bumpkins virtual RAF Leuchars

[bumpkin]

Only three weeks until my annual pilgrimage to RAF Leuchars in Scotland for the final airshow of the year. Getting into the mood here are some screen grabs from FS9 of me taking XH558 from RAF Lossiemouth where she has been visiting to RAF Leuchars, prior to the show.

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An early start-up at RAF Lossiemouth, the mighty Rolls Royce Olympus engines fire into life, leaving a cloud of black smoke.

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A cockpit view of the taxi out.

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Take off viewed by the Lossie tower.

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Rapid climb out.

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A beautiful bird in the morning sun.

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Turning in the Cairngorms.

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Some close ups of XH558 in her Falklands campaign livery.

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Pointing to the mast at Durris.

more in the reply..............

[bumpkin]

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Despite her size, she has a claustrophobic cabin, this reduced the amount of light which emanated from her during cold war missions.

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Flying over the River Tay, East of Dundee as we approach RAF Leuchars airbase.

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Down she comes and the drogue shoot deployed to help slow her down.

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Close up showing the airbrakes above and below the fuselage and the drogue.

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A change of pace now as we line up to take off from Leuchars.

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And away we go in the RAF Hawk Trainer as flown by The Red Arrows.

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On our own at the moment, checking out the performance of the Hawk. She is used as a trainer since she is capable of reaching supersonic speed in a dive which gets pilots used to that without the cost of a full supersonic jet.

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Just enjoying myself......

more in the next reply..................

[bumpkin]

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.......before the other 8 guys turn up and we form into Diamond Nine, the Reds opening formation for every show.

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Another view of Diamond Nine.

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5 of the guys have peeled off, leaving myself and three others to display.

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The two outer pilots invert and we turn smoke on.

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Three inverted and one normal for the next move over the Tay Bridge.

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One inverted and two at 90 degrees before.........

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.........settling into landing formation over the North Sea.

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And down we come.

Hope you enjoy
Brian

[peer01]

Great screenies Brian :cool::cool:

[Smutley]

Just loving these shots Brian. :eek::cool::cool::cool::cool:

[adamb]

Great shots Brian:D

Adam

[tigisfat]

I just gotta know, where did this hawk come from? I didn't know there was an add-on aircraft that let you simulate flying lead ship other than the AFS typhoon.

[bumpkin]

Thanks Jan, Simon and Adam.:D:D Appreciate the comments;)

tigisfat - OK, I'll come clean, the initial take off was done using the DSB design version of the Hawk and after that I swapped to the diamond nine and gypo four formations available from

http://www.deltaweb.co.uk/reds/flightsim.html

So a bit of editing and trickery, but overall I was pleased with the outcome:)

[deepsea345]

awesome shots! i love those formation shots!:D:D:D