Planes and stuff

As I already mentioned some times, the smaller neighbour island of Porto Santo of less than 5000 inhabitants, doesn't have an Hospital but a Health Center with ER that is enough for most of the small things that happen daily but if something more serious comes up, Medical Evacuations have to be made to Madeira. With the summer, when island populations rises in great amount, the need for Medevacs also rise... Yesterday, in 16 hours, 4 Medevacs had to be made to Madeira. This isn't usuall, I guess it was one of those days.... 3 of the Medevacs were made by the Portuguese Air Force EH-101 (16912) detached at AM3 (military instalations on Porto Santo Airport) and another (during the night) by the C-295 also based there.. I didn't manage to get the EH on any of the 2 daylight Evacuations but, after dinner, Paulo called me saying the EH had once more just taken off to Madeira with another Medevac... Taking some night shots on the Merlin is definitely on my spotting whishlis...

Comprei hoje o último número da Mais Alto , a revista da Força Aérea . Aguardava este número com alguma expectativa, já que o artigo de capa, sobre a Esquadra 301 , tinha sido escrito pelo António Luís, com fotos do Paulo Mata, os homens fortes do Blog Pássaro de Ferro . Há dias, em casa do António Luís, este tinha-me mostrado algumas das fantásticas fotos nocturnas do Paulo Mata, tiradas aquando de uma visita deles à BA5, para elaboração deste artigo e, conjuntamente com os textos a que o A. Luís já nos habituou relativos à aviação militar, a receita era garantida. Realmente não desapontou, o artigo vale bem a pena! Ainda neste número, a destacar: o trabalho escrito pelo Ricardo Nunes, "patrão" do Fórum de Aviação Militar 9G's e piloto da Esq.751, acerca da missão de resgate de tripulantes do MV "Kea" ao largo da costa da Galiza, por um Merlin português, com ele como co-piloto. O artigo está disponível online aqui . Para finalizar, esperava-me ai...

Last Wednesday caught the PoAF Merlin on a quick-stop at Madeira, on its way to the Selvagens (Savage Islands). The "Selvagens" are a small group of islands that belong to the Madeira Archipelago and are located around 250km south of Madeira, not far away (around 165km) from the Spanish Canary Islands. It's a natural reservation since 1971 and quite disputed by the spanishes due to the Exclusive Economic Area that it adds to Portugal.... Anyway, back to the Merlin , one of the bad things of photographing helicopters is that you never know where it will land or take-off and although you are on the "right" area for shooting planes it doesn't mean that will do the same for helos... In this case, I had luck, they made some fantastic approach/landing/take-off, right on the spot...a big thumbs up for the crew ;) It arrived from Porto Santo into runway 05 Taxiing into the apron... ....where they unloaded some youg passengers. (PoAF candidates return...

On the same day of the arrival of the Atlético Bilbao, the Portuguese Air Force EH-101 based at Porto Santo was quite busy during a few hours. It made a couple of Medical Evacuations on the sea. The first one was from cruise ship "Aida Vita", 240 miles from Madeira and the second one was from a petrol carrier ship 70 miles off our island. After the arrival of Privilege with the spanish team, I left the airport. Not longer after that received a call telling me that there was one of the new C-295 of the Portuguese Air Force (16704) at the airport and that the Merlin was also there refueling, before proceeding to another Medical Evacuation on the sea...crap!! The problem with military traffic, specially on a civilian airport is that you never know when they're coming... Anyway, later (around 15.30) was driving at Funchal when I noticed the EH-101 descending into the west part of the city...it had to be landing on the Hospital helipad. Went there, off course. Not many...