The April 22nd Forum get together  ( A right Royal Affair  )

                                                                                                                  Click the pictures for the larger image

  This get together of fellow enthusiasts was originally conceived in December 2006, it was then advertised via the forum attatched to the lowfly.net website in January. Originally planned for the Smaithwaite banks location on Thirlmere, it was a team building exercise in helping one of our forum members who is wheel chair bound. Those of you who have ventured up to this location will be thinking, how can you get a guy and his gear up an hillside for taking pictures of lowflying aircraft. With the help of the local forestry workers, it was all arranged to drive him up to the location and back down of course after we had our fill of aircraft.

  For those who have had a glance at the pictures on this page will have noticed that they look like they were taken at the M6 pass, if you thought that, you would be quite correct.  

   So at 7 am on the 22nd of April 19 members of the forum descended on the Little Chef at Penrith, shortly after the big fry up we left in convoy to the M6 pass at Tebay. We split into 2 groups in order to get different angles of any aircraft we might get coming through our part of Cumbria. Fortunately there was a notam of a glider site near Keswick, which is the main artery in the Lake district, so this may feed our valley. With the weather man predicting good visabiliity and sunshine we prepred for a day with some good aircraft movements (we hope).

                     

    At around 0850 our secret weapon was deployed at RAF Church Fenton, we shall call it G ( Graham Farish who has a vast array of communication equipment at his disposal) . So at 0910 G sent word that Typhoon 09 had dropped to low level near Linton on Ouse and at 0920 sure enough the Typhoon a twin seat aircraft from 29sqn appeared right in front of out of the sun and dropping into the pass over the fells, what a great start. He slipped past us and we turned our attention to the other group on the North Eastern corner of the pass, who were now scurrying into postions as he took them by surprise as well .

As the morning passed by we waited , we joked, we hoped, we prayed and then the G sent word 2 King Airs were on their way, then out of Garsdale an object flashed, then it was gone again. We then just managed to catch it again as it briefly skylined, he was heading straight down the valley towards our position in the entrance about 1.5 miles away. He proceeded to head down the valley until he got to within 600 yrds then banked hard left and he was gone.

   The G sent word we should climb higher, must mean the Americans are about, and sure thing they were was when we heard the Talon callsign on the scanner for ourselves. Up the hill we scrambled and after 30 minutes, we all slowly made our way back to base camp. I was told it was spotted over Kendal. So a long morning and one aircraft through the pass. 

  Then at 1315 we had the first of 2 hawk passes, the sun was working in our favour now, smiles all around. it was almost 1400 hrs and G passed on the info that Apollo 1 was low level and heading to us, he did actually say that on his system he had 2 aircraft but for some strange reason it was indicating only 1 aircraft on the radio. Then at 1413 ' inbound '  was the call and looking down the pass with the 400mm lens I noticed the Harrier, and it was being followed. The harrier a 41 sqn aircraft bank hard and flashed past, then we concentrated by its companion a 41 sqn gr4, he took a fantastic line and provided a nice plan view as he passed by. At the far end of the pass the other group got a nice topside of them both as they passed under them. We could not believe with the sunny conditions that the other group had not switched sides, as they were starting to look in to the sun at this point.       

 7 minutes later a Tucano was providing us with some good angles and 2 minutes later a 1V squadron Harrier came through. At 3 pm while some of the group were chatting away a 41 sqn Harrier shot around the corner of the mast without any warning, streaming vapour off the wings, fantastic pictures for those who were alert. 

3 more hawk passes finished off the afternoon, slowly we drifted off home although one person did stay on the hill until 6.30 and was lucky enough to capture 3 more Harriers and a Tornado. That would be the end of this trip except that it did have a twist.   You can read in a future report how we got the scoop on Prince William making a fast jet trip in the back of a RAF tornado.