Cotswold Airport Nightshoot

At the time of building this site and in fact finalising this post, we’re nearly halfway through February, remarkably. What does this mean and why is this even relevant? Well, in short, airshows tend to finish in October in the UK and the days are shorter, therefore it becomes a little more difficult to indulge in the aviation side of my photography. That being said, there’s a plethora of incredible museums and venues across the UK which always produce excellent photo opportunities.

The autumnal and winter months also produce some of the best, if not the absolute best light of the year which brings me to the subject of this first blog – the Threshold Aero Cotswold Airport Nightshoot on the 12th November 2022.

After a quite beautiful drive through the Cotswolds I arrived at the former RAF Kemble about an hour or so before sunset. The sky was clear and wind calm! At around 16:50 the queue of cars were given the green light to drive onto the pan (the area where ‘live’ aircraft are parked). With hi-vis vests literally everywhere, a short brief was delivered and by 17:30 it was time to get to work with the camera.

The big interest in attending this shoot was the chance, potentially one of the last, to photograph the English Electric Canberra PR.9 ‘XH134’ before the airframe is moved to a more public but less photographic position on the airfield. In 2015 I was lucky enough to see this aircraft display for one of the last times at the Abingdon Air & Country show before it was grounded following regulation changes – the most shocking thing about that is that I lost the images, still don’t know where they are. So this opportunity provided by Threshold Aero to photograph this jet under starlight was too good to pass up.

Also present where 3 Jumbos, two Blackburn Buccaneers and a Pitts Special that performed a ground run – truly awesome.

Props to Threshold Aero for organising a cracking event. It was the first time I’ve been to one of their events and will definitely go again. I’ve shared a few of my favourites from this evening – a couple of which I deemed good enough to make the portfolio so eventually you’ll be able to buy prints – if you’re interested…

Thanks and until next time.

---