Last wednesday we had a visit from children and parents from Orphir pre school.  It was one of our busiest days in ages and the children were excitedly watching for the planes coming and going.

Luckily enough Colin, one of the Islander Captains had finished his morning rotations and kindly allowed the children to sit inside his plane.

The visit was finished off by the ever popular visit to the Airport Fire Section before returning to school.

Many thanks  to Jackie, Colin and Ryan from Loganair, Graeme King, Airport Fire Manager and Blue Watch who were hosts for the visits.

Here are the pics

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And my post would not be complete without airplane pictures so I have a couple of first time visitors to Kirkwall starting with G-VUEA, A Cessna Citation 550.

And the inside

And finally a french guest who arrived from Fife and headed shortly after for Oban.  This is a beautiful Microlight.

That’s it for now, thanks for reading

Neil

🙂

Hi

I am starting to get to grips with this software so I guess I will stay here, hope you have managed to find your way.  The next group of photos were taken at Leuchars last year.  The days started with torrential rain and then ended up reasonably warm so the light in the pictures change s dramatically.

If you don’t know what aircraft they are , drop me a line.

Since the demise of spottersblog.com I have hunted around and never quite found what I have been looking for until now! Please bear with me as I get to grips with this but wordpress is looking promising. I have already integrated my other blog dedicated to the Spitfire Event on June 2010 and some of my most recent ramblings.

Please update your browser if you follow the posts as it is likely my blogger sites will be scrapped shortly.

Thanks for bearing with me

Neil

🙂

>Had a visit from “The Pub Landlord” the other week.  What a nice person as he took the time to chat to anyone who wanted to meet him.  Here’s a pic of Al Murray for you.

>And now for a mystery photograph.  My mum and dad own a bit of land which had become a bit of an eyesore.  I think I mentioned before my house is on the site of a wartime ballon site/camp called Caldale and the bit of ground I have been tidying up is where the MT was where they serviced the engines for the ballons and the vehicles.

We moved here in 1970 and the ground was always covered in earth until a couple of weekends ago.  While I was tidying up I noticed what appeared to be lettering written in the concrete and once it had been swept there was no doubt.

Here is the photo, intriguing.  I would love to find out what is underneath but do not want to destroy it.

I love a good mystery

Here is a link to Caldale Air Station on the ARGOS website, and no not the chain store, the Aviation Research Group Orkney and Shetland.

http://www.crashsiteorkney.com/page13.htm

🙂

>I was looking through some of my photos last night and thought I would share a few of my favourite photos from RAF Leuchars which I make an annual pilgrimage to.  The first year I attended, I had a normal ticket but am fortunate that each year I have been successful in getting an enthusiasts pass.

It is 6 x the cost but worth every penny as you get hosted by the RAF for the 2 days, the pre-show day where you see the arrivals and the rehearsals and the show day where you get the advantage of not having to fight with 50,000 others to get in a position to take photos.

I will not describe each photo but I am sure you will recognise each and every aircraft, hope you like them.

>As I said previously, years of my blog posts were wiped out when spottersblog disappeared and while I can never re-write my thoughts at the time, the photos survive.  I thought I would do some catch up and I will start with an event I was proud to be involved with last june.

It was the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain last june and with help from Derek Mowat, Anthony Hodgson and his Spitfire, Neil Geddes and his replica SE5A, Jim McTaggart and his Starduster and Dai Heather Hayes and his Pitts Special, a 2 day event was put on for the people of Orkney.

This event was particularly fitting as I work at what was once RAF Grimsetter but the main idea of the event was to honour the heroes who gave their lives and also those that survived.  To honour them it was arranged to do a low approach at RAF Skea Brae which finally closed in 1948.

I was put in touch with a retired pilot, Lt Cmdr John Moffat, who was the pilot respponsible for crippling the rudder of the Bismarck, allowing her to be sunk shortly after.  I had the privilege of spending a lot of time with him and he remains a friend to this day.

Anyway here are some of my favourite photoss of the event;

“The Battle of France is over, I expect the Battle of Britain is about to begin”

At the end of the battle he said:

“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

He was right on both counts, I hope between us that we have done something to honour their memory.

Thanks for visiting, hope you like the pictures

>No new photos this week but have added a couple of links to the site.  Sadly we have stood the Nimrod Heitage Group down to allow a local chap, Mark Mair to bring his ideas forward.  IThe Moravia Aviation experience is a bold concept and I wish him well and will give him all the support I can.

The RAF at Kinloss have a proud history and a long association with Orkney and it has been a privilege to work with serving and retired individuals over the last 10 months.

I spoke to Mark last monday and discovered he is the mainstay of the Search And Rescue Trust fund in Moray.  He has single handedly raised a lot of money and the trust itself is of particular interest to me as in my day job, I fully appreciate the important and dangerous role of SAR.  Ironically Mark also needed the support of the very people he raises funds for as he was badly injured at sea and required SAR to take him to hospital

Many Orcadians owe there lives to the brave deeds of the Coastguard and the RAF SAR helicopters, not forgetting the top level cover provided by the crews of the Nimrod MR2, so the link is on the right hand side of this page.  Please visit the site if you have a moment.

Finally, a big thank you to a dear friend of mine who has recently come into my life.  David Morgan, a journalist and aviation expert has worked alongside me every step of the way.  I also wish to give thanks to his wife Rhona, who kindly gave up her husband to the cause for the last 10 months.

Sincere thanks to the both of you and I hope you get the boat launched in Oban tomorrow.

Till next time

Neil
🙂

>Hello and thanks for dropping by if you are reading this.  Since my last post we have had a few new aircraft in, I have bought myself a new Leica bridge camera and my all singing all dancing DSLR has been disposed of via ebay.

Still getting used to it but at least nearly all photographs are truning out first time, so no complaints.

We had our first Twinstar in a while drop past to drop some pax off for a long weekend in Orkney.  I still can’t get used to how quiet they are.  Anhyway here is G-DJET

At around the same time we had a Cessna T303, G-DOLY,  in for a visit.  I never managed to get close so her is a long distance shot on take off.

The first two pictures were taken by my trusty Fuji whih has been with me for a couple of years.  The Leica is about twice the size and just about every control is manual but the proof of the pudding will be when I go to Leuchars in September http://www.airshow.co.uk/

G-CHCX, Super Puma dropped in for a refuel so it was my first opportunity to try the zoom.  Here is the before;

And the after