Post by viscount on Jul 26, 2014 23:31:50 GMT 1
R.A.F. Valley, visit Wednesday 23rd July, 0815 - 1325
With a good weather forecast, and with runway 13 (landing from the north-west) likely to be the active thought I would visit Valley again after such an active (although with no visitors) day around 5 weeks ago. However experienced a very different pattern of activity with a limited number of movements. A number of explanations were offered, however the most verifiable was that the Station was holding a ‘families day’ event in the sports field adjacent to the camp. Also a number of No.208 Squadron Hawk T.1 aircraft were away on an exchange, a course through No.4 Squadron has just ended, with the next 2 courses at ground school stage for the next few weeks and the general slowing of activity during the school summer holiday period (when a number of the civilian maintenance staff take their annual family holiday leave) all not helping. Least verifiable was a story that the Hawk T.2 cannot operate effectively in extreme heat! The heat was far from ‘extreme’ and many sales of the improved Hawk have been to desert countries.
As always with Valley, it was a tale of “well you should have been here yesterday”, when there was a pair of Tyhoons, or the previous week when there was a detachment of 4 Tucanos operating from Valley all week (with 8 different aircraft involved over 5 days). However on with the log:
AIRCRAFT NOTED, 0815 – 1325, Wednesday 23rd JULY 2014.
Sea King HAR.3: XZ587/C – 203 ‘seahorse’ on nose. Moved across and landed on the Station sport’s field for pm
XZ592/H – a rather dirty example, almost black in parts.
XZ596/- - no code worn (would be L), 203 Sqdn numbers on starboard nose
XZ597/M – 203 Sqdn numbers on nose. Did not move, so likely on 22 Sqdn rescue standby
Bell 412 Griffin: ZJ242/L DHFS
ZJ243/E DHFS – one of these moved across to Station sport’s field pm
A grey Griffin had been at RAF Valley for several weeks, but departed the day before, presumably for Shawbury.
AW.139: ZR283 – active
Hawk T.1: one noted beyond Control Tower on low power engine runs
Hawk T.2: ZK025/P, ZK029/T & ZK037/AB did fly during the morning, with sorties of around 55 minutes duration. Others could be seen lined up on the distant apron, but
did not fly during the morning.
VISITORS
G-JIBO Jetstream 32 - Linksair, on the morning Cardiff rotation
ZF290/290 Tucano T.1 – arrived 0943 and departed a couple of hours later
XX219/242/244/245/310/311/319/322/323/325 (10) Hawk T.1s – The Red Arrows, landed 1208 (same 10 as noted at RIAT Fairford early July)
XW324/U (G-BWSG) Jet Provost T.5 – red/white scheme, CFS badge. Landed 1232
A Spitfire was expected around 1430.
The Spitfire was programmed to land, and in mid afternoon display; followed a little later by the Jet Provost T.5; with the ‘Red Arrows’ not until 1700. The Red Arrows would recover after their display, and then much later in the evening depart to overfly Glasgow and the Commonwealth Games Ceremony, before recovering to Leuchars to night stop.
FOR INFORMATION
Clearly anyone calling into RAF Valley during the next 6 weeks or so will find movements at a slower pace during the summer months. Into the future, information I gathered is that 203 Sqdn, the Sea King conversion training unit will disband soon as the last course currently under training. So Sea King movements will dramatically decrease – ending completely when 22 Sqdn’s rescue role ends in mid 2015, likely a few months later than intended due to delays in equipment and facilities at Caernarfon. However the Hawk T.1 has had a reprieve until 2018, much to the relief of the civilian maintenance contractors employed on the type, who had been fearing imminent redundancy. The facilities and hangars vacated by 203 & 22 Squadrons are almost certain to form the core facilities for the turbo-prop initial training courses for RAF pilots when the Tucanos are withdrawn from Yorkshire bases and replaced, possibly as early as 2018.
As a footnote, the BBC1 Wales news programme was reporting that the Cardiff route million Pound subsidy is up for renewal in December, and that the number of passengers had declined, with now only 14 per flight (someone needs to tell the politician ‘making waves’ that the service is currently flown by an 18 seater aircraft)!
