Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Comment From Dave Key (MilitaryAirshows.co.uk)

'There is not much in the way of foreign display aircraft again at Waddington but then again we will get to see the Indian AF Su-30s & IL-78 even if its only a flypast as well as on the ground. Also the Sentinel, E-3D Sentry, and Nimrod recon. aircraft in formation, also the first display of the new Sentinel with a flypast with the Red Arrows and of course the new RAF Role Demo. What frequencies do you expect to be used at Waddington Airshow?'

Thanks Dave -btw I like the glider pic on your site, http://www.militaryairshows.co.uk/ I was an active PPL with the Leicester Aero Club for many years.

Getting back on subject, I'm not certain about show frequencies for this year, but here's a list of Waddington published frequencies and also the 'general' frequencies that are allocated for airshows only:

Waddington:
Approach: 250.85
DATIS: 291.675
Ground: 342.125
Radar (standby) 125.35
Radar (zone) 127.35 / 259.525
Departures: 308.625
Director: 378.5
Tower: 256.675

Airshow Allocations:
130.5
130.625
130.675
132.9
134.55
135.475

It's also worth including the NATO common frequencies on your scanner at an airshow too:

Tower: 122.1 / 257.8
Radar: 123.3 / 344.0 / 362.3 / 385.4

Hope this is useful!

Mark.

Friday, June 22, 2007

Kinetic SBS-1

David has posted the following comment regarding the SBS-1:

'Re the SBS-1, just a small anecdote. I was looking at the demo on in M Lynch & Sons' place in Chertsey a while back and noticed it was even picking up aircraft taxi-ing at LHR. As I'd just come back from Moscow, I watched BA872 until it obviously took off and headed East.'
David. Egham.

Thanks for that David - that's one piece of equipment I am drooling over! Just haven't worked out the sales pitch to my wife yet as to how it will be £500 well spent!!

Interestingly there is a a new web-based product similar to the SBS-1. It's called the Airnav RadarBox - it appears to be about £100 cheaper and comes with 1 years free access but after that, you have to pay £120 a year to access the system via the web! over a few years that would work out considerably more expensive than just buying the SBS-1.

Btw I am considering attending Waddington airshow again this year but unfortunately it looks a rather 'weak' line up again, very little foreign air force participation. For a two day event, Waddington is becoming bit of a let-down, what do you think?

cheers for now, Mark.