Modern classics - Tommy at Yeovil

Photos of operational aircraft from bases, airports and "spotter" outings
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Tommy
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Modern classics - Tommy at Yeovil

Post by Tommy »

Hi everyone,

Instead of catching the Landor 747 leaving Cardiff as planned, so as not to waste the day of leave, I spent today (or yesterday now, I suppose) down at Yeovil again. Thought I might give that little Portuguese Lynx one last blast, seeing as I’ve been hunting it since lockdown ended (and slight before COVID, which seems a thousand years ago).

Historic Helicopters is training and building currency for future airshows, and getting some hours on their fleet and crews. To this end, I was delighted to hear their Junglie Sea King call up on the scanner. I had long thought that I would never see another U.K. Sea King in the air again after they were all retired, but it was fantastic to see and hear the old girl again:

1.
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2.
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3.

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4.

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There were a few of the usual suspects, ‘415 has shifted onto Sea Venom trials now. It took off with this one bolted onto the weapons wing, and came back from the Bristol Channel without it.

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6. And ‘513 biffed off to Boscombe for the day, with a full load of Martlets, and came back later.

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Buuuuut it was that sodding little buggering Portuguese Lynx I was after. On previous visits this year, it’s been out every single time and never flown, but today I *finally* bagged the bugger.

7.

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8.
It came back in some really golden golden hour light, the last couple of minutes of sunlight, where all the sky turned red-gold, weird colours:

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9. And just minutes later, the sun had set:

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10.

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And a bonus, the old ETPS Ripple Lynx has been preserved, but repainted - it now has colours mimicking G-LYNX at the Helicopter Museum in Weston.

11.

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So it was an interesting day today; I took more photos of Lynx and Sea Kings than I did Merlins and Wildcats, which is a bit odd for the Leonardo facility!

Thanks for looking, I hope they are of interest.

C&C very welcome, as always.

Thanks,

Tom 🙂

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Blackbird
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Re: Cutting edge classics - Tommy at Yeovil

Post by Blackbird »

Great set Tom. Glad you caught the Portuguese Lynx.
At the risk of stating the bleedin' obvious, the light makes such a difference to the way the colours look when you compare shot 8 with 9 and 10.

Andy

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Tommy
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Re: Cutting edge classics - Tommy at Yeovil

Post by Tommy »

Thanks, Andy.

Indeed - just minutes apart!

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Re: Cutting edge classics - Tommy at Yeovil

Post by Seamus »

Wasn't at all happy seeing the live pics of these coming through from the other Tom...!

Bitterness aside, great stuff mate, still need the Portuguese, but I'd take that beautiful Junglie over everything 😍
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Re: Cutting edge classics - Tommy at Yeovil

Post by Domvickery »

No3 is a peach mate & I’m chuffed you finally got the Portugese Lynx
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Re: Modern classics - Tommy at Yeovil

Post by Ledhead27 »

Absoutely gorgeous photos mate, top day spotting by the looks of it! Have to say that Yeovil looks like a particularly nice & easy place for photos
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Re: Modern classics - Tommy at Yeovil

Post by capercaillie »

Tommy wrote:
Sat 05 Dec 2020, 12:17 am

Image


Tom 🙂
Looks like you had a pretty good day, cracking junglie shots.

A waste of a great looking Lynx, painting the ripple though. Why not get an ex Army/Marines one and use? They'll have to modify it with horizontal stabilisers as well, to look correct. Are they mounting it at the gates as they're crowning moment of achievement? Looks a bit green?
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Tommy
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Re: Modern classics - Tommy at Yeovil

Post by Tommy »

Cheers guys.

Caper - I don’t know; I don’t think anyone even knew it was at Yeovil, it was at Horsham (and Crawley before that) until recently looking a bit sorry for itself.

I know that their apprentices/uni placement students restored G-LYNX for the Helicopter Museum in Weston; perhaps this is another project. If it is to become a gate guard, I’ve not heard anything about it. More likely a nice backdrop to internal corporate stuff, I think.

Such a shame the ripple scheme is gone, but I think once all the useable stuff was taken from her, she was at risk of heading to the dump or a paintball site, so I guess it’s something at least!

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Re: Modern classics - Tommy at Yeovil

Post by Airwolfhound »

Lovely set of shots Tom, thanks for posting :-)
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Re: Modern classics - Tommy at Yeovil

Post by G-CVIX »

Cracking set, certainly a good use of a day's leave!

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