ATOM01 61-2667 Boeing WC-135W atmospheric sampling aeroplane left Mildenhall heading North

While rotorcraft are hardly rare down here in Frome I had not seen an Osprey doing a low level transit earlier this evening, are they all USMC birds? .

. I had seen them transitioning before going into RMA Sandhurst when i lived over the road in Camberley and they were the noisiest 'prop' aircraft I had seen since the Fairey Rotadyne 60 odd years before. In the cruise they are marginally quieter and less harsh sounding but they cant be very stealthy if employed on special ops and I though that was one of their roles in life. This one was a good mile away and intially not visible behind some trees but it sounded like someone had suddenly started a giant diesel farm tractor right behind me instantly drawing attention.

i f feathered Ospreys had lawyers since they are both beautiful and largely silent , they would sue for defamation - the Mil Ospreys are more akin to a very fat heavy wood pigeon which also generates an enormous amount of noise in all aspects of flight
All that said I do admire the technology on an mil Osprey , just the tiniest imbalance must shake the thing to pieces.

Probably the same V-22 I saw heading South West over the Somerset Levels about 16.00 today. Knew it wasn't a chopper due to tbe noise and then into view. Too far away for a clear snap but ye bins showed what it was....damm noisey

Likely a USAF Osprey from Mildenhall. There are around 10 based there and they do gad about the UK though I've only ever had a distant view of a Thames transit and saw bugger all while up in Osprey territory a couple of months ago...

Maybe taking the scenic route?

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....1ab24583ef.jpg

ZZ175 completes a fly through at Brize on arrival now.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....31f4c68e67.jpg
United States C-40 arriving at Edinburgh last night.

Just heard the gentle putter of a Gipsy Major - Hornet Moth G-ADUR out of Old Buckenham. Couldn't see it, bloody sycamore trees...

Stop Press: Landing at Weybridge? :)

I was looking at FR24 to see what was going on around Kabul as we approach the deadline and I noticed 2 Kam Air A340's shuttling between Masar l Sharif and Abu Dhabi. As KA is an Afghan airline and Masar l Sharif was one of the first cities to fall to the Taliban I wondered if these were scheduled flights or something special.

At this time there is still one C17 on the ground in Kabul.

There must have been more C17's there as three have just left Kabul. Presumably the last to do so.

UAV out of Waddington, currently (11:34) heading up the coast near Hartlepool - callsign DRON :)

The Red Arrows have just arrived at Bournemouth for the airshow week.
Nothing showing on Flightradar24, are they stealth?

AN26 Identity
 

AN26 UR-UZM passed through Prestwick between 15.40 yesterday and 09.00 today. They were not giving much away about it's identity, just a hex code 50848C on adsb and googling the registration results in just one rather odd result. Someone on here can surely enlighten me...

Possibly a new aircraft to the Ukraine register being delivered from South America. Last time I was at Opa Locka (blimey, 20 years ago!) there were a number of AN-12s and AN-26s parked up. About 30 years ago I visited Key West (and had a ride in a Waco with the late Fred Cabanas) and there was a Cuban AN-24 and DC-3 parked there - flown by defectors and awaiting collection by their owners or so I was told!

I heard that they have been purchased in Colombia nad given a Ukrainian reg to travel back to their birthplace for Mx and a revamp for future use. There was another one last week.

Thanks SHJ. I think you are correct. I was just wrong-footed by the only hit from Google which appeared to be a link to the Dominican Republic spotters Facebook page with text in Hindi (no, l am not a drug user). Mrs 134brat frequently criticises my Google search skills but, even by my standards, that was a strange outcome.

It's a former SELVA Colombia aircraft, originally delivered to Aeroflot in 1982 and destined for Konstanta Aviakompania.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....4e6575b26b.jpg

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....31d9f849bb.jpg

Still seems to be sporting the rather impressive SELVA crest (and possibly the name "Maribel") on the nose.

Many thanks Mr Reid. I hope the 'nose art' is the distinguishing feature for this aircraft. Many AN26s have passed through Prestwick in my lifetime. I remember rushing down on the train from Paisley to see a batch of five on their way to Cuba still in their Aeroflot basic colours. Spotting seems so bland these days.

Shetland Isles BN2 Islander just passed over Akro Towers in N Yorks heading south east. I presume it's heading down south for scheduled maintenance. I know there's an BN approved maintenance facility at Cumbernauld, surely that would be more cost effective?

Its stablemate was at Leeds, presumably also on scheduled maintenance, for about six weeks at the beginning of the year.

Where that amount of work is concerned, I suspect that other considerations outweigh the cost of an extra couple of hundred miles positioning.