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| it's a plane |
Throughout Summer, there's often a little plane that flies back and forth over our house, practising aerobatics...but this is not that plane!
On many a warm, dry afternoon, it can be heard (and seen) doing loop the loops, corkscrews, stalls and who knows what else. It's mostly centred above the test track up on the ridge above the valley, which used to be a military airbase. In fact, nuclear bombers were deployed out of this tiny little airport, back in the day.
Now it's a test track for a prestigious car manufacturer, and sometimes we can hear them squealing around the track too.
Anyway, when I heard this little plane revving his engines above me whilst out checking Anna's tyres, I dashed to grab the camera to catch a shot of him...and I only just managed it as he headed off into the distance. I thought he might come back around and show me some tricks...indeed he did turn around, but then disappeared back the way he came, and I realised that it wasn't our Magnificent Man in his Flying Machine.
We do get an eclectic mix of air traffic over our house.
Starting in order of least interesting, there's a southbound flightpath out of Birmingham Airport that crosses above our house. We've even seen our house whilst on a flight to Spain, although only the once...I always look, but rarely can identify where I am. The flight path is high, so we can't hear them from in the house, but on a quiet day outside you can hear planes cruising south, and sometimes at night you can see a line of lights coming from the direction of Birmingham.
Other frequent flyers on warm summer evenings are the hot air balloons - when the weather is right there are often two or three at varying distances across the valley...Bluez found them highly suspicious, and I can kind of see his point - strange bulbous beasts floating slowly across the sky, occasionally roaring and breathing fire.
I don't quite trust them myself!
Then of course there's the aerobatics plane...he's the most fun!
When the Grand Prix is at Silverstone, we see a steady stream of helicopters ferrying VIP's there or back again...
Then there's the covert night-time traffic, which is a more regular occurrence than you might imagine.
We must be on some military flight path, which is always the same - North-East to South-West...this route is only ever used at night, and they fly very low indeed - much lower than legal limits.
The most common aircraft to use this route are Chinook helicopters (or similar, I'm no expert), and they're usually in twos, or sometimes threes.
Sometimes lumbering bomber planes will rumble past, alarming the animals...and once in a while, jet fighters come through, often in twos or threes, sometimes very fast indeed.
Finally there are the frequent flyers of the feathered variety...we've had plenty of examples of those in the blog, of course.
Whilst out walking this evening, we spied the buzzard across the field, but by the time the camera was ready he'd landed in the tree...
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| it might be a bird |
I think he's in there somewhere...bonus points to anyone who can spot him!
Right, I'm very, very tired, so I'm off to get my Saturday night on. Climbing today, and Tai Chi all week have left me weary, and somewhat in need of a shower.
Rest day tomorrow, I think!
:-)
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