Aircraft: Once in a blue moon an opportunity to take some slightly different photos comes along. And sometimes that opportunity also comes with a limitation on the number of people competing with you. And sometimes the weather also decides to help out, before showing you who's the boss!

The first few photographs are of the Red Arrows while they were at Newcastle Airport for the Sunderland Airshow 2008 - lovely sunny day, blue skies - what more could one want? It looks idyllic. Well in fact the Red Arrows were just about to leave Newcastle because they could not display at Sunderland seafront due to a very thick sea fret. The fog covered the sea based display line and the beach area where the specators were, and was so thick that it led to all flying displays being cancelled over two days!

Earlier in the year, an opportunity to go to RAF Leeming in North Yorkshire for a Friends of XXV(F) Squadron open day was not to be missed. Even if there were 1000 other extremely keen photographers there as well!! And the weather to start with was cool windy but sunny - by mid-day though the storm arrived!

But as you can see from these images, despite the competition to get that unique shot, there were lots of opportunities to get up close and make the most of this line up of British, French, German and Italian aircraft. I'll leave it to you to work out which aircraft is the Typhoon, Tornado ECR, F-16, and Harrier.

And a few of you might also be able to spot which of these images is a panorama (several images stitched together to make one large image). There's more than one, and some will not be obvious!

Towards the end of these images are a few other photos of military aircraft and helicopters. In the north of England we have a large electronic warfare range at Spadeadam plus a large firing and army training range at Otterburn. These ranges, as well as out proximity to various other low flying routes and training areas, means that we can see a wide range of aircraft flying about for the ocasional exercise and training missions. Local airfields can become a temporary base for helicopters, while the electronic warfare range can lead to some spectacular low flying and brings in aircraft that you may not normally see up here.

Below: This is an explorable Gigapan panorama of the inside of a Quick Reaction Alert hanger with Air Defence Tornado at the ready - image taken at RAF Leeming. 

 Zoom in  with your mouse wheel or use the controls in the top left of the image to have a closer look around the hanger.

Sometimes you can be in the right place at the right time - a temporary base set up on local 'unused' airfields gives the opportunity to catch helicopters refueling or setting off on a sortie. In the north of England deployments have occurred at Carlisle Airport and at ex-RAF Ouston, both close to the Spadeadam and Otterburn ranges.

Finally, several images of the Apache Longbow attack helicopter on deployment in the North of England. A few times a year or so, the Apaches are deployed to old airports near Spadeadam electronic warfare range and Otterburn ranges. In the past they made use of Carlisle airport (which in the future may be upgraded for more commercial flights, thereby limiting its use by the Army or RAF), and more recently using ex-RAF Ouston near Newcastle. Flights from here will take them to the ranges where they can train for operational duties and test systems.

These are impressive aircraft and rather scary when they're looking head on at you! Perhaps though even worse when you see them in a stand off position and realise how far away they can deal with a threat.

Sit back and relax while the slideshow takes you automatically through the images.

The photos were taken at Ouston and Spadeadam.

Remember - the image quality of all images on this page is deliberately poor. The originals are much better!