Military Low-Level Flying from F-4 to F-35
A pictorial display of low flying in Cumbria and beyond
A new book by Scott Rathbone featuring over 300 colour images of over 70 types of aircraft from 20 air arms between 1986 and 2022
Published by Air World an imprint of Pen and Sword
Find us on Twitter @LowMilitary @AviationBooksPS @penswordbooks
Much more than just images, this book contains an outline of low-level flying within the UK with details of events, eye witness accounts and examples of traffic levels throughout the period covered. The image captions provide varying details, but where known give details of exercises or other reasons why a particular aircraft was photographed at that time.
Lots of colour variety and schemes......
This book is likely to be a one-off due to historic low-level images being extremely rare. Aviation photography of this kind really started to grow between 2007 and 2012 with the emergence of digital photography and exposure of images on the internet, long after the peak of low-level flying during the Cold War years and the abundance of colours that could be witnessed back then.....
It isn't just about the fighters.......
While the fighters are the most thrilling to witness, low-level is so much more, with training aircraft, transports and helicopters utilising the low flying areas on a regular basis.......
From long since retired types to all aspects of modern military......
From Cold War fighters to the current crop of fighters, trainers, transports and helicopters, the variety of low-level images on show in this book will probably never be repeated. With plenty of visiting air arms also included, it is about much more than RAF low flying........
About the Author
Scott Rathbone was born in Altrincham, Cheshire, in 1971. A Railway worker of 35 years, currently 28 as a Train Driver, Scott's love of aircraft began in 1982 with family day trips often incorporating a stop off at Manchester Airport leading to a love of airliners primarily, although he also developed a fascination with events during the Falklands Conflict with a scrapbook full of newspaper cuttings. Although keen on taking photos in his youth, it wasn't until his early 20s that he acquired a decent 35mm camera and this also coincided with a much larger interest in military aviation which would eventually lead to many memorable experiences. Although he had a few railway related images published in the late 80s/early90s in secondary publications, it wasn't until 2001 when he had his first aviation image published in a major magazine, which would become a regular event for over a decade and helped with various media visits, the highlights being two US Navy Aircraft Carrier embarks, one in 2004 and one in 2006. Low-level photography has been his passion though and 2001 was also when Scott first delved into the world of low-level photography, instantly becoming hooked and therefore dedicating most of his time to it going forwards. A good proportion of his published work would be low-level images, which for much of his early years was a relatively niche market with only a handful of regulars partaking. One of those was Adrian Walker, whom Scott met in the Lake District in 2003. Adrian first started low-level photography back in 1985 and was therefore one of the very few doing it in the 80s. It was having listened to Adrian's memories and by keeping in touch with him that Scott had the idea for this book, feeling that with the general furore over low-level photography in more recent years, that there would surely be plenty of interest in what had gone before that many will have missed out on. And so after a few years of hard work the book is finally here, with more to come in the future, so watch this space......
