RAF Northolt Night Time Photocall

Words and photography Mike Freer, additional photographs Stuart Freer

The last in the series of highly successful photocalls during 2009, was held at RAF Northolt on the evening of December 3rd. The temperature was not far off freezing and the assembled photographers looked more like an expeditionary party to the North Pole.

Over seventy aviation photographers were invited to this charity event to help raise funding for the restoration of the 11 Group Operations Room at RAF Northolt. This historic building played a significant role during the Battle of Britain.

A small number of aircraft were parked on the ramp in superb lighting conditions. Unfortunately, there were a number of aircraft that had to cancel at the last moment including a Red Arrows display team Hawk T1 and, what would have been the “star” attraction, a Canadiar CL-415 fire fighting aircraft, operated by the French Securite Civile (Department of Civil Defence and Emergency). Though it had been flight-planned, bad weather on the continent prevented it from attending.

Most of the aircraft on view had not appeared at previous night time photo events including an elusive resident 32(R) Squadron Bae-146 CC2 which appeared along with one of the Squadron’s Bae-125 CC3s. Another scoop was the 84 Squadron Griffin HAR2 which flew in from RAF Shawbury.

Arriving from RAF Valley just before the event was a 208(R) Squadron Bae Hawk T1 which encountered braking problems on landing. Arriving during the evening was a Beech Super King Air 200 of 45 (R) Squadron from RAF Cranwell which gave photographers an ideal opportunity to photographic this aircraft with its engines running. An added bonus was the arrival of a Dassault Falcon 900EX operated by Compagnia Aeronautica Italiana.

The event was a great success and raised £1500 towards the restoration project. Everyone had a most enjoyable evening rounded off with much needed hot coffee and Bacon rolls. We eagerly await the next event to be held in March.

We wish to thank Group Captain Tom Barrett (Station Commander), Wing Commander Steve Pitcher (OC 32 Squadron), Flight Lieutenant Jim Bradshaw (Project Officer) and last but not least Phillip Dawe (Event Organiser) for organising and hosting this event.