Orions and the South Australian Aviation Museum

This week was a very busy one for the P-3C Orions and the Aircraft Development and Research Unit (ARDU) both based at the local RAAF air base at Edinburgh. The RAAF celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Orion entering service and the 25th anniversary of ARDU.

To commemorate these anniversaries, a formation of three Orions flew low over several local landmarks.  I watched them as they flew low over Adelaide.

The South Australian Aviation Museum celebrated with an open day to mark the official handing over of a retired RAAF Orion for display there.   The museum holds in interesting collection of aircraft including a couple of ex-ARDU aircraft in their distinctive Orange and White colour scheme.

Here are some of the aircraft currently on display:
General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark

Fokker F-27 Friendship

 Douglas C-47 Dakota

 Supermarine Spitfire MkVc

 Mirage III

 Macchi MB-326

 Lockheed P-3C Orion

 De Haviland Vampire

 De Haviland Sea Venom

This is an excellent little museum, and is well worth a visit.

A "BIG" weekend

I just had a very big weekend.

On Saturday I was at Adelaide Airport to watch the departing Antonov An-124 Ruslan leave after bringing in some military vehicles for a trade show here.  The An-124 is one of the largest production cargo aircraft in the world and can carry 150 Tonnes over 3000 Kilometres

Then on Sunday we headed down to Basham Beach on the Fleurieu to watch the Southern Right Whales that chose to winter in South Australian Waters.  We saw three adult whales loafing in the water about 300 metres offshore.

New Camera try out

Made a quick visit to Oaklands Wetland earlier this week to try out my new camera.  These are straight from the camera with no post processing apart from cropping for composition.

I'm pretty happy with the results for the first time I have used this camera.

Inman Valley

We spent the long weekend relaxing in an isolated cottage overlooking the Inman Valley on the Fleurieu Peninsula.

We had a few birdy visitors to the garden, including a very inquisitive Little Wattlebird which spent most of it's time in the Banksia(?) next to our veranda.

There were many Superb Fairywrens, but unfortunately the males are in eclipse plumage with only the blue tail giving a hint at what's to come.

Each afternoon, the lawn played host to a flock of 6 Red-browed Finches

On Sunday we went to Carrickalinga, hoping to find a Hooded Plover or two, but no joy.  We did watch this Black-shouldered Kite looking for lunch, and a Masked Lapwing on the roadside verge.

We had been seeing lots of Adelaide Rosellas, and on the last morning one came to the feeder.  A cracking male of the fleurieuensis sub-species.

London Heathrow

I recently had to make a quick trip back to the UK for a family funeral, and on my way back I had a few hours to kill, so I watched the planes arriving at Heathrow.  As a kid I used to spend almost every weekend at Heathrow watching the planes so it a real trip down memory lane.  Following 9/11. security has increased so much that there are hardly any places  you can stop near the airport and I ended watching from a small residential street close to the end of Runway 27L. 

Heathrow is the main base for British Airways, and their planes made up the majority of arrivals.  They included planes of all sizes, from the small Airbus A319, through the A320, Boeing 777, Boeing 787 to the Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet.

 

There are planes from all over the world arriving at Heathrow's 5 terminals. European airlines included Lufthansa, flying their newest addition the Airbus A320 Neo, Swiss using a Bombardier CS100, and Finnair flying an Airbus A350.

South African Airways Airbus A330 and Ethiopian Airlines Airbus A350 represented Africa.

Qatar and Air India with an Airbus A380 and Boeing 787 respectively from Asia,

and  Delta airlines with their Boeing 767, American Airlines Boeing 777 and Air Canada with a Boeing 737 Max representing the Americas.

Oaklands Wetland again

As my local wetlands is completely dry now, I decided to head to Oaklands Wetland this morning, before it got too crowded.

All of the usual suspects were there, including Purple Swamphen, Grey Teal, Royal Spoonbill and Noisy Miner.

On one of the bridges was this Little Pied Cormorant who allowed me to slowly creep within a few metres.

The long staying pair of Pink-eared Ducks were still there, and although they are still quite timid, they allowed a reasonable approach with a bit of patience. They are quite stunning little ducks up close.

A favourite of mine is the white-faced Heron, and this one was quite happy to approach to about 3 metres as long as I kept still.

There are quite a few nest boxes here, and this one was full to overflowing!