Monday, April 02, 2007

PC3 Orion 'Nimrod'

On both of the main racedays of the recent Clipsal 500 motor race held in Adelaide, the aerial opening of events was heralded by a flyby of an RAAF Orion (coastal surveillance) plane. Above, it has just completed the flyby. Below, it arrives through the fog and mist to the North of our kitchen window. Note, it's landing gear is still down!

(Photo fairly heavily modified)

I took a brief video of it flying by the balcony. You can see it if you click here (note, it may take awhile if you still rely on dialup).

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great photo, but I thought I should point out that an Orion is a very different aircraft to a Nimrod. They had a Nimrod from the UK doing flyovers a few years ago, but since then it has only been Aussie Orions.

Adelaide Gamer said...

Correct. I didn't realise. The Nimrod was made by British Aerospace and has a bulging nose. The US Orion (of which these photos were taken) was made by Lockheed. I'd always thought the Nimrod was a particular model of the Orion. Turns out I was wrong. Shows how blogging can expand the mind...