I know that you're thinking that this posting is going to be about the "Fly Boys" in the souk, or some such like, but you'd be wrong.
Who among you can remember the seaplane which used to do sightseeing trips up and down the Nile around the Luxor/Esna area? I seem to remember that the last that I heard; it was out of commission and had been so for a couple of years, awaiting spare parts. You can imagine my surprise to hear such an aircraft in the Luxor skies this morning? I dashed out onto our terrace in time to catch this thing flying firstly downstream and then back upstream:
It took me a few minutes to get the old camera working properly, so only caught the aircraft on its upstream journey. I couldn't see any floats on it either, so it would seem not to be a resurrection of the former tourist service. Pity!
Then, just now, I heard a helicopter again! Of course today is the anniversary of the Revolution, so I would expect the same 'copter as we had the other week, complete with its underslung rocket pods etc!!! But no; it's just flying around hither and thither, and dropping things. At first it dropped some floating-down things, with flags on, over Abu-Haggag Square. When it had turned, over the Nile, and come back again; it dropped what looked like a load of leaflets in the same area. It did that a few times, and also dropped some of the floaty things beyond the railway line, about Salakhana (Slaughterhouse) Street. Quite fascinating to watch, I can tell you!
In the second pic, you can just see his tail rotor disappearing behind the satellite dish, and what he's dropped is visible at about 4 o'clock from that.
Nothing else to report, I'm afraid. Other than a rather loud convoy going down our main street earlier, with much cheering and people hanging our of windows to get a good view. Oh, I nearly forgot: I managed to get my electrical bits and pieces this morning and we have stair lights and everything again. I knew you'd be pleased about that!
I'm hoping that Freda is going to knock up some strawberry crumble for later on, it'll be delicious. See you later.
Who among you can remember the seaplane which used to do sightseeing trips up and down the Nile around the Luxor/Esna area? I seem to remember that the last that I heard; it was out of commission and had been so for a couple of years, awaiting spare parts. You can imagine my surprise to hear such an aircraft in the Luxor skies this morning? I dashed out onto our terrace in time to catch this thing flying firstly downstream and then back upstream:
Then, just now, I heard a helicopter again! Of course today is the anniversary of the Revolution, so I would expect the same 'copter as we had the other week, complete with its underslung rocket pods etc!!! But no; it's just flying around hither and thither, and dropping things. At first it dropped some floating-down things, with flags on, over Abu-Haggag Square. When it had turned, over the Nile, and come back again; it dropped what looked like a load of leaflets in the same area. It did that a few times, and also dropped some of the floaty things beyond the railway line, about Salakhana (Slaughterhouse) Street. Quite fascinating to watch, I can tell you!
Nothing else to report, I'm afraid. Other than a rather loud convoy going down our main street earlier, with much cheering and people hanging our of windows to get a good view. Oh, I nearly forgot: I managed to get my electrical bits and pieces this morning and we have stair lights and everything again. I knew you'd be pleased about that!
I'm hoping that Freda is going to knock up some strawberry crumble for later on, it'll be delicious. See you later.
That small plane you saw was a Grob G 115, a german made trainer, they can be used for spotting and reconnasense, maybe they were checking up on the boats on the nile, I have never heard of a plane landing on it though, it must be quite a sight, seeing that
ReplyDeleteThe other is a Russian made Mil Mi-8, it is the most highly produced helicopter in the world, does all kind of jobs (I guess dropping 'floaty' things is one of the jobs they can do :-) )