Beechcraft?

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18 years 5 months

Posts: 495

Spotted this flying over the other day while at a motorway services. I'm sure FlightRadar said it was a Beechcraft but I can't be sure.

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Member for

18 years 11 months

Posts: 8,847

Storch, Pioneer? I must have the same beer mat!!

Member for

18 years 5 months

Posts: 495

How about this one then. Slingsby?
There needs to be a thread in here for general plane spots and IDs.

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11 years 2 months

Posts: 901

Pilatus Porter?

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18 years 5 months

Posts: 495

Pilatus Porter?

Had to google that. It does indeed look like that, a STOL plane. Pretty cool too.

Member for

18 years 11 months

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D-FIPS, Turbo Porter was in the U.K. last month! Maybe?

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13 years

Posts: 422

If the motorway services were the Chester Services on the M56 then it is quite definitely the German Turbo Porter, D-FIPS, as it has spent several days recently (at least last Thursday and Friday) up and down over the Wirral on repeated parallel tracks and on the days before that to the North and then West of Liverpool City. The Turbo Porter is apparently operating out of Blackpool Airport. The tracks do show on FR24.

Was the Slingsby motor glider shot taken in the vicinity of Denbigh I wonder?

Member for

19 years 5 months

Posts: 9,821

As the others have said, it's a Pilatus.
Beech doesn't produce a high wing aircraft...and the broadly similar Cessna Caravan has tricycle gear.

The second photo is very probably a Slingsby (even though I've flown in one, I can't guarantee it isn't some obscure offshoot or homebuilt) as there are many in the UK. When trying to ID an aircraft, it never hurts to play the odds. :)

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13 years

Posts: 422

To me the wide bulge of the fuselage (to house the side-by-side cockpit), coupled with the 'bulky' shape of the fuselage under the wing housing the central wheel is a give-away that this is the Slingsby motor-glider. The Fournier RF-3/4 and two seat RF-5 are much sleaker in the central fuselage being single-seat, or the two pilots being one behind the other.

Will be interested when 'Larry 66' next looks-in to find out where he was when he took the photos.

Member for

18 years 5 months

Posts: 495

To me the wide bulge of the fuselage (to house the side-by-side cockpit), coupled with the 'bulky' shape of the fuselage under the wing housing the central wheel is a give-away that this is the Slingsby motor-glider. The Fournier RF-3/4 and two seat RF-5 are much sleaker in the central fuselage being single-seat, or the two pilots being one behind the other.

Will be interested when 'Larry 66' next looks-in to find out where he was when he took the photos.

I was at a motorway services called Moto on the way to Chester Zoo. But it was about an hour into the journey from Darlington to Chester.

Member for

9 years 2 months

Posts: 52

Your motor glider looks very much like a Falke, so either a Slingsby built T61 or a Scheibe SF-25. There are about 100 on the UK register, split roughly 50/50 between the two manufacturers, so not that rare. Quite a few are ex RAF (Air Cadets) Ventures.