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Trip home from RAF Leuchars "safety day" in Scotland

gblwy

Well Known Member
This 15-minute video is a flight in “Papa Sierra” my RV12, back from RAF Leuchars in Scotland to my base in Perth, in less than perfect weather. The only audio is RT chat tapped from the intercom.

RAF Leuchars is an RAF front-line air defence base. During the cold war they regularly intercepted Russian “Bears” approaching UK airspace, with Phantoms, and latterly Tornados. Recently they have re-equipped with Typhoons (Eurofighters). The base is under threat from closure. Meanwhile, they open the base up to GA traffic one day per year for a “safety briefing”. This year’s briefing was on 6th August, and the weather was typically Scottish i.e. heavy showers.

In spite of many GA aircraft making the trip, Leuchars decided the weather was too poor for the all-weather Typhoon to give us a planned air display, but we were nonetheless expected to make our way back home! And this was following a couple of hours of safety lectures...

I have spared you the 20-minute departure hold, but I have left just a little time on the ground at the beginning so you can see a Typhoon taxying left-to-right in front of us. The 15 minute flight home is virtually unedited. You can see the rain on the camera lens, and at one point I can be seen mopping up drips of rain trying to get into the radio stack ;-)

The flight home was made at relatively low level, so you can hear the lady in the GPS starting to get a little nervous of the terrain ahead. The two bridges on the right are over the Tay (a large salmon river) at Dundee. The leftmost of these is the rail bridge. Historians may be interested to know that an earlier bridge fell into the river while a train was crossing.

http://taybridgedisaster.co.uk/

You will see I made a tight circuit at Perth in the rain, and was not too fussed about landing on the centreline.

http://youtu.be/E8l54tWEWWM


Flying in Scotland....Keith
 
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I remember that weather well from my year in sunny Aberdeen. Also made me grin to hear the other pilot telling the controller he'd be `a wee while yet'. Nice video, Keith. Brought back some good memories.
 
I've driven across the Tay bridge. Exciting for me, as I had just flown a North Atlantic crossing in a Gulfstream IV.....powered by 2 Rolls Royce TAY engines :)
 
Tay and others

Yeah, RR engines are named after British rivers. The Tay is the longest river in Scotland, but a tiddler compared to the Mississippis, Amazons, and Niles of this world. Other RR types include Trent, Avon, Spey etc.
 
Homesick

Keith,

You're making me homesick, the last time I was at RAF Leuchars was back in my motorcycling days, 1996 I think it was. Good to see the old country from time to time. I was in Perth this past April and saw your '12 sitting on the grass in front of the hanger, nice looking plane.
 
Hey Papa Sierra nice video of Scottish weather. Great paint job too you are quite visible!


BTW how many "Bears/White Swans" and how close to the base they can get to save RAF Leuchars? :D

RAF Leuchars is an RAF front-line air defence base. During the cold war they regularly intercepted Russian “Bears” approaching UK airspace, with Phantoms, and latterly Tornados. Recently they have re-equipped with Typhoons (Eurofighters). The base is under threat from closure
.
 
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Bear baiting

I guess just a regular daily nudge from the East would do the job. Just fly up to the UK airspace border, take a photo of the intercepting Eurofighter, and go back home for a beer/vodka. Should be enough to retain a presence at Leuchars ;-)
 
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