As someone who loves to see aircraft flying, I find myself in a quandry about the attendees for COP 26 in Glasgow this November. What has prompted this is the recent report on the climate, the warnings in it are pretty clear. There has to be a great deal more done to reduce emissions of CO2 and Methane, it has to be done quickly and it has to be a global effort.

For the most part the western world has had it’s dirty polluting industrial era, the rest of the world is queueing up to have theirs. The world leaders are supposed to be meeting face to face in Glasgow this November to come to some fairly monumental decisions on how to avert what is shaping up to be a global calamity.

As I said in an earlier post, there are currently 46 aircraft rumoured to be arriving between the central scottish airports, but there is still effectively three moths to go so those numbers are likely to increase. There are rumoured to be thousands of people likely to attend from all over the world, so it is also likely that a lot of them will arrive via scheduled flights.

So as the conference has the stated goal of mitigating the effects of climate change and reversing them if possible, how can the meeting be justified. Wouldn’t it be a suitable candidate for people to Video conference, this would certainly mitigate the transportation effects on the climate. Or do our leaders around the world feel that the face to face option is so advantageous that the means will justify the end?

It is not as if we have an other planet, this is the only one that we have. I can remember the day when the population clock passed four billion in 1974, it will probably pass eight billion in 2022. These world citizens have every right to expect that they will be able to consume resources tha same way that our generation did, what they can’t possibly realise is that we’ve already used everything up and are continuing to use it at an increasing rate – what is likely to be left for the next generation, probably not much.

Our legacy isn’t going to be very pretty, I think that the next generation will have every right to be well and truly hacked off!

It is odd to think that people will probably look back on the Boeing 747 era with nostalgia, but with the way that they are currently being axed – look back they may have to. There may even be a Boeing 747 or an Airbus A380 preservation society, we will just have to wait and see.

The picture above was taken by me in 1972 I think in Bahrain, now I look back on these trips to various airports around the world with fond memories. Thinking much about some of the aircraft that seemed to be dumped in unusual locations, on my first trip through the Panama canal I was astonished at how many aircraft were parked on the small airfields along the side of the canal.

Many of them seemed to be in a poor state of repair, but when you are on the bridge you don’t really have time to keep a log other than the ships log. Many of these aircraft will have been consigned to the scrap heap in the intervening fifty years, yes they will have been consigned to the dustbin of history – and not many people will have considered preseving any of them.

So what would you preserve from today?

After witnessing the bun fight on ScotAvNet, I decided to have a look around at some other options for posting and reading aviation information. After a conversation with a friend and a short search I found, Aviation for All and although it seems to be a bit higglty pigglty the forums are pretty good and quite active.

It did take a little time to find my way around the forums, but I was pleased to see that there is a lot of information and it would seem that there is something for everyone. The Scottish posts appear in a number of places dotted around the forum, but there is a certain logic to the layout.

As for the administration team, there seems to be someone available pretty much all day – although I haven’t had to ask any questions yet I’m guessing that if I do they will be answered pretty quickly.

This looks like a forum, where people are actually prepared to help other people – it even has separate sections for ADSB logs, Aviation stuff for sale and Off Topic posts – which means that you don’t have to wade through stuff you don’t want to see.

So in the short term, I’m going to give this forum a go – while I keep a weather eye on ScotAvNet. But I suspect that in the long term I’ll be ditching ScotAvNet, as it seems to be the old thing where people seem quite happy to become very partisan and start a bun fight.

While down at Prestwick this morning, the rumour mill was working away and most of it revolved around how many aircraft were scheduled for COP 26 and where they were going to be parked up..

The current majority rumour seems to be that there are a total of 46 aircraft currently booked, that is between Glasgow, Edinburgh and Prestwick. The rumour mill has come up with the majority of the Business Jets will be Edinburgh bound, the big stuff will be at Prestwick and the intermediate stuff and some of the larger stuff at Glasgow.

It seems that there are according to the rumours some 28 aircraft booked in for Prestwick at the moment, but then this is all rumour – so I guess that we’ll just have to wait and see.

There was also some debate as to whether Air Force One would be at Prestwick, with Air Force Two at Glasgow as a contingency – or would they both just park up at Prestwick and POTUS 46 would slum it with the VH-80N “White Hawk” of HSX-1.

There should obviously be a number of logistical flights pre COP 26, with a number of logistical flights after the event.

At any rate, these were today’s rumours from the mound – more info the next time I get bushwhacked by a secret squirel.