Kestrel's Spotting Thread

[Kestrel]

Hello everyone its been a while!


I haven't been spotting for a few years now due to lack of time caused by work but as we all know due to Covid-19 the aviation industry is in tatters and this caused me to be on furlough since March and in signifigant risk of losing my job in the coming weeks. The silver lining to all this though is that I have had shed loads of free time which I've began utilising to explore my previous hobby of planespotting again.



My first trip was to EGCC a few weeks back but I forgot to charge my camera so got 0 pics


My second trip was yesterday evening. Royal Flight's 777-300ER VP-BGK was operating ZSOF-UUEE-EGCN rammed full of PPE. Thanks to a kind tip off from ThomsonAirways737 I decided to head down. Unfortunately the sunset and perfect lighting I had envisioned didnt come to be and it ended up being a thunderstorm.


Heres my offical Flickr for spotting https://www.flickr.com/photos/189540...posted-public/ (the one photos are linked too is just for dumping pics)

6N9A7570 by Reece Bold, on Flickr


6N9A7599 by Reece Bold, on Flickr


6N9A7603 by Reece Bold, on Flickr


6N9A7623 by Reece Bold, on Flickr


6N9A7624 by Reece Bold, on Flickr


6N9A7637 by Reece Bold, on Flickr


6N9A7646 by Reece Bold, on Flickr

[ThomsonAirways737]

Photo's look incredible on here. Thanks for the mention, no problem at all.

[Charter]

What a beauty this B777! Thanks for sharing.

[DutchCollector]

Great catch in this Royal Flight 777! I've seen it dash around Europe for the past few months. We've only been getting the Nordwind 777s at AMS

[Kestrel]

Originally Posted by ThomsonAirways737

Photo's look incredible on here. Thanks for the mention, no problem at all.

Originally Posted by Charter

What a beauty this B777! Thanks for sharing.

Originally Posted by DutchCollector

Great catch in this Royal Flight 777! I've seen it dash around Europe for the past few months. We've only been getting the Nordwind 777s at AMS

Thanks guys, I believe a Nordwind 77W visited DSA a couple of months back too.

[Kestrel]

Another one from yesterdays trip down to Doncaster. The rest of my shots weren't up to scratch so wont be shared, so this will be my last post for a few weeks untill I head down to EGNX.


Wizz Air A320 HA-LYS operating EGCN-LRCL departing 44 minutes late, I assume due to weather.



6N9A7687 by Reece Bold, on Flickr


6N9A7700 by Reece Bold, on Flickr

[DutchCollector]

Weather seems to have reverted back to typical British everytime you head to the airpot. I was watching the British GP which seemed to have unusually good weather

[Kestrel]

Originally Posted by DutchCollector

Weather seems to have reverted back to typical British everytime you head to the airpot. I was watching the British GP which seemed to have unusually good weather

Indeed it does, the storm wasnt even forcast untill halfway to the airport


I was watching the GP too, must admit the weather at Silverstone was an anomaly and will likely be a storm next week


Good race though, not a Hamilton fan personally but fair play to him for the last lap!

[DutchCollector]

Originally Posted by Kestrel

Indeed it does, the storm wasnt even forcast untill halfway to the airport


I was watching the GP too, must admit the weather at Silverstone was an anomaly and will likely be a storm next week


Good race though, not a Hamilton fan personally but fair play to him for the last lap!

Well wet weather races always spice things up. I was sh*tting myself the last lap, what a lap that was. Not necessarily a Hamilton fan (I'm Dutch, duh), just a fan of good racing.

[Kestrel]

Hello again,



I headed down to East Midlands yeterday evening to get my cargo fix, once again thanks to a kind tip off from ThomsonAirways737 I stopped at Doncaster on the way down to catch this Astral 747


Unfortuantely it was very hot yesterday, around 35 degrees (celsius) and heat haze was a signifigant issue. My camera deciding to seemingly be incapable of taking a fully sharp shot didnt help matters.



Astral Aviation 747-4H6(BDSF) TF-AMM operating Doncaster to Nairobi via Liege.


6N9A7891 by Reece Bold, on Flickr


6N9A7893 by Reece Bold, on Flickr


6N9A7897 by Reece Bold, on Flickr


6N9A7904 by Reece Bold, on Flickr


6N9A7910 by Reece Bold, on Flickr


6N9A7922 by Reece Bold, on Flickr

[DutchCollector]

I've seen far worse on the heathaze, believe me! Looks great! If you really wanna avoid the heathaze, skyshots are the way to go.

[Kestrel]

Originally Posted by DutchCollector

I've seen far worse on the heathaze, believe me! Looks great! If you really wanna avoid the heathaze, skyshots are the way to go.

Thank you, some shots were a lot worse so I completely discarded them, thankfully heathaze wasnt too much of an issue at East Midlands.

[Kestrel]

Onwards to the EGNX shots now, I will try to keep them in chronological order and apologise in advance for my astonishingly bad night shots. I got moved on by police from my prime spot for some night pans so had to make do with panning through a fence which wasnt exactly my forte

I'll start with the Kalitta Air 747, a few weeks back this became a regular service becoming the 2nd scheduled 747 route to EMA (the other being the Airbridge 747-8 SVO-EMA-SVO). While planning my trip I decided on seeing the Kalitta on the tuesday since there was a significant amount of other regular movements too. The spotters on this day were treated to a flyby and go around by this aircraft as it was having landing gear indication issues and needed the tower to manually verify that the gear was down.

Kalitta Air 747-446(BCF) operating EBBR-EGNX-KCVG

The inital go around, shame the fence wasnt lower...


6N9A7981 by Reece Bold, on Flickr


6N9A8003 by Reece Bold, on Flickr


6N9A8034 by Reece Bold, on Flickr


6N9A8135 by Reece Bold, on Flickr


6N9A8148 by Reece Bold, on Flickr


6N9A8150 by Reece Bold, on Flickr


6N9A8160 by Reece Bold, on Flickr


6N9A8179 by Reece Bold, on Flickr


6N9A8206 by Reece Bold, on Flickr


6N9A8217 by Reece Bold, on Flickr


6N9A8223 by Reece Bold, on Flickr

[Charter]

Both Astral and Kalitta B747-400F's are wonderful and your pics are amazing.

[Kestrel]

Originally Posted by Charter

Both Astral and Kalitta B747-400F's are wonderful and your pics are amazing.

Thank you very much Charter!