Plane Spotting

What follows is a bit long winded, but when I look back at it , it will remind me of the day as memory fades easily these days...

The benefit of improving fitness is that I can get into the hills more reliably now and I can be a bit more confident to go alone.  I'd planned to get out and try a bit of aircraft spotting, to be fair to Jess I didn't want to ask her to sit about for 6 hours on a hill with the prospect of absolutely nothing happening.
I found a spot on the map at the end of Thirlmere, this is within the military low fly zone and a favourite route for aircraft coming north into the lakes. I staked myself out about 600feet above the lake at the northern end.
The morning was quiet except for the company of a lizard and a Red Darter dragonfly.  There is no timetable published for military aircraft, unlike trainspotting where you have at least some confidence in a successful mission.
The other problem is that if jets are coming at 500mph often you don't see them until you hear them and that's too late.  Settings need to be dialled in to the camera and you cannot be distracted from the horizon for example by a lizard or a Red Darter...
After about 4 hours sitting on a rock , tea, sandwiches and eccles cake were exhausted and I was beginning to think of heading down.
At this point I heard the sound of propellers and looked down the lake to see a pair of Texans, the RAF's turboprop trainer aircraft. (Black plane in Extra).. 
From 1pm there were a steady procession of spotters coming up to join me until we were a group of 8 camped around. I must admit I felt a bit underpowered with my APS-C Sony A6700, these guys were serious, all full frame and massive telephoto lenses.  They are a friendly bunch, we exchanged names, home towns (one was down from Aberdeen!) and tales of wrong shutter speeds, wrong positions and various hard luck stories.
I came up with a camera and a marmite sarny, these guys came up with serious kit :  an airband RF scanner picking up communication between aircraft and air traffic control. One was looking at a website with flight radar tracking aircraft all over the UK.. One seemed to have contacts in the military and informed us there was likely to be 4x F15 coming up from USAF Lakenheath. One had his wife in his kitchen down in the south lakes who texted him with aircraft numbers and direction of any aircraft flying over.
I became aware of another group about 300ft above us on a ledge which I learned was called "Top Shelf". A call came in to Adrian with us from one of the top shelfers to enquire if Sean was down here with us (he was) and if he was to inform him he was a "Tw@t" 
At this point there was a interjection from website radar man to say USAF Osprey heading north from RAF Mildenhall. Apparently they had been grounded and not seen for some months so there was a bit of scepticism. The 4 x F15s did not materialize, the grapevine rumour was they could not get a tanker for refuel..? (I didn't want to lay bare my lack of intel on any of this and just nodded where I thought appropriate). 
Getting into the afternoon the Osprey disappeared off the map which can happen for various reasons apparently. But then Website radar man picked up 2 RAF Typhoons coming down the east coast from Scotland.  Nobody said it but I could feel everyone wishing the Typhoons would head our way.
At this point there was a pretty unintelligible squawk on the radio ,  RF scanner man decoded this as "clearance for low level" or similar and the anticipation was palpable.. As we looked down the lake into the valley beyond (Dunmail Raise) there was something just coming into view but it veered off before entering the valley.  After few minutes there was a shout from "Top Shelf" and slowly each of us began to pick out the unmistakeable shape of the incoming Osprey over Dunmail and dropping down to maybe 200ft above the lake. I had a bit of time to experiment with shutter speeds going through a range to try to get the propellor movement but keeping the aircraft sharp, In extras is a front on view down to 1/125sec. As it came up the lake and began flying by I was panning and increasing shutter speed, I was quite pleased to get a sharp image at 1/200 although this froze the rotors - main blip.
I must admit I let out an internal "woohoo" as it went by still trying to give the impression I was not a complete novice!
20 minutes of calm and I was thinking of heading down when a text came through from Adrian's "wife in the kitchen"  - 2 aircraft symbols & N. Then RF scanner squawk.. "chhhht - Low level.  Scanner man informed - permission to go low level and an English accent ! 
Less than a minute and they were on us, 2 Typhoons into the valley 500mph at 200ft.. No time to mess about 1/1600 rapid burst mode, AF-C,  trying to keep the focus lock on but having to re-acquire lock multiple times,  it's hard to keep them in the viewfinder and zoom out as they are coming in. This time no woohoo for me, more of an expletive under the breath..
 I packed up, thanked everyone for their company and sort of skipped down the hill, the last bit of luck was not to get a parking fine after my ticket had expired 2 hours previously.