Anywhere to photograph planes (military) in the south

andycallaghan

andycallaghan

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I want to try taking some photos of aircraft.

I know I can get commercial planes at Gatwick/Heathrow, but they're gonna be busy.

Does London City Airport have a viewing area for taking photographs?
Biggin Hill scrapped their viewing area aaaaages ago. :-(

In particular, does anyone know anywhere where the military do any training?

I know this thread may look a bit suspicious, but I really do just want to shoot them (with a camera) :clap:
 
It depends how far you want to travel, I would definately give RAF Lakenheath and RAF Mildenhall a try whilst in that sort of area!!
 
KevMP said:
It depends how far you want to travel, I would definately give RAF Lakenheath and RAF Mildenhall a try whilst in that sort of area!!
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We were up there in October, but it was an impromptu visit, and we couldn't find the viewing area.
Drove around for ages. LOL
 
A bit further still, RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire has an Official viewing area. No good if you specifically want fast jets, but the Nimrods can look impressive when taking off and coming in to land.
I used to be stationed there.
 
For london city one of the best places is the south walkway of excel, depending on which way the wind is blowing. If you go down a bit and get onto the footbridge going across I think its King Albert dock you can get some great on approach shots with canary wharf as a backdrop.

In east anglia, Marham has some good close locations for some tonka shots but its absolute pot luck. There is a layby that you can get some good shots from on the A1122 just past the mobile phone mast but its normally very muddy and lots of potholes. For the big stuff, there are always KC-135's knocking around over Bury st Edmunds from Mildenhall. I've yet to have a good day for Eagles from Lakenheath, but there is a car park and public viewing area nearby. On the A1065 to Wangford its at the end of the runway on the right, park under the trees next to the national trust sign and info board. You'll need a minimum of a 300mm though.
 
cw318is said:
For london city one of the best places is the south walkway of excel, depending on which way the wind is blowing. If you go down a bit and get onto the footbridge going across I think its King Albert dock you can get some great on approach shots with canary wharf as a backdrop.

In east anglia, Marham has some good close locations for some tonka shots but its absolute pot luck. There is a layby that you can get some good shots from on the A1122 just past the mobile phone mast but its normally very muddy and lots of potholes. For the big stuff, there are always KC-135's knocking around over Bury st Edmunds from Mildenhall. I've yet to have a good day for Eagles from Lakenheath, but there is a car park and public viewing area nearby. On the A1065 to Wangford its at the end of the runway on the right, park under the trees next to the national trust sign and info board. You'll need a minimum of a 300mm though.
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Wow, that's great info.
Cheers
 
the SE is rubbish for this- wish I'd had an SLR when I was in the Lake district in 2005- training runs by all sorts of aircraft every morning! Anyone know if this still happens?!?
 
RAF Marham, near Kings Lynn, there are 4 squadrons there and each one will fly atleast 4 jets daily (mon-fri). Depending on the wind direction (90% of the time its good) you should be able to get some good shots on Chalk Lane directly at the end of the runway.
 
Hi,

If you are based in the South East, you can't get much better than Mildenhall and Lakenheath for military stuff, and the F-15s at Lakenheath can be particularly photogenic.

The following link will take you to a website that has all the best viewing spots:-

http://www.thunder-and-lightnings.co.uk/spotting/index.php

Just a word of warning - military airfields can be very quiet (with most closing down at the weekend), so it is best to go in the week if you can.

The only other military airfields near the South East are Northolt, Brize Norton and Boscombe Down. Both Northolt and Brize tend (like Mildenhall) to just be for transport aircraft, so if you don't have any interest in the aircraft per se you would probably be better off going to a civillian airport where the traffic is going to be much busier and the photographic opportunities much greater. Indeed, Northolt specialises in private jet movements (both civilian and military), and a trip to Luton or Farnborough will yield both more aircraft and better places to photograph them from.

You can get a good view of Boscombe Down, albeit you are not allowed to take photos looking into the base although there are no problems taking photos of aircraft on approach. The base is used for test flying, so you are more likely to see some fast jets, but again it isn't busy.

You asked about London City. There is no official viewing area, but if you take the DLR to the Prince Albert stop (rather than the airport) you can get an excellent view across the dock to the runway and apron, along with seats if you are there for a while.

Time your visit carefully though - while the airport is busy and well worth a visit from 0700-0930 and 1700-2000 outside these periods it can be very quiet. This is typical of the photos you will be able to get - the Fokker is on the runway:-


OO-VLP by IndiaEcho Photography, on Flickr

You can see more photos from there on my Flickr pages.

Hope this helps.

Neil
 
D'Oh! I was about to post that.
 
There used to be a good place to see the planes taxi quite close up which was a small road down by the side of JEB Engineering http://www.jebeng.com/Home.html
To see them in flight go to Great Barton just east of Bury it's pretty much in the flight path. In the past I've been lucky enough to see 2 F-15s dogfighting overhead and when it was flying we used to see the Blackbird all the time. The other favourite used to be the AWACS. But as has already been said, it's much quieter these days.
Have fun and hope you get some nice shots.
 
RAF Odiham in Hampshire is the home of the Chinook force, and those guys are always busy. They are often doing manoeuvring around the airfield as they train for theatre.

An impressive helicopter with good photographic impact.
 
Headcorn offers excellent photographic opportunities - on a nice day it can be very busy with lots of light aircraft coming and going along with frequent parachuting and the museum.

You can park next to the runway to watching the comings and goings. There is the occasional military (vintage) aircraft, but if you go on the day of the Combined Ops event (13-14th August this year) there should be plenty to see.

http://www.combinedops.co.uk/
http://www.headcornaerodrome.co.uk/

This photo was taken from the car park:-

HA-YAO1024X683.jpg


Regards,

Neil
 
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