isn't yet wired to anything as they seem to stubbornly use VHF when I've been listening.
Today at Boscombe Down, DA-42MPP OE-FOG departed at 0930 for a short hop to Old Sarum. It 'recovered' to Boscombe Down at 1200. As it was flown by a Brit and it 'reovered' this would suggest it's being evaluated here now that ZA179 and ZA180 (the erstwhile G-DOSA and G-DOSB) have migrated south. The greyed out flash on the fin looks like it's in exactly the same place as the UK Military flash on G-DOSA and G-DOSB aka ZA179 and ZA180. I've just looked up OE-FOG in my database and it says it's DA42 construction number M.001 owned by DO Systems (as the others were) and has G-DOSC reserved! Unfotunately the sun disappeared before I could get a reasonable shot of Chinook HC.3 ZH898 and its downwash managed to blow open a farm gate into the back of the car!
I can recommend Goa for an aviation break in the sun. The IndiGo departure gates are upstairs in the domestic terminal and afford an excellent view of the military action (assuming you're there before 1300ish on a weekday as the mil seem to mostly fly AM and domestic flights PM). These aren't great as I was bins-ing before snapping photos, but give an idea
So the story to date is that follwing a few weeks in the Aviation Maintenance hangar at Bournemouth where they were reasonably well guarded ('can I come in the hangar?' 'no') departed for Lyneham as Ascot 9901/2. Then G-DOSA and G-DOSB were reborn as ZA179 and ZA180, departed Lyneham on migration to warmer places and were last heard of in Aqaba, Jordan.
Beauty therapy in Winchester, Otterbourne, Chandlers Ford, Eastleigh area? The Garden Room is recommended for waxing, massage, manicure, pedicure, Hopi ear candling and OxyJet facials. http://www.gardenroomotterbourne.co.uk Beauty salon close to Winchester, Eastleigh, Chanlers Ford, Southampton and Otterbourne.
G-DOSB was flying as Tiger 1 today to the West of Boscombe Down and recovered shortly before the airfield closed at 1730. the mode-S code shows OE-UDR with GDOSB in the callsign box of the SBS-1. meanwhile down at Bournemouth, OE-FAS with nose lump was operating missions today from the FR Aviation ramp. It's leaving tomorrow. I just missed a photo myself so here's a link to one of this a/c at Paris http://www.flugzeugbilder.de/show.php?id=641173
Today at Boscombe Down G-DOSA arrived from Old Sarum and then departed and hour or so later to the West on task, working Boscombe Radar 130.0 and up to FL100. The military serial isn't shown on the airframe but the blue/red fin flash gives the game away somewhat! Also present is the other British secret weapon, the Mi-17. Two are shown here in the distance. The nice Bulgarians painted them in the local raspberry ripple scheme before they were delivered here by C-17. One can only assume that the Brits have a fleet of these in dusty places in somewhat more appropriate colour scheme and that these two will be used to 'write the manual' (how to fly a Mi-17). No serial appears on these but the construction number is enormous on the tail boom. 103M02 and 103M02 aka ZB697 and ZB698.
Photos of the Janet 737s at Paine Field http://microvoltradio.com/janet.htm reminded me to track them by their Callsign as they use the ex-Air Force last 3 of the serial as their trip number when on positioning flights. The last 3 are clearly visible on the cockpit of the fleet. for completeness, the T-43A fleet 282 N5175U ex 72-0282 283 (72-0283) stored at Davis Monthan 284 N5294E ex 72-0284 285 N5176Y ex 72-0285 286 N5177C ex 72-0286 287 N5294M ex 72-0287 288 72-0288 'RA' still active and puts in airshow appearances regularly 289 doesn't exist, the CT-43A that crashed nr Dubrovnik was 73-1147 from memory 290 N4529W B737 not sure why they chose '290' I wonder if the ex-Janet 737s N4508W, N4510W and N4515W had fleet numbers assigned. I guess a closer inspection of old photos will show this.