❤️✈️ Professor in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at the University of Southampton
Joined March 2011
- Tweets 3,951
- Following 902
- Followers 944
- Likes 27,436
862 Photos and videos
Pinned Tweet
6 Mar 2024
The last Boeing 727 ever built is still airworthy and has a very important job (clue in the livery!). In this video you can see the combination of a team of three awesome aviators 75t of deliciously analogue trijet skim the North Sea at 150ft and 170mph. Many thanks to @2Excel_Aviation and @oilspillexperts for this unique insight into their super cool ops!
32
100
692
286,157
Andras Sobester retweeted
May 24
This is probably the best look at the shockwaves I’ve seen from the latest Starship flight.
Captured from a GoPro I clamped onto a proper camera to record simultaneous video. (I’ll show you the photo the better camera took in the reply)
497
2,878
22,476
770,574
May 18
Was this the largest number of aircrew saved in a single incident by Martin-Baker seats? The collision and the really awkward angles (aircraft tangled up) make this all the more remarkable. Hats off to MB for the superb engineering achievement.
May 18
Yesterday, two Boeing E/A-18G Growlers collided mid-air during an airshow demonstration at Mountain Home AFB, Idaho.
All four pilots successfully ejected using the Martin-Baker US14A (NACES) Ejection Seat.
#EngineeringForLife
2
110
May 14
Southampton Airport reporting ‘showers in the vicinity’ - this is it!
2
91
May 3
The evening flight to Guernsey (Channel Islands) departing in the last seconds of the ‘golden hour’ - ATR 72-600, G-ORAI, eighth leg of the day for this busy Aurigny turboprop.
3
145
Apr 27
I’ve given a second life in my house to this exit sign after its retirement from the cabin of an A320. I’d always assumed that these things had a bulb in them, but the tech is much more interesting - it is a copper-doped zinc-sulphide electroluminescent panel that glows cyan when excited by high voltage, high frequency AC. It took me a while to figure out how to emulate the 115V/400Hz AC bus of the Airbus, but this lovely (if somewhat mundane) piece of aviation history, made 30 years ago by Loctite Luminescent Systems Inc., is, once again, indicating the way out!
1
2
98
Apr 15
A niche aero engineering gripe. In such a tightly regulated industry, why is the content of type certificate data sheets not standardised? At least per airworthiness standard. Or aeroplane class. A standard form.
What we have instead is “‘round about here you’ll no doubt be looking for the VA and Vne. LOL, no. Here’s a 16-digit reference to a fuel cap thread specification document held in the Vatican Library in a single copy, and the maximum allowable distance between the pilot’s eyebrows.”
1
1
159
Apr 7
‘Spitfire90’ is airborne from Runway 20 at Southampton Airport, flashing the famous K5054 serial and its distinctive planform in the spring sunshine...
And we’re OFF… Day 1 – Leg 1!
Approx 13:00, @spitfiresdotcom ‘K5054’ will depart Southampton Airport, before linking up with F-35s and the @rafbbmf near RAF Marham. The formation will then recover to RAF Coningsby, escorted by the BBMF, just after 14:25.
#Spitfire90
185
Mar 15
Uh-oh. The Condor ‘beach towel’ livery has jumped the species barrier.
2
17
2,250
Jan 29
♥️ Neuralink ftw ♥️
Sebastian Gomez-Pena, who is paralysed from the neck down, is one of the first people in the UK to receive Elon Musk’s brain chip. "It's magical," he tells Sky's @t0mclark3, "it's cool to see that when I think about moving my hand something actually happens."
2
264
Jan 14
Puddles of dense fog lingering over much of the South as the Sun rises this morning. Crisp and clear up here, 2-500m visibility in the fog banks… A few extra laps of holding included for the first Southampton arrivals of the day.
1
2
138
Jan 3
An advantage of a crisp, winter day, with blue skies and low Sun, is much better views of air traffic... Here is a Boeing 777-300ER, wearing American Airlines’s special retro ‘Flagship’ livery, climbing through 20,000ft over the New Forest, at 410 knots GS, en route from LHR to MIA.
1
1
4
391
26 Nov 2025
My latest acquisition - a rather beautiful Teledyne Avionics AoA gauge from the 80s. Comes with a knob that allows the pilot to set a desired Vapproach/Vstall, which then sets a bug on the dial opposite at the required normalised alpha.
2
3
289
20 Nov 2025
One advantage of a bright autumn day in Southampton - good view of one of the European Cargo Airbus A340-600s, descending into BOH, trailing crisp vortex cores behind its winglets… There is something very majestic about the A346…
1
1
301
Andras Sobester retweeted
27 Oct 2025
Captured last night- probably the coolest comet shot I've ever gotten. I've never seen such a dynamic tail on a come. Incredible active, and moving quickly, which makes photographing it a challenge.
See how it moves in the reply.
855
4,564
31,747
2,093,118
9 Sep 2025
Catching the setting Sun under the wing of the Dreamliner as we turn left towards LHR, descending through light wisps of cumulus...
1
4
205
3 Sep 2025
AIRBUS are looking for a multi-physics modelling research scientist, to be based at Filton.
This looks like a really interesting opportunity at a time when sustainability is pushing aerospace design into truly novel directions.
Details below.
1
4
1,494
31 Aug 2025
The need for speed!!! They do make an arrival, the JASDF Blue Impulse team
#松島基地航空祭
3
326