Aeroplanes

Some aircraft flying over Hyde on the evening of 28 May 2019 just a few minutes before landing at Manchester Airport. Not so many coming over at the moment because of the travel restrictions.

6.42pm Aurigny flight GR78 from Guernsey to Manchester, ATR 72-500 reg. G-VZON

6.52pm Emirates flight EK19 from Dubai to Manchester, Airbus A380-842 reg. A6-EVB

6.57pm Loganair flight LM597 from Inverness to Manchester, Embraer ERJ145ER reg. G-SAJN

6.59pm Oman Air flight WY105 from Muscat to Manchester, Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner reg. A4O-SD

7.04pm KLM flight KL1081 from Amsterdam to Manchester, Embraer ERJ175STD reg. PH-EXX

7.08pm Vueling flight VY8748 from Barcelona to Manchester, Airbus A320-214 reg. EC-LAA

7.17pm Qatar Airways flight QR23 from Doha to Manchester, Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner reg. A7-BCA

7.34pm Flybe flight BE487 from Belfast to Manchester, Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 reg. G-PRPF

ATR72-500

ATR 72-500 G-VZON on Aurigny Flight GR670 passing over Hyde at 7.53am on 25 April 2017 just prior to landing (about 3 minutes later) at Manchester Airport.

View from an Aeroplane

Our eldest son and his family live on Guernsey and we visit them there every couple of months or so. Flying is a bit boring if the weather's cloudy, but I rather enjoy it when it's clear and it's interesting trying to identify the places we pass over. It's easy enough when taking off and landing, both in Manchester and Guernsey, and I've got some rather nice photographs of the coastline of Guernsey and the area around Hyde, where we live, and Denton & Stockport. During the flight, which we are told is at 17,000 feet (about 3¼ miles), I look out for features which I may be able to identify later - the Isle of Wight is obviously easy to recognise, and Southampton's on the mainland just to the north of that, but I've also got photographs of Derby, Northampton and Leicester which I've been able to identify from the areas around the football and rugby stadiums. Returning from our latest trip I noticed what looked like a landing strip, but it was only when I realised that what seemed like a kart track next to it was Donington Park race circuit that I could see that the 'landing strip' was actually East Midlands Airport. Here's a photograph I took (and I've enlarged it a bit to make it clearer):

The outline of the Donington Park circuit which you can see isn't the actual track, it's the gravel run-off areas on the outside of each corner.

We fly to and from Guernsey using the Channel Islands airline, Aurigny Air Services, and the aircraft on the Manchester flight is usually one of the airline's three ATR72 500s, G-BWDB, G-COBO or G-VZON. On the last trip we came home on G-VZON, and here are some photographs of that aircraft on the morning flight GR670 from Guernsey on 13th May 2015. It passed over Hyde at 9.39am.

ATR 72-500

This aeroplane was on the apron at Guernsey Airport on 23rd February 2015 when we were waiting to join our flight home to Manchester following our recent visit to the island.

It's a Blue Islands ATR 72-500, registration number G-ISLI. According to the aircraft's flight history it arrived at Guernsey from Southampton at 15:46 that day, took off for Southampton at 18:08, and was then back in Guernsey again at 19:57.