A second day on the mound at Prestwick, waiting for the second delivery of Nigerian A-29B’s from the states. A second day where we were all dissapointed, I say all – there were probably more than 100 spotters on the mound. Most would have been ardently wishing for the A-29’s to put in an appearance, All would have been dissappointed.

Still with the start of Joint Warrior 21-2 there were some Falcon 20’s, I remember when they were Fan Jet Falcons – these are the ones that have been through a few owners to get to where they are now.

Companies like Hurn Refuelling, names long gone – now they are Draken and I’d really like to see them in splinter camoflage, but they will probably stay in the dark blue until the paint shop runs out.

Over the past couple of days, there were five C-17’s and Galaxy, that will have to do just now. Still maybe the Nigerian’s will put in an appearance tomorrow, or will it be later in the week when I’m away?

Still as a friend would say, spotting is what it – I’d say Onwards and Downwards.

So a little further on the search for a registration, the originator of the request had mentioned an other picture in which the aircraft was more complete. The furnished image does provide a little more information, but what have I found out so far.

The aircraft seemed to appear outside at Chandler Memorial, between late 1993 and early 1998 – this information was gleaned from a number of satellite images of Maricopa County in Arizona.

Given the date when it first appeared, it could be recorded in the FAA database as any one of these types.

+———+——————————–+———————-+——–+

| type_id | mfr_name | model | alt_id |

+———+——————————–+———————-+——–+

| 0143006 | AERO COMMANDER | S2C | |

| 0143010 | AERO COMMANDER | 600 S-2D | |

| 0143012 | AERO COMMANDER | 600 S-2D RESTRICTED | |

| 0143022 | AERO COMMANDER | S2R | |

| 0970100 | AYRES CORPORATION | S-2R | |

| 0970101 | AYRES CORPORATION | S-2R | |

| 0970102 | AYRES CORPORATION | S2R-600 | |

| 0970104 | AYRES CORPORATION | S2R-800 | |

| 0970114 | AYRES CORP | S-2R | |

| 0970202 | AYRES CORPORATION | S2R-R3S | |

| 0970203 | AYRES CORPORATION | S2R-R1820 | |

| 0970210 | AYRES CORPORATION | S2R-R1340 | |

| 0970215 | AYRES CORPORATION | S2R-R1820 | |

| 0970216 | AYRES CORPORATION | S2R-G6 | |

| 0970217 | AYRES CORPORATION | S2R-G10 | |

| 0970218 | AYRES CORPORATION | S2R-G5 | |

| 0970219 | AYRES CORPORATION | S2R-G1 | |

| 6150135 | NORTH AMERICAN ROCKWELL | S-2R | |

| 7630201 | ROCKWELL/TEACH | S-2R | |

| 7630202 | ROCKWELL INTERNATIONAL | S-2R | |

| 7630203 | ROCKWELL INTERNATIONAL | S-2R-800 | |

| 7630205 | ROCKWELL INTERNATIONAL | S-2R | |

| 7630206 | ROCKWELL INTERNATIONAL/TAYLOR | S2R | |

| 8380206 | SNOW | S2C | |

| 8380302 | SNOW | 600-S2C | |

| 8380306 | SNOW | 600 S-2D | |

| 8380308 | SNOW COMMANDER | 600-S2R | |

| 8380309 | THRUSH AIRCRAFT INC | S-2R | |

+———+——————————–+———————-+——–+

Current thinking is that the badge displayed on the side behind the engine is actually an Aero Commander badge, but I’ll have to find an image to check this.

Still as they say in the spotting world, Onward and Downward.

A quick catch up, there has been a bit of activity at Prestwick over the past few days – so thought that I’d add a post. As we all know, good old Prestwick gets it’s fair share of more exotic types than the other Scottish Airports.

And over the past few days there have been a few nice bits and pieces through, a couple of Antonov’s, US Army Dash 8, RCAF Polaris, four CF-18’s and the Samaritans Purse DC-8. Not at all bad for just a few days, there were a few others – but for me these were the highlights.

It’s always nice to see something nostalgic in the air, a DC-8 fills the bill for nostalgia – not that I would have ever expected that in the 1970’s. There are more movements planned over the next couple of days, with two additional RCAF CF-18’s to replace the broken ones that I’m sure will be there for a few more rounds of Golf..

There will it seems only be the RN Hawks and the F-20’s operating out of Prestwick for Joint Warrior, so it looks like the next biggie will be COP 26 – on that front there is currently nothing to add to the rumours.

Quick trip to Prestwick yesterday, to find the place almost devoid of aircraft – not quite what I expected but that’s spotting for you. There was a RCAF C-130 sitting on the north side and a USAF C-17 on the south side, the only movement while there was the C-172 G-DRAM with floats attached.

There were a few spotters on the mound, but none of the regulars that I recognised, as a consequence there were no new rumours to add to the site. There was a single visible over the top movement, CT-02 the NATO A400M operated by the Belgian Air Force – but that was it for the day.

All in all it was a pretty poor day, given the past few months. So it seems that things at Prestwick have cooled off a bit, but there is always the chance that the preparatory stuff for COP 26 will start arriving in a few weeks time.

I’m still wondering how they are going to justify the whole jolly for all these people, especially given the objectives – I suppose if things work out well, people could cycle home to wherever?

Getting back to the challenge of identifying this aircraft, the previous post left a number of things up in the air. One of those things was the aircraft type, there was a choice of several.

You may assume that the type would be the easiest part of it, well not really – this model was built by a number of manufacturers and they were listed in several differing ways by the FAA. I have had an email contact informing me that this is or was a ROCKWELL S-2R THRUSH COMMANDER, but even that leaves three or four searches for the list of aircraft of that type.

You may think that the type details are not so important, it is – as in this case I think that the identity of the aircraft in question will have to be identified through a process of elimination. Before we start that, we have to have a positive type ID which will then allow the generation of the list.

All sounds so simple doesn’t it, not so – the list will probably be into three figures and it will be easy to eliminate many of them using the FAA database. So now the sluthing starts, wish me luck.