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Prestwick and Lend Lease

by | Jul 14, 2022 | Airport History, Spotting

Prestwick was the northerly most UK airfield on the Crimson Route, the northerly, shorter and mainly summer trans atlantic route for lend lease aircraft with the range and equipment to make the trip.

There were four UK airfields that were arrival points for lend lease air traffic, these were RAF St Mawgan, RAF Valley, RAF Nutts Corner and Prestwick. The most used was RAF Valley, due to it’s proximity to the USAAF Eighth and Ninth Air Forces in East Anglia – recieving some 60 – 70 aircraft each day.

Prestwick Airport did manage some 37,000 landings of mainly Lend Lease aircraft, being located closest to RAF Reykjavik in Iceland and RAF Vágar in the Faroe Islands. It was the initial ATC recieving base in United Kingdom for ferried aircraft from the United States. 1403d AAFBU. Began operations in July 1941 as the Eastern Terminus, Atlantic Division, Ferrying Command. In Jan 1943 it became the Head Quarters of Air Transport Command, Eastern European Wing. Prestwick remained as the main terminus of the North Atlantic route throughout the war.

With the begining of the Lend Lease traffic and the later entry of the United States into the war, Prestwick was assigned the station ID of AAF 500 with nearby RAF Ayr being assigned AAF 570 – these were used to obfuscate the actual location of the airfields.

Below is a citation from “Army Air Force Stations – by Captain Barry Anderson USAF’

United States military units assigned in the United Kingdom (UK)during World War II had to avoid any direct connection with specific geographic locations for security reasons. Most United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) units therefore identified their location with a “station number.” Although each USAAF installation in the UK was named–generally after the nearest railway station–official correspondence and unit histories most often employed the station number.

The serious use of Prestwick began in September 1941 when the airfield became part of No 44 Group. Many familiar aircraft types such as Boeing B-17, Consolidated B-24 heavy bombers and Canadian-built de Havilland Mosquitoes all passed through on  the transatlantic ferry route operated by the Atlantic Ferry Organisation (ATFERO). Shortly after that No 1425 (Communication) Flight used Consolidated B-24’s and Vickers Wellingtons for the development of a ferry route to the Middle East before being assigned to Lyneham in early 1942. The Air Transport Auxiliary also operated at Prestwick through No 4 Ferry Pilots Pool between 1940 and 1945. All this made the site a very busy airfield with as already stated above some 37,000 aircraft passing through Prestwick by the end of the war.

As mentioned in a previous post, the use of Prestwick Airport for this purpose was promoted by Captain Duncan Macintosh – the relatively fog free local environment was a major plus. But more on that in a future post, as the end of the second world was not as we know the end for Prestwick – unlike so many other USAAF and RAF bases.

 

The definitive Boeing 707/C-135 book.

by | Jul 12, 2022 | Aviation News, Book Reviews, Spotting

The Boeing 707 was a great success, but it was probably most successful in it’s military guises. Known internally at Boeing as the ‘B717’, a designation that was re-used for the MD9 after the Boeing/McDonnell-Douglas merger. The militarised version had numerous military designations and although ageing, many are still in service with many of the worlds militaries today.

It is likely that a number of these will remain in service for an other 20 years or even longer, there are airframes that potentially could actually be flying antiques in the truest sense of the word.

Why was the aircraft such a success, it did what it said on the tin – the versatility and sturdiness of the militarised version have made it a winner. Operated in many varying roles by many air forces, the aircraft has a proven track record – delivering as they say a lot of bang for each buck.

The primary variants C, EC, KC, NC, RC, OC and WC only explain some of the geneology of the type. There were also the C137, E3, the E6 and a number of other variants – but ultimately these were all variants of the original Boeing 707.

All you ever wanted to know is covered in the book, it is a pretty definative work – very readable and great value. If you have an interest in the Boeing 707 or the C135, this book is a must extremely detailed and some fantastic illustrations just completes the book.

 

Prestwick and the C17

by | Jul 11, 2022 | Airport News, Aviation News, Database, Online Logging, Spotting, Spotting Locations

Prestwick, long used as the jumping off point or arrival point for transports crossing the Pond. The main recognition started during the second world war, when it’s excellent fog free record was pointed out by Captain Duncan Macintosh. During the war years, there were huge numbers of Lend Lease aircraft transiting through Prestwick.

Still used as a stopover location for trans-atlantic traffic, now experiencing a revival for military traffic especially given the situation in Ukraine. It is unlikely to see the kinds of volumes of visitors it attracted in the 1960’s and 70’s, but there has been more traffic about that is obvious.

Conveniently placed, Prestwick has over the years seen it’s fair share of traffic – both East and West bound. The table below is the C17 traffic for the past few years and is an extract from my Prestwick historical log going back to 2016, there have been a lot through over that time. As to searching the table, by default any search string will be automatically search any field, however there is a drop down at the right side of the search box – this can be used to filter searches.

 

The C-17 at Prestwick

The Spotting Community.

by | Jul 1, 2022 | Spotting

I was going to title this post “The Spotting Fraternity”, but it was pointed out that the title was a bit misogynistic. Not intentionally, just through force of habit. Although over the years I have met some Lady Spotters, they are still pretty thin on the ground.

So what is the spotting community about in this day and age, to me it is just about people enjoying the hobby. If you are a spotter, you’ll understand better than most how much pleasure it can bring. When I was much younger we would go on spotting trips, hire a car or a minibus and head off – sometimes covering 8 or 10 airfields in a day.

Well with the number of bases and airfields around the country, you’d be hard pushed to do that today. We still do trips, not as often as we would like – but there is a much more social aspect to them now.

With age comes a certain perspective, there is much more taking time to enjoy the hobby and much less frenetic chasing numbers. A great deal less of the headless chicken dance, when you see something and cant read off the serial. But more important than all the above, taking time to talk to other spotters – something that happened a lot less in the past.

In general spotters are gregarious, we have a common interest after all. We all tend to frequent the same places, so tend to see the same faces there and are for the most part inclined to help each other out with information. I say for the most part, as with any group of people they come from all parts of the spectrum and some can be pigeonholed in the Secret Squirrel compartment.

But in the main spotters tend to be a pretty amenable bunch of people, yet we seem to be a dying breed – or maybe we are becoming more stratified. The sight of a spotter at the airfield perimeter with binoculars or a telescope, with someone standing beside them making notes in a notebook seems to be becoming rarer. There seem to be more photographers and older spotters, whereas the groups of school aged spotters seem to have vanished completely.

I sometimes wonder if it is just my skewed perception of things, or do the younger spotters do things in a different fashion – I wonder about the demographic of the community, particularly the age demographic.

I don’t really remember the last time that I saw a teenage spotter, regardless of what gender they have picked for themselves. So is our community aging, or going to go extinct. Or am I missing the mark here and the younger spotters are there and I’m not seeing them, as youngsters we used to hang around the perimeter somewhere or if there was a spectators terrace we’d be there or in the cafe.

As an older spotter, I am aware of how much damage the terrible events of 9/11 did to the hobby. I remember at the time discussing the implications for spotting, many of the possibilities we discussed at the time did in fact come to fruition.

And in truth I wonder if these events will in the end do for the community, it actually doesn’t matter what the makeup of the community is – with the exception of age. If there are no younger spotters, then pretty soon there will only be old spotters – and all too soon after that there may be no spotters.

Spotting club memberships seem to be down, maybe by as much as 25% – but the social media groups have memberships in the hundreds and in many cases in the thousands. So maybe the spotting community is evolving, there are hundreds of groups on facebook – some with thousands of members. So maybe the future of the community is in the digital realm, or even in the “metaverse” it might be that the community has already made the jump and only the dinasaurs like me are unaware of the fact – we are just sitting here waiting for our asteroid impact.

Cheap Optics worth it or not?

by | Jul 1, 2022 | Equipment Reviews., Optical Enhancement, Spotting

There is an old saying, frequently used to justify spending money. “You only get what you pay for.” is the saying, when it comes to an item like binoculars and telescopes – the cost difference beteen the cheapest and the dearest is huge and I wonder if they are that much better.

Here we have two pairs of binoculars both 10×50 and both found on Amazon, with one pair costing one hundred and twenty times more than the other. I’d like to know if the performace difference is as great, I suspect it is not – not that I would even consider a pair of binoculars at over £3,000.

Having a quick look at each of the Amazon reviews for these products is interesting, the cheap binoculars have over 200 reviews and an average score of 4.2. Whereas the expensive binoculars have no reviews, which in truth only indicates that no one has reviewed them on this site. However there are online reviews and huge price variations on other sites, with at least one site retailing these for £1,200 less than Amazon.

Still at over £1,800 they are still out of my price range, so I’m certainly unlikely to be getting my hands on a pair any time soon. For reference, just in case anyone is in the slightest interested. I carry a Bushnell 16×52 monocular in the car at all times, how would I rate it – in truth not great. Although the optics are clear, the magnificatin is closer to 8 and the object lens is about 35mm – but it does now come with a mini tripod and a smartphone holder (mine didn’t) all for the pricely sum of £7.99 so it sits in the car – just in case. And I should add that although the quality isn’t in the same league as many other monoculars or telescopes, the Bushnell cost me less than the average fish supper and that included next day delivery!