Aviation Adventures
 

While in Germany I got to take a trip to England to attend the Royal Air Force's Water Survival Course and the Royal Navy's dunker training. On the trip we went to Plymouth, England from which our nation's founders departed, and Yovil, England. All of the aerial photos were taken on the way to Plymouth and the surface level pictures were taken at Plymouth.   (Click on the thumbnails to see a larger version.)

Here is a picture of a hydroplane "flying" across the English Channel.

These are the white cliffs of Dover so often spoken about by aviators during World War II. They are one of the first things seen as approaching from Belgium.

Another picture of the cliffs farther west along the coastline.

A town along the cliffs. Here you can see the cliffs are not nearly as high.

A castle along the southern coastline of England.

Another castle along the coastline. It looks similar to the previous castle but in the full size pictures you can see the differences.

This is a castle more like I think about in midevil times although it is built on a hill and doesn't have a moat.

A picture of a farm (although a very nice one) along the way.

The air traffic controllers were kind enough to vector us over to Stonehenge so we could take some pictures. Surprisingly it was out in the middle of nowhere.

This is another but closer picture.

A nice overhead shot of the monument. From this picture you can tell how large the stones are compared to a person.

This is a picture from Plymouth Harbor of the steps that the Pilgrims departed from on their journey to the New World.

This is a monument built to memorialize the departure of the Pilgrims.

Just another but closer view.

This is one of the plaques in the monument. You might even be able to read it in the larger picture.

This plaque commemorates the 400th anniversary of the colonies. It is definitely readable in the large version.

This is a picture of a huge fort overlooking the Plymouth Harbor.

This old sailing ship was in the harbor.

Here a couple of submarines are in port. There were several more in port at the same time.

This was the purpose of the entire trip (although sight-seeing and fun were a big part of it.) This was actually a lot of fun too.

Here we are getting hoisted up off of the raft we had to inflate, crawl into, bail out and set up while waiting to be "rescued".

This is how close the helicopter comes to the ship while dropping the "survivors" onto it.