Random aviation photos

Pointed the camera straight up today while killing an hour, and among the shots i got were these,

nice spiral contrails from a Flybe Dash 8



A Jet Airways 777-300 headed for the USA



and this Air France A380 en route to Washington above the contrail layer today at 36,000ft



Some of todays shots may reappear on the chemtrail forum if someone is daft enough to make silly claims, lol

When I'm on an airport trip, I'm more inclined to go for shots like this Etihad 777-300 landing at Manchester

China with a new bomber maybe?

a reply to: spy66

www.atimes.com...

Looks like a busy day at Palmdale...!!

a reply to: Silentvulcan

Palmdale gets pretty busy some days. I've caught the Edwards KC-135, a C-17, C-130, F-35s,and a Janet there.

Ya reply to: Zaphod58

I think this was not all the same day as was taken from a variety of map providers...I assume this is the phantom works pan or is it the plant 42 site...?!?

a reply to: Silentvulcan

Phantom Works is in St Louis. This is Skunk Works and Northrop Grumman at Plant 42.

All the ones that I caught, except the -35s and Janet were on different days, but it's a pretty popular touch and go area for Edwards since it's right next door.

Oops...got my plants mixed up...I never knew they where so close together until I looked them up on google earth.a reply to: Zaphod58

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: Silentvulcan

Phantom Works is in St Louis. This is Skunk Works and Northrop Grumman at Plant 42.

All the ones that I caught, except the -35s and Janet were on different days, but it's a pretty popular touch and go area for Edwards since it's right next door.

Unless they pulled out of Palmdale, there is a Phantom works building in the same general area of Plant 42. I'm not sure you could do this today, but I drove the dirt road near the fuel tanks and got a photo of the Phantom Works building. I don't have it linked, so I need to see if the photo is still on my website.

earth.app.goo.gl...

My recollection is this was the Phantom Works building.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Nice shots. Loving the white cobra.

New Cobra version?
Whats the Diamond platform next to the X47b?

That’s the X47A...a reply to: Blackfinger

Are the MV-22 routinely escorted by gulls? Does it fire a chip cannon (ie. fries) at the enemy which sends the escort gulls swarming into the engines of a would be aggressor?

a reply to: waynos

Thanks. He was flying the pattern at the Bell plant in Amarillo. There's a truck stop that sits less than half a mile from the plant that they go right over.

originally posted by: Blackfinger
New Cobra version?

Marine AH-1Z Viper.

a reply to: Forensick

They were ravens, so they might have been an escort.

a reply to: gariac

Phantom Works building at Plant 24:
Phantom Works

I had cropped this:
panel over vent

Knowing a person that does RF emission testing, I asked if that was a shield of shorts. The answer is no. They use a standard filter design that allows air flow but doesn't leak RF. He thought that might be to prevent sound leakage, but that isn't his department.

Control tower in the photo coordinates 34.636125 -118.099130

Over by Vandenberg yesterday, not too far from the big fire in Ventura. Caught these two guys taking off on runs.