Salisbury Plain - 29th August 2007

With the summer holidays still rolling on, Sammy and myself headed down to Salisbury Plain for a two-day stint with my good friends Paul Dunn and joining us later on the first day, Paul Filmer - hot-footing it from Heathrow where he'd land around lunchtime.

The early part of the day was quiet down where we were, with just a handful of Squirrels working east of us. Then all of a sudden we became rather pleased! The Empire Test Pilots School Agusta A109 appeared from behind us and for a short-while worked directly in front of where we were. Some nice contrasty conditions too - dark clouds, but sun shining on the aircraft itself.

The next couple of Squirrels to visit were much more photographic, however, during their visit the ETPS 'raspberry ripple' Lynx was paying a visit to the eastern end. What we'd have given for them to swap! Little did we know what would happen the following day, however!!

Then, having seen several Apaches running up and down the valley behind us, one finally paid a visit. The backseater was working in darkened conditions.

Finally, the piece de resistance, appearing from the west, up the valley behind us was a Junglie - a Sea King HC4. I've never shot one of these things in light as good as this. Normally the colourscheme looks horrible, but this thing shone and glowed!! The crew flew several approaches directly over our heads, landing mere feet in front of us. A truly exhilirating experience!

Without doubt, this had to go down as our best day on "the Plain" so far.

Prints of most of the images contained on this page can be found at this Photobox Gallery