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| About to touch down | Braking, while USAF approaches from behind (that's really supposed to be a helicopter) | |
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| Vacating the runway, buzzed by USAF in the helo/airliner | Parking the CF-18 | The Saab Tunnan has also finished its flight and is taxiing to the ramp... while an AADx470 mini-jet is approaching to do some aerobatics! |
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| The AADx470 is doing those aerobatic maneuvers quite close to the ground... | ...and narrowly misses the fin of an airliner parked at the airport | Paul is flying an Airbus A340 on final approach to VRMM |
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| Meanwhile USAF has joined the aerobatic fun... in a helicopter! | Paul lands the A340 on runway 36 | And USAF gets the helicopter to display correctly for the rest of us :) |
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| Helicopter barrel rolls (1) | Helicopter barrel rolls (2) | Helicopter barrel rolls (3) |
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| Looks like someone has parked an airliner on its nose... actually that plane was a Long-EZ | USAF is recording a movie of the barrel rolls | Another airliner (N701WH) lands at runway 18 |
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| The 737 has landed, and is taxiing towards the ramp here | I still had time for one more flight, so I switched to an Airbus A321 - meanwhile another plane is trying to land but has to go around | Flight plan to Colombo made, ready to taxi (setting the baro pressure here) |
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| Another plane takes off and it's my turn to taxi (yes, that's an Austrian A321 I'm in! Apparently they fly between Sri Lanka and the Maldives...) | Turning onto the runway and backtracking | After a while I noticed a plane approaching curiously low, it almost looked like it was landing... in fact it was on final, and didn't seem to be able to hear my radio calls! |
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| The other plane (a Cessna 172) lands close by - I make a sharp right turn to avoid collision | The smaller aircraft's wingtips were just inches away from mine here - I don't think the other pilot saw me until after he had landed since he also swerved to the right at the last possible moment :O | Looks like we got away from that unscathed... starting takeoff run after the smaller plane has cleared the runway |
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| Taking off from runway 18 | Passing an oil rig while turning on course to Sri Lanka | |