RAF Lakenheath - 27th October 2008

Well I had intended to go out tomorrow and Wednesday, but having awoken this morning to a crystal clear sky and with MetGuess suggesting it would stay that way pretty much throughout, the boy and myself decided to venture to Lakenheath.

Knowing today was the start of their night-flying, I assumed the morning would be quiet - probably dead, in actual fact, and consequently we didn't get there till just after 11. Between the big roundabout at Mildenhall and LN itself we must've seen eight Eagles arrive into the circuit, with several doing additional overshoots...

There was more cloud than forecast and the four remaining morning recoveries flashed in and out of the sun.

Seven Cs launched around 1200 but by the time the first four recovered the sky had gone from being almost completely overcast, to being very broken with large areas of blue. Sods law dictated that the one cloud that could cause problems did, but for the rest of the afternoon the light was largely good.

The Es (and another couple of pairs of Cs) started to go again around 1400, and by 1500 there were more than 20 either airborne or sitting at Last Chance. It was all starting to look rather promising for some sunsets late on.

Then, with the sun straight down the runway, it all started to go a bit pear shaped! First an E shadowed his wingman in (no idea what the issue was, but the runway wasn't blocked) with a problem, prompting the three Cs that had just arrived in the circuit to divert to Mildenhall (I'm fairly certain at least two, if not more joined them), and then for no good reason at all, another pair landed at the 06 end! The opportunities were falling by the wayside at a rate of knots... The sun was still too high for those that were landing at the right end...

Nothing else moved for quite some time and it was beginning to look extremely bleak until a light appeared on the approach. It was a Pave Hawk.

As the last sliver of the sun was just about to drop behind the horizon a pair of Eagles were about to save the day.

With a few engine starts heard, we decided to head down the lane before we headed home, from where we caught a couple of recoveries.

By 1715 nothing had taxied and we called it a day.

It probably seems wrong to complain about a day that had provided (eventually) a few stunning sunset images, but at the same time it was a day that could've easily produced a whole lot more...