Delusions from on high

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When it was suggested that Tony Blair should have a prime ministerial jet for international travel - popularly dubbed at the time "Blairforce One" - his chancellor, Gordon Brown, wisely scotched the idea. He judged, quite correctly, that it wouldn't play well with the British people. George Osborne, quite typically, doesn't appear to be showing the same good judgement, and I read that an RAF Airbus is to be converted for travel by senior ministers. The justification for the expenditure is that it will cost less than chartering aircraft or using scheduled flights, which is, again, quite typical of a government that knows the price of everything but the value of nothing.

It seems to me that it is salutary for a government composed largely of millionaires from wealthy families, who are privately educated and do not have to use many of the public services that those they govern must use, to use a more humble form of air travel, to know something of what the electorate experiences. However, I've come to expect double standards from people who can agree to their their own public sector salaries increasing by 10% while holding down those of lesser mortals in the the public sector to 1%. I'm sure that as they jet off on important business, by-passing the herds of plebeians shuffling through security checks and squeezing into their economy class seats, ministers will delude themselves that their luxury in saving the country money is the only motivation for their cossetted travel. And I'm sure we'll all agree that it is. Not.

Today's photograph shows a view of the Bay of Biscay from 37,000 feet. It includes four ships, the largest of which, a container vessel, is near the bottom right of the frame.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 12.2mm (33mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f3.5
Shutter Speed: 1/1000
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Beautiful and odd aircraft and Buccaneers

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On a recent visit to the Imperial War Museum (IWM) site at Duxford, a location that specialises in military and civil aircraft (though there is a tank museum too), I began reflecting on British aircraft design. Looking at the exhibits on display it occurred to me that a number of British  designs count among the most beautiful aircraft to fly.

In this group is, obviously, the Supermarine Spitfire, but also the Hawker Hunter, the Avro Vulcan, Concorde (honours shared with France), the Vickers VC10, the BAe Hawk and quite a few others, including, I think, the subject of yesterday's post, the De Havilland Dragon Rapide. But our country's designers were equally capable of producing inelegant designs, aircraft that look like they are made for an environment other than the sky. I'd put the Handley Page Heyford, the Fairey Gannet, the Blackburn Beverley and the Britten-Norman Trislander in that group. Then there are what I call the interesting oddities - aircraft that are not out and out beautiful but equally, are not without a certain charm. The English Electric Lightning and the Blackburn Buccaneer (above) definitely fall into that category for me.

I came upon this Buccaneer, an example of the aircraft that has been dubbed "Britain's last bomber" (purpose-built bomber that is) in a hangar at Duxford. Its wings were folded, showing its origins as a carrier aircraft with the Royal Navy. However, all the Buccaneers were eventually transferred to the RAF and this example is in the colours of 208 Squadron. The Buccaneer's oddness is seen in the air-brake that protrudes at the back of the body, the "hump" below where the fin starts, and the nose which is hinged to make the body shorter to fit on an aircraft carrier elevator. The saving grace - the beautiful bit if you will - is the elegant curve of the fin with its "T" tailplane. The arrangement of the aircraft and adjacent exhibits stopped me getting a good photograph of this feature but I liked the head-on view and so took that one instead.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 52mm (78mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/80 sec
ISO:900
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Dragon Rapides and selfies

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A visit to the Imperial War Museum site at Duxford, Cambridgeshire, gave me the opportunity to photograph, once again, the De Havilland Dragon Rapide. The aircraft shown is one of two that gives pleasure flights from the airfield. I've always had a soft spot for the design of this aircraft. It manages to combine elegance with seeming fragility, yet still remains airworthy more than seventy years after its manufacture. In fact, this particular aircraft was built as a trainer for the RAF in whose service it was designated the DH89A Dominie. The military markings allude to its origins.

I took the photograph with a lens with a maximum zoom of 210mm (35mm equivalent) - too short for this kind of shot. However, the camera's 24 megapixel sensor can be cropped and still produce a very detailed image, hence the shot above. When I zoomed in on the computer I noticed that one of the passengers appeared to be taking a "selfie", with hand outstretched and cameraphone pointing at the owner. I've taken a few selfies in my time. However, they have been with dedicated cameras not phones and employed a tripod, self-timer or my portrait in a reflective surface. I have yet to photograph myself with outstretched arm clutching a phone because the resultant image is usually poor. Moreover, I have no sympathy with the motivation for such shots which appears to be egocentricity - "look where I was/what I was doing/who I was with". Almost all my photography involves looking away from myself saying "look at this".

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 140mm (210mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/800 sec
ISO:100
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Avro Vulcan over our garden

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It's not unusual to have military aircraft flying over our garden. After all, we live in Lincolnshire, the home of a number of RAF bases including some of the larger ones. Not too far away is Coningsby, a Typhoon base, so these fast jets are very familiar in the sky above us. Sometimes they are passing quickly over on their way to one of the firing ranges in The Wash. At other times they are simulating dog-fighting above us, one Typhoon following another, each seemingly trying to lock weapons on the other. Coningsby is also the home of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight so we frequently see their Spitfires and Hurricanes, the Lancaster and the Dakota, as they make their way to air displays or commemorative events. The training aircraft of Cranwell (the RAF's College) and Barkston Heath are regularly criss-crossing the sky above us. Less frequent, but reasonably regular are the AWACS and Sentinels of RAF Waddington and the Red Arrows' Hawk aircraft from RAF Scampton. Assorted helicopters - Merlins, Lynx, Apaches and Chinooks sometimes rattle over too on missions to who knows where.

If all this makes it sound like there is a continuous cacophony of aircraft noise over chez Boughen let me assure you that's not the case: there is plenty of quiet when all that can be heard is the wind in the trees and bird song. A couple of days ago, however, everything was drowned out by the load roar of jet engines low over the roof tops. I shot out of the back door in time to see an Avro Vulcan - clearly the only flying example, number XH558 - at very low altitude, perhaps less than a thousand feet, disappearing behind the tree tops then banking steeply to the left. Was it turning on to a south easterly route or coming round again? In the hope it was the latter I dashed in, grabbed my compact camera and returned outside in time to fire off a few hasty shots as it made its second pass over the garden. The main photograph was the second shot I took as it passed in front of a watery sun that was shining through a veil of cloud. The smaller image was taken as it was heading towards the sun. Both photographs are cropped. Looking at the Vulcan's website I learned that it was probably heading for Hastings on the south coast for an air display. What I can't understand is why it flew over my garden not once, but twice. Had the pilot heard that I'm an occasional photographer of aircraft? I doubt it!

The flying hours of the engines of the Vulcan have almost expired and some airframe work is required. As things stand the plane is unlikely to fly after this year. I count myself fortunate to have seen it airborne in its last year and to have photographed it.

photographs and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 37.1mm (100mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/2000
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Boeing B17 Flying Fortress

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The only airworthy Boeing B17 Flying Fortress to be found in the United Kingdom is based at the Imperial War Museum (IWM) Duxford, Cambridgeshire. It isn't part of the museum collection but is owned by a charitable trust. Like quite a few aircraft of the second world war that are still flying it was constructed at the end of the conflict and didn't see active service. Until 1954 it was used for training and as a research aircraft at Wright Field and Hill AFB, then it was sold to France where it undertook civil work for the government, flying from Creil. In 1975 it was bought by a British businessman and brought to Duxford.

The aircraft was maintained and operated by enthusiasts and painted in the colours of the 457th Bomb Group, USAAF 8th Air Force that was based at RAF Glatton, Huntingdonshire (now Cambridgeshire). Since that time, despite funding crises, technical problems and the death of the guiding force behind the project, it has undertaken a regular programme of flying at air displays and commemorative events in the UK and across Europe. In 1989 the aircraft was one of five airworthy Flying Fortresses used in the film, "Memphis Belle", a William Wyler story about the first B17 to complete twenty five combat missions over enemy territory. The aircraft still carries on one side of its nose a painting of a woman and the words, "Memphis Belle". This a more modest illustration than the painting on the other side of the nose - "Sally B" - shown above.

We saw the aircraft being prepared for flight on the morning of our visit to Duxford and were fortunate to see it depart to perform at a display at Cosford later in the day. My photograph shows the aircraft taxiing on tarmac before it went on to the grass to take off.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 270mm
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/200 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Airfix and the Dragon Rapide

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Like many men who were little boys in the 1950s and 1960s I made my share of Airfix models, the plastic kits of aircraft, cars, ships and much else, that are assembled with polystyrene cement and then painted, usually with Humbrol enamel paint. The Supermarine Spitfire, Avro Lancaster, Hunting Jet Provost, Hawker Sea Hawk, Blackburn Buccaneer and many other Royal Air Force and Royal Navy aircraft were put together by my not-so-nimble fingers. I favoured the classic WW2 planes and the newer jet-age models but I also attempted a couple of pre-war aircraft and biplanes. I recall making the Tiger Moth (see yesterday's post) and the Fairey Swordfish, a torpedo carrying biplane that served with some distinction during the second world war. My model-making years were few, you soon grow out of these things as well as seeing the limits of the exercise, but I enjoyed it and learnt quite a bit.

One biplane that became available in Airfix that I quite liked was the De Havilland Dragon Rapide. I'd seen these aircraft flying about, and though they were old looking and old in years, first flying in 1934, I admired their elegant lines and curves. However, I never bought the kit. In later years I had a flight in one and I recall the steep slope of the cabin floor when the plane was at rest. The other day, at the Imperial War Museum airfield at Duxford we saw two giving pleasure flights and watched a third, pristine example of this aircraft, being towed out of a hangar and onto the runway. We all commented on the high quality of the paint job and speculated that it had just been finished - there was no insect spatter and no exhaust stains. Later we saw it take to the air and I got a couple of photographs.

Interestingly, when I came to look up some information about the Dragon Rapide I discovered that the Airfix model of this plane was based on the freshly painted one we'd seen. Perhaps that, alongside the perfect paintwork, accounts for the fact that in my main photograph the aeroplane looks like a model!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 70mm
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Tiger Moths, preservation and technology

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I get pleasure and interest from seeing old forms of transport still being used for their original purpose. There's a certain satisfaction that comes from knowing that something constructed decades ago still works. Perhaps that feeling comes partly from the fact that many of the vehicles that we buy, use and discard today are so obviously manufactured for a limited life and in a way that precludes them working fifty or more years down the line. Modern computerised engine management systems, LCD displays etc with their purpose-made chips linked to software that will soon be obsolete mean that today's cars will be difficult for enthusiasts to run in the future. The sophisticated metals that aircraft manufacturers began using in the 1950s and 1960s are limiting the flying time of preserved aircraft such as the Avro Vulcan; the sole airworthy example's engines' flying hours have almost expired. Heaven knows how the aviation preservation enthusiasts of the year 2100 will keep today's aircraft with their head-up displays, circuit boards and the rest of their technological gizmos in the air.

The problems that face someone today who aims to keep an aircraft from the 1930s flying are of a lesser order. The technology involved in most aircraft of this era is much more basic, and components can be relatively easily manufactured if they can't be sourced from elsewhere. I was discussing this with one of my sons the other day as we watched  an assortment of old aircraft - Tiger Moths, Dragon Rapides, a Harvard, a Chipmunk, a Boeing B17 bomber and others - taking off and landing at the Imperial War Museum site at Duxford, Cambridgeshire. Today's photograph shows one of the Tiger Moths, an aircraft first manufactured in 1932. This example was built during WW2 as a training aircraft and after a long career in aerobatics, private ownership and storage is now used for pleasure flying.

I'm no specialist aircraft photographer: I have neither the lenses nor the inclination to pursue planes to the exclusion of much else. However, I'm not averse to pointing my camera at them when they come my way. I took a few shots of this particular Tiger Moth on the ground and several more when it was aloft. The main photograph is the one I liked best of the latter group. The aircraft's smallness against the dark, heavy cloud cover appealed to me more than shots where it better filled the frame.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 300mm
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/1000 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Avro Vulcan

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It shouldn't seem odd to me that some military aircraft achieve the affection of the public, and yet it does. After all, other manufactured objects, from cars and calculators to chairs and chessmen, win particular admiration. Moreover, military aircraft are an outstandingly good example of form resulting from function, and many objects that receive the public's acclamation display this very feature. But, what is inescapable about all of the beautiful design, engineering and construction necessary to make a military aircraft is that it serves to enable the efficient delivery of death and destruction.

In the UK the Supermarine Spitfire is undoubtedly the most admired military aircraft. Even if its important role in the Battle of Britain and WW2 generally were not so widely known and so frequently eulogised, it would still be esteemed for the elegant curves and lines of its shape. Examples of other British military aircraft that provoke a high level of affection in these islands are the Avro Lancaster bomber, the de Havilland Mosquito and the BAe Harrier. Why these three? The Lancaster was Britain's main heavy bomber of the second world war, an unusual design for the time, and an important contributor to victory. The  Mosquito has something of the grace of the Spitfire in a twin-engined design, and the Harrier was the first, successful V/STOL aircraft and consequently unique. And then there's the Avro Vulcan.

The brief for the Vulcan's designers was an aircraft to to drop bombs on Britain's enemies. More specifically, a heavy load of conventional, free-fall, high explosive bombs, free-fall nuclear bombs, or later, the "Blue Steel", multi-megaton, stand-off nuclear missile. In pursuit of that end they came up with a large, delta winged bomber with four powerful jet engines, a simple and elegant design that has had lasting aesthetic appeal for many. The aircraft was in RAF service from 1956 to 1984. It was flown as a high level strategic bomber initially, later had a low level role and in its final years some were converted for maritime reconnaissance, and others as in-flight refuelling tankers. Its swan-song came in 1982 when it was the offensive spear-head of Operation Black Buck, the extreme range missions to attack the occupying forces on the Falkland Islands during the conflict between the UK and Argentina, an undertaking that only served to increase the fascination with the aircraft.

In some respects the Avro Vulcan is like a penguin or a vulture: on the ground it doesn't show itself off to best advantage, but in its element it looks entirely different. I remember seeing Vulcans high overhead as a child, vapour trails streaming out behind a small white triangle as they patrolled the skies. When it came to photographing this example - No. XM594 at Newark Air Museum - it proved quite tricky since none of the qualities for which it is highly regarded can be seen. A video, such as this one of the last flying example, shows it to much better effect.

photographs and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 24mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Form, function and the SR-71

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"Modern machines are built on purely functional lines, with the purpose of achieving a given performance with the most economical - which means the most perfect - means. The more consciously and methodically this aim is pursued, the more practically and functionally the construction of the machine will be conceived and the more satisfying will be its aesthetic effect - and no wonder, for the more clearly will the beholder appreciate the intentions of those who conceived and created the machine."
from Kurt Ewald, "The Beauty of Machines" (1925-6) translated and quoted in "Form and Function: A Source Book for the History of Architecture and Design 1890-1939"

Walking round the American Air Museum at the Imperial War Museum, Duxford, I started to photograph the stiletto form of the Lockheed SR-71 "Blackbird". This strategic reconnaissance aircraft was designed in the early 1960s and saw service from 1966 until 1998. Its purpose was to fly very high and very fast to secure photographs and other data about actual and potential enemies. The SR-71 still holds a number of speed records including the "recognised course record", New York to London time of 1 hour 54 minutes and 56.4 seconds. The average speed here (including slowing for re-fuelling) was Mach 2.68 (2,040 mph) and the maximum speed is likely to have been in the region of Mach 3.2 (2,435mph). Speed by itself is not enough for a strategic reconnaissance aircraft; stealth is also a required attribute, so the design of the SR-71 features early ventures into that area of aircraft design and construction, the need to avoid being recognised by radar partly contributing to its unusual curved shape and, particularly, the "chines" that give it the flattened elliptical appearance from the front.

During my photography, and in discussion with my companions, I reflected on how the shape of the aircraft looks like a logical consequence of the design brief and the technology available to the engineers of the time: an example of, to use the short-hand phrase, "form following function". And that mis-quotation of the architect, Louis Sullivan, triggered a memory of a similar observation that I read many years ago from the 1920s, a period when architects and designers, especially those associated with the Bauhaus in Germany, were much absorbed with the link between the form of objects and their function. With a bit of digging in my library I found it (quoted above).

The interesting and strong silhouette of the aircraft, something that I wanted to stress in my photograph, wasn't shown to its best in the colour version of this shot. The floor, airfield grass and sky detracted from these qualities. Consequently I converted it to a black and white image which I think works better.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length:36mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/10
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Secrets, lies and Lancasters

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Scanning the very truncated TV listing for today in my newspaper, more in hope than expectation I have to say, I was struck by the titles of three documentary programmes. The first was called "The Secret History Of Our Streets" (about things on, above and below streets), the second, "The Secret Life Of Ice" (about glaciation), and the third, "The Secrets of Scott's Hut" (about the explorer's wooden hut in Antarctica). All of them purport to be "revealing" secrets to the viewer. Except of course they're not, and they know it. The word "secret" in the context of TV and book titles has been flogged to death in recent years. It is used as bait to subliminally suggest that the offering is in some way divulging that which has been hidden, or is new, or to imply that this is not yet another re-hash of a familiar subject. Except of course it invariably is. I think I'll be reading my book again tonight.

A UK TV channel called Yesterday is the biggest culprit as far as overworking the tired concept of TV programmes that reveal secrets. It manages to broadcast multiple series about the Second World War that show the same film footage, the same narratives, the same topics, all re-worked from an angle, the most common of which is the revelation of that which has hitherto been "secret". What it hasn't yet come up with, as far as I know, is "The Secret of the Avro Lancaster" or The Secret of the Supermarine Spitfire". It can only be a matter of time.

I recently visited the aircraft collection of the Imperial War Museum at Duxford, Cambridgeshire. I've photographed there before and never found it especially easy to come away with a shot that I liked. This time, however, despite the fact that I was with several members of my family, I got a few. Today's shows Britain's main heavy bomber of the Second World War, the Avro Lancaster, revealed for all to see - no secrets whatsoever. It took quite a bit of post processing to tease this shot out of a fairly contrasty original, and it's probably technically my best effort at this venue. Incidentally, as a contrast with my complaint above, I quite like the way that this museum has retained the original name of the founding Imperial War Museum in London. When it was founded there was no disingenuous attempt to call it an Air Museum, a Defence Museum, or to toy with any other verbal equivocation. It contains mainly military aircraft and their weapons and the name recognises these have been and are weapons of war.

photograph and text © T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length:17mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/15
ISO: 1000
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Living with vapour trails

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One recent cold and frosty morning, as I went out into the garden to feed the birds, I chanced to look up and saw a curving vapour trail that was being made by an aircraft heading away from me. It was an odd route for a four-engined jet to be on, and as I studied the sky I noticed the remnants of a couple more such trails slowly de-materialising. Looking closer to the horizon I could see more curved trails whose positions suggested they were part of the same trails nearer to me: clearly one or more aircraft was flying in large circles over Lincolnshire and the nearby sea.

Some of the bigger RAF bases are in the county so unusual vapour trails are a common sight. However, it was immediately clear to me that there was only one four-engined military aircraft that would deliberately fly in circles, at great height. I took a pair of binoculars outside to get a better look and my suspicion was confirmed: a Boeing Sentry AEW1 (AWACS) with its large radome slowly revolving above it was flying in a circle that must have been twenty, thirty or perhaps more miles in diameter. It was clearly participating in some kind of exercise, monitoring and controlling other aircraft and perhaps shipping or land forces below. Either that or we were being invaded!

In one of my first blog posts (actually the eighth, in December 2005) I sounded off about vapour trails, calling them, as far as a photographer is concerned, aerial graffiti, and suggesting that "only rarely do they add something to the image." My view of them hasn't changed since then. I find them an unwanted intrusion much more often than they are an element that I want to include in a composition. But, I have made a few images where vapour trails are, I think, key to their success. This landscape and this semi-abstract of a fairground ride are a couple that come to mind.

However, vapour trails, I discovered recently, aren't always so obviously intrusive. In saying that I'm not referring to those that are so dishevelled that they look like clouds. A few days ago, after I'd taken a speculative shot of the moon through some nearby ash trees and a veil of thin cloud, I noticed near the bottom of the brighter part of the photograph, a wavy vapour trail. As I studied it I reflected that you aren't even free of the wretched things when you're photographing at night!

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 300mm
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/10 sec
ISO: 3200
Exposure Compensation:  -1.00 EV
Image Stabilisation: On