Hello and thanks for taking the time to pop past.  Have been on holiday since the last post but have finally set aside an hour to bring things up to date.

Just before heading off into the wilds of Portugal we had a couple of new visitors in for the Subsea Viking crew change.  First of all we had LN-TWL, King Air, from Norway

And D-CCIR, Dornier 328  from Germany.  To my knowledge, the first visit to Kirkwall by Cirrus Airlines.

We had a visiting Beechcraft Baron 58P D-ICVA also from Germany.  The first time I have heard of Navigation by Ipad as you will see in the cockpit photo.

And the inside

Notice anything unusual?  No dual controls but the control column is on a centre pivot and can be rotated upwards and to the right allowing you to fly the aircraft from the co-pilots seat!  Very noticeable in this pic obviously is the Ipad.  I would imaging I will get sued now by Apple for using their name without permission 🙂  Actually I much prefer Android to Apples IOS, but that is another story.

I had the good fortune to spend a couple of weeks in the mountains of Portugal in July.  My family and I stayed in a farmhouse in a little village called Outeiro de Gatos.  A wonderful little village with wonderful people.

The thing about this village is hardly anyone speaks english and we don’t speak portuguese but we managed  to communicate for the fortnight.  One thing couldn’t help but notice is how much we are ripped off by the taxation system in the UK.  Portugal may be struggling financially but even if they doubled the price of things it would not hurt their pockets.

On the final night we were in Gatos 3 course meal for 14 including wine and juice was just over £40.  Tea, coffee and beer was around 25p, bottled water was around 15p for 2 litres and cigarettes about £3 a packet of 20.  Anyway off the soapbox and back to planes.

On the way back from Portugal I took a couple of pictures just for something different

These type of planes passed every couple of minutes but sadly I did not have the time to take any more.  While on the bus at Frankfurt Airport in Germany I saw the Airbus A380 for the first time.

Incidentally, what a huge airport Frankfurt is and I never realised just how big an airline Lufthansa is.  Sadly their ground staff do not have the manners of their flying staff.  I found them rude and unhelpful, but that’s a whinge for another time.

Back to planes again, and a Boeing 777 airliner from All Nippon Airways

And back to Kirkwall where over the last couple of weeks we have been very busy due to inclement weather and a number of GA aircraft.

Starting with D-ISKY, a private charter from Germany with engineers from Blohm & Voss.  And a first for me, a BE65 aka a Beechcraft Queenair.  This particular aircraft has a bit of history.  It’s registration is N911SA which gives a clue.  It used to belong to the police in the USA.  It was built in 1960 for the military and instead of the usual V6 engines, it was fitted with more powerful V8’s.  Apparently this aircraft was frequented by JFK a number of times when in USA VIP military service.

And the inside

We also had our first visit by G-COBI, the Cobham Super King Air 350 calibrator aircraft.  A stunning bit of kit.

Yesterday brought the arrival of a couple of Tucano’s based at RAF Linton on Ouse but on detachment to RAF Leuchars.  At least they brought the sunshine with them.  Many thanks to Flt Lt’s Mark Hume and Steve Iwanek for the guided tour.

And the inside front and rear

At the same time we had a visit from M-FIVE, a stunning King Air 350 based in Southampton

And last one for this post, G-REDT, a Super Puma in for a refuel.

That’s it for just now and would you believe, just a couple of weeks until the Leuchars Airshow www.airshow.co.uk Shaping up to be a good one but as yet the flying programme is missing the good old F16 but there is time yet.  As always I will post my pictures here.

Thanks for taking the time to read this post

All the best

Neil 😉