Rarest Aircraft seen whilst spotting.

Location : Valley Forge, Blandford Forum

TU-16/ H-6 Badger doing circuits at Xian in April 2002.

Freeman Lowell

Subject: Re: Rarest Aircraft seen whilst spotting. 2009-02-26, 14:40

I would say a Growler on test at Patuxent River was about as rare as I have seen. :bounce: I was buzzing after photographing that.

Admin Location : East Midlands Spotter Watch Member : Yes

Several aircraft for me.

1st is the mighty Valkyrie at Wright Patterson USAF National Air Museum of which is the only surviving type.

2nd is the Boeing VC-137C SAM 26000 it is the first jet to be designated solely for the President of the USA. And was the plane that carried Kennedy's casket back to Washington in. It was an amazing experience to be able to walk through this plane looking at the exhibits and reading the history of the aircraft.

3rd is the F-105B 57-5820 at MAPS future projects compound in Canton Ohio. The tail marking is WR which is definately a Woodbridge Code Marking. However the planes yea by year history shows no evidence that it was at Woodbridge nor Bentwaters. Which is a mystery in why the aircraft has been coded WR. So therefore to me this is a rare aircraft.

4th is the Valiant, as at the age of 6 I was taken to Hendon Museum where the Valiant is the only whole surving type was at Hendon for many years before its move to Cosford a few years ago.

Location : Yorks Spotter Watch Member : No

Lee,

"3rd is the F-105B 57-5820 at ..... Canton Ohio. The tail marking is WR which is
definately a Woodbridge Code Marking. However the plane's year by year
history shows no evidence that it was at Woodbridge nor Bentwaters.
Which is a mystery in why the aircraft has been coded WR. So therefore
to me this is a rare aircraft."

Agree that B model Thuds are not common, however the "WR" code is in this instance nothing to do with Woodbridge/Bentwaters but relates to 57-5820's time with 2955 CLS "WR" at Warner Robins AFB where it was assigned on 9.11.83.

Cheers,

Mike

Admin Location : East Midlands Spotter Watch Member : Yes

Cheers Mike.

That is confusing.. But thanks for clearing that up.

Location : n.west Spotter Watch Member : no

This is an aircraft I havent spotted but found it on the TSR2 thread under Aircraft Manufactured by BAE Systems. It looks like a scaledown version of a Vulcan with two reheated engines. Could one of our acknowledged experts give us the lowdown on this aircraft please.

Subject: Re: Rarest Aircraft seen whilst spotting. 2009-02-28, 13:49

60163tornado wrote:: This is an aircraft I havent spotted but found it on the TSR2 thread under Aircraft Manufactured by BAE Systems. It looks like a scaledown version of a Vulcan with two reheated engines. Could one of our acknowledged experts give us the lowdown on this aircraft please.

Avro 707,me thinks !

Location : A secret airbase in Oxfordshire

There is a 707 at Cosford... great looking ac!

Pic here:

Some info here:

More info here:

Tonks 8)

Subject: Re: Rarest Aircraft seen whilst spotting. 2009-03-01, 03:55

Tonks wrote:: There is a 707 at Cosford... great looking ac!

Pic here:

Some info here:

More info here:

Tonks 8)

There's another at the Manchester Museum and one at the RAAF Museum,Point Cook,Victoria.

Location : Yorks Spotter Watch Member : No

The clue is in the title of 60163's original post, the question is about the Avro Arrow (Avro canada that is....). The link with the TSR-2 is that it was Canada's TSR-2 equivalent - in the sense of a promising design killed off by politics. Unlike TSR-2 no Arrow survived, but an external replica was constructed a couple of years back.

More info here:- http://www.avroland.ca/al-cf105.html

Mike

Location : n.west Spotter Watch Member : no

Mike wrote:: The clue is in the title of 60163's original post, the question is about the Avro Arrow (Avro canada that is....). The link with the TSR-2 is that it was Canada's TSR-2 equivalent - in the sense of a promising design killed off by politics. Unlike TSR-2 no Arrow survived, but an external replica was constructed a couple of years back.

More info here:- http://www.avroland.ca/al-cf105.html

Mike

Thanks Mike, the above link was very helpful, my schoolboy french enabled me to understand all
the information on the site. Frank.

Location : E Dereham Norfolk Spotter Watch Member : No

Possibly not qualifying as 'The rarest aircraft'....... but a BOEING (RAF B 29 WASHINGTON)SUPERFORTRESS.................
Based at RAF Marham....
Aged about 13/15. was taken on base by Yank pilot (liason officer ???) (who was 'Sha**ing' my older sister,).............. and allowed to climb 'all over' the aircraft.
Very vague memories of going through 'the tunnell'
Who says............. 'sisters are a pain' ?????????????

Location : n.west Spotter Watch Member : no

What a momentus year that was it was The RAF 75th Anniversary, the highlight was a infamous but

fortunately a very rare occurence the AtoA Crash of the MIG 29s the other Russian aircraft to

participate were the Tu95 bear first time in the UK and its supporting Midas IL 78 Tanker now one

of our Warton crew had previously met the Pilot of one of the aircraft and he was invited into both

aircraft. The 75th, Anniversary flypast was spectacular and it consisted of a lot of aircraft that

you dont see flying anymore or very rarely The Mossie THe Blenheim the JA 37 Viggen and the

orange german Canberra. Oh what a year that was.

Location : Northants, near EGBK

I guess we can go a bit non military on this thread. At Sywell airshow about 6 years ago there were two hang glider pilots with jet engines strapped to their backs, the display was absolutely crazy, as they crossed the display limit line in front of the crowdline and the display controller instructed them to discontinue their act. They never heard him due to the racket they were making!

Location : n.west Spotter Watch Member : no

Fairford, 94, Another great year, The Comet from A&AEE Boscombe Down now at

Bruntingthorpe, the Hunter FGA9 in raspberry ripple the Swedish Air Force J35

Draken, the 4 Let 410s and of course there were two new comers to RIAT the

Swedish Airforce J42 Lansen and the French Air Force Mirage IVP I well remember

THe Mirage 4 visiting Spadeadam usually on the the second Thursday of every

month and what a sight that was.

Subject: Re: Rarest Aircraft seen whilst spotting. 2009-04-14, 12:20

A line of 26 Hunters at IAT '76,with WB188 in the middle.

Location : Elgin Spotter Watch Member :

thunder wrote:: Hellenic F16's @ Lossie literally came out of the blue.

Here was my 'minutes' of that day. Arriving about half past 9 in the morning, start of my October break, slightly dissapointed by the Gripens due to deploy to Lossie ending up going to Fairford leaving Lossiemouth with only 2 hawks as JW participants so i was hoping for an action packed day of tornados, maybe get a Typhoon or something visiting. On arrival the sky was grey, but a very light sky of cloud and only a few Tornado's up (022, 080, 043, 083, uncoded (ZD713)) so the day was hardly going perfectly well. Until 10.30 came and my phone buzzed, i got a text reading something like. "5 Greek F16s due lossie 1215 not sure if zulu or local" and being the excitable teenager I am I got energetic and buzzy with my dad telling me to calm down incase it didn't happen, so i thought to myself when i see them then i can be excited. suddenly there was a flurry of activity of VASS which caught my attention, which turned out to be 2 petrol cylinders, I started doubting the Greeks too so I returned duly to the car (it was quite cold) but then the clouds broke and VASS people reappeared to stand by the petrol cylinders for the 2 hawks to come in, the sky broke, before i knew it the sky was totally blue except for the surroundings like tain which seemed to be in cloud. This was 11:35. 5 minutes later 5 ladders appeared on VASS and excitement returned to me. It was sunny so there was no more need to be in the car and one of the locals Dave appeared on the scene so i had someone to talk to. At 12 I was up on the pill box eagerly awaiting the arrival of the 5 F16s and as they were due in 1215 nothing had called up, at 12:16 exactly the distinct call of Greek Air Force blurted out of the scanner, finally they were here. 10 minutes later 5 dots, seperated at a regular interval appeared travelling downwind on the other side of Lossiemouth and turned, then the magic part, 5 lights glinting in sequence in a trail appeared on the approach, I lifted my camera and started shooting. I was especially chuffed as the first one was a Two seater CFT bird.

Rarest Aircraft seen whilst spotting. - Page 5 200810-26

Rarest Aircraft seen whilst spotting. - Page 5 200810-26

Rarest Aircraft seen whilst spotting. - Page 5 200810-27

I remember rushing down to get them taxi-ing into VASS. The action died down and i moved to the center of the runway to get them on VASS and got talking to a really nice guy, can't remember his name. I went back to the car for food, and began the wait till their departure. I started chatting to Gill (Thanks for the chat) and the time passed, and sun still shone. Then guys started appearing and soon 5 F16s had lights going, the hawks just taking off and the sun disappeared behind the clouds. The F16s taxied out and waited for 5 and performed a stream departure, looking back at my photos of the departure realising I had the ISO at 1600.

I left Lossie just as they went extremely content, thanks to everyone i talked to, was a great day.

Macc

Location : n.west Spotter Watch Member : no

I was showing one of my friends this thread and she told me that she use to live near the Solent and saw the Saunders-Roe Princess Flying Boats The Princess was 148 feet long with
a wingspan of 219 feet her gross weight was 345,000 lbs and she could cruise at 350 MPH for 6000 miles. She remembered the serial because it was the same name as her
brother G.ALUN.

Location : Southend Spotter Watch Member : No

Well at Southend it is very unusual to see any military aircraft except for Southend Airshow and Clacton Airshow apart from this the odd fly rounds of 22 Squadron RAF Wattisham Search and Rescue, so if any body would like to point military aircraft towards Southend that would be appreciated
Clap

I was pleased with how low the Hawk/s were flying on departure the other day out of southend Wow

Location : North Wales Spotter Watch Member : No

Used to get allsorts low level over Llangollen back in the late 70's and early 80's. A few that stick in my mind were 4 German Navy F-104's chased by 4 Jaguars, 4 Lightning's (was stood on the school desk for them!) Canadian C-130's (in the old silver/white scheme) and quite regularly get up 25 RAF C-130's over on a Saturday morning. When the big exercises (Elder Forest,etc) used to be on the Dee valley was also very busy, sadly these days we only get choppers from Shawbury and the odd Hawk or Tornado. Oh to go back to the days when seeing 20+ fast jets a day was the norm!

Location : n.west Spotter Watch Member : no

Ive just got 100 minute video of Moffet 87 quantity a bit lacking quality quite the opposite

the show started with a PC3 Orion doing a simulated search for a submarine all at low level

20 minute display followed by two aircraft from The NASA stable an AV8 Harrier in white with

nasa blue coded 79 and a strange looking trasport with 4 jet engines located above the

wings named QSRA. then a 20 minute demo by a F14 Tomcat never seen a

tomcat display like that all mostly low level. A USAF F16 boring. and a stunning sequence by

the F18 Blue Angels the closest I have ever seen the Angels on any previous video.

Location : Wiltshire Spotter Watch Member : No

Rare would be:

3 x RoKAF F-4Ds at Nellis in 1983
2 x Mauretanian Skyvans at Shorts in 1975
9 x CL-13B ex SAAF at Mojave in 1983
Iraqi AF An-12 at Lyneham in 1981
3 x Angolan AF Alouettes at Alverca in 1987

and the only 2 5th FIS Eagles I ever saw at Tyndall in 1986 both were B models and I didn't get any pics Crying

Location : Glasgow Spotter Watch Member : no

Hmmmm

13th September 1982 driving down the A9 and 3 USN KA3B went over the top. ( Oh and they had 9 USMC A4Es in tow) or

8th November 1977 4 Peruvian An 26 staging through Prestwick or

Lossie 7th Nov 75 USN NC121K was nice or the 8th Nov 77 Peruvian C130 at Prestwick could go on and on

Location : cambridgeshire Spotter Watch Member : spotter

SAAF Canberra and Carribuo at Jo'berg many years ago

ian

Subject: Re: Rarest Aircraft seen whilst spotting. 2009-06-19, 18:53

Been racking my brains...

Zweibrucken F4's at Upper Heyford in the eighties..can't remember the year!
USAF Shorts 360/Sherpa at Kemble in the early 1990's
F14 Tomcat in high viz early markings at the 'Hall in 1983
Canadian F104 team at Greenham in 1983
Frecce Tricolori in the Fiat G91 days!!