What's flying over your house

[Colin Leighfield]

Thanks Adrian. Time moves on, things change, not always for the better. The last time I was in Woodbridge was with my son in May 2019 for my mother-in-law’s funeral and we had a quiet day looking around old haunts, including Framlingham and the old wartime USAAF airfield where there is an excellent museum in the old control-tower. Must go back some-time.

[GrumpyGnome]

Just off the East Coast where I live, there is a massive area for MOD use, we regularly see F15s on their way to/from it and they often seem to just do lazy circuits around the village. A couple of days ago, they came overhead at low kevel (for them) bigger than I expected, very noisy and imposing ..... probably appropriate given their intended use

A couple of days ago, a pair of Typhoons came past the end of our garden - probably about 500 yards away. They were below the horizon level and it is quite flat where I live so I guess they were well under 1000 feet. Flew slowly SE to NW, gently rocked their wings both ways and went on their way. Lowest I have seen any jets 'in the wild', could easily see the pilot and all the external detail. Seem much quieter, smaller and sleeker than the F15s.Even my wife was excited!

For the past three nights we have has some jet exercises over the area - suspect they are Hawks going from the sound etc..

Would love to see Apaches - we regularly see Chinooks but nothing more exciting.

[Rich Griff]

I remember traveling to an airshow in Fairford i think it was, from North Wales.

Along the way we passed on the left, sitting on some runway which was close to the road, a sad looking Lightening, all graffitied up.

 

I suggested we should tow it home...😀

 

Was that Binbrook I wonder and is it still there ?

 

An other aircraft spotted years ago, coming down the hill into welshpool from the coast. At the roundabout, turn left up the hill towards Guildsfield, the scenery opens up to see the valley and hills in the distance.

We saw a really low camouflaged Vulcan pop up and hugging the ground, hedge hopping ?

It pulled up and turned 180 degrees and roared off back to balay way, still hedge hopping.

What a sight and privilege. It must have been training so as to stay under radar...

Edited By Rich Griff on 14/01/2021 10:01:09

[Ace]

Big and as nimble as the Vulcan is in 66 XH536 from my Dads 9 squadron got it wrong and hit a Welsh mountain - all were killed. On joint maneuvers the Yanks were amazed how low the Brits flew - takes skill and practice.

Sorry off topic but earlier there was a reference to Vulcans Nuking the yanks twice. It happened way more than twice. Other sorties landed in Nebraska, others flew over New York before landing at Goose Bay and when they came in from the North Pole over Chicago they thought they were U2's returning. The public never heard about those either.

All unchallenged.

Edited By Ace on 14/01/2021 11:37:20

[john davidson 1]

The most memorable sighting I ever had was when hillwalking in Glen Affric about twenty years ago. I was on top of the hill at 3500 feet when a B1 appeared from the north at just above my eye level and the icing on the cake was two F15s escorting it. I don't think even the Mach loop could beat that!

[Peter Miller]

A little story from my days on 220 squadron, (Shackletons).

One of our Shacks was sent on a "good will" visit to the USA. They had been flogging across the Atlantic for many hours and eventually arrived at the base they were to visit.

The prpoblem was that the base was having a major parade etc and the runway had aircraft lined up for inspection so the pilot was told that he would have to wait until the parade was over.

Well something aproaching 24 hours of Griffons roaring away was abit too much so the pilot cut the two outboard engines.

Instant panic on the ground and the parade was cleared away in nothing flat and the pilot was told to land.

When he was asked what had happened his reply that he was tired of the noise was NOT popular.

He then pointed out that Shack could fly on one engine if needed. At the later airshow he demonstrated that fact doing fly pasts on one engine obviously with a reduced fuel load

As a point of interest when the Super Connies were crossing the Atlantic if they lost and engine they promptly called for an escort by our search and rescue Shacks.

A Shackleton flat out on 4 engines could only just keep up with A Super Constellation cruising on 3 engines. which made the call out very unpopular.

Just what the Shack could do to help them apart from dropping rubber dinghies and reporting where the wreckage was is open to question

[David P Williams]

Posted by Adrian Smith 1 on 13/01/2021 16:20:55:

Livened up my day I can tell you!

 

 

The Chinooks come by my house a bit lower than that, they're often behind the house over the road. We get Hercules about the height of that Apache, usually in twos and often around 11pm in the pitch black. Hope their night vision goggles are good, sound like they're going to take the roof off.

When I was doing my flying training with the Royal Navy Elementary Flying Training Squadron from RAF Leeming and RAF Topcliffe in 1978 we used the low flying areas to the west (around Wenslydale) and the east (North York Moors). I was learning in Bulldogs and we were allowed down to 250ft agl with an instructor, or 500ft agl solo, all judged by eye of course as we would be flying down in valleys or up over the hill to the next valley.

Radio calls were made on entering the area and on leaving, but often no radio signal while we were in there and no radar cover. We could usually hear other aircraft calling entering or leaving as they descended into or climbed out of the area and there would often be quite a mix of aircraft, including USAF and occasional German and other European ones. Consequently you had to have your eyes on stalks and your head on a swivel as you were pitoting the aircraft and at the same time trying to calculate a heading and time of arrival at the target your instructor had just ringed on the half mil chart you were clutching (it was usually a telephone box - a 'T' and a dot on the chart). All done at a fairly sedate 110 knots or so, bit still pretty hard, sweaty work, lots of use of 'five mile thumbs' and the 1 in 60 rule.

I had two close encounters.

The first was when flying down a valley with my instructor, 250ft, hills either side a fair bit higher than us. another valley intersected from the right and as we approached the intersection a Vulcan appeared from the other valley, same height as us, and passed across our nose probably half a mile ahead.

The second was while flying solo, so 500ft, on a cross-country navex, again following a valley. A pair of Buccaneers appeared from under the nose, flying down the same valley, having flown underneath me.

Both events got my attention pretty quickly.

 

Edited By David P Williams on 14/01/2021 14:13:50

[Dave S.]

Just been putting the bins out (exciting stuff!) and my ears caught something that sounded slightly different in the sky above us - and was rewarded with my first ever sight of a U2. Just checked Fairford movements site and one landed there shortly after I'd seen it.

We usually get plenty of heavy transports over us as we are only a few miles from Brize Norton, but the U2 was very different.

[Mike Tomlin]

This was doing circuits over my house in Cumbria today. Thought it was a Hawk but not so sure now I have seen the photo.

[Focae]

Hunter?

[Focae]

This one:

www.facebook.com/Scramblemagazine/posts/rare-hawker-hunter-from-brazil-arrives-in-the-united-kingdomhawker-hunter-aviati/2389912957701891/

[Mike Tomlin]

Thanks Focae, that's the one. Wonder why it was doing circuits about 15miles east of Carlisle.

[John Privett]

I always liked the Hunter as an aircraft,  It's one that just "looks right".  The last time I saw one flying was at Shoreham in 2015. Sadly that did not end well... ?

But back to the current time,  In the early hours of Saturday morning I was just about to switch off the PC and go to bed when I heard a loud, (very) low-flying helicopter nearby.  It passed a bit to our north, turned and then almost overflow the house, heading towards the recreation field our house back on to.  Which is where it proceeded to land.  First time that's happened in the 20 or so years I've lived here!

This is the track from flightradar24.  I suspect the very end of the track is from data from my flightradar receiver, I don't suppose many (any?) other fr24 receivers would have picked up any signal from it at ground level in an area surrounded by houses.

Here's the heli on the ground.  Please excuse the quality of the photo - it's hand-held, with a slow shutter speed, in low light on a long zoom lens!

It turned out to be G-KSSC - the Kent, Surrey & Sussex air ambulance.  Some 10 or 15 minutes later they departed for the brief flight to Redhill Aerodrome which is next-door to the East Surrey Hospital. 

I have no idea what the background was to this,  I just hope that whoever they were called for is ok.

[leccyflyer]

2 Typhoons - right over the house a few minutes ago, very, very low and very very loud. Just got outside in time to see them disappearing into the distance. Superb. ?

 

What's not superb is that a week ago, right where they disappeared, was a small ultralight that was pottering around, at no more that 200-300ft, which also flew over the house, lower than anything I've seen, so much so that I thought that he must have landed in the field.

[leccyflyer]

Two RAF C-130s just went right over at just  200ft - that's very unusual and I haven't seen even one before, especially at night.

[David P Williams]

Not unusual here, probably once every couple of months around 10 or 11 pm. Sounds like they're about to take the chimney off.

[leccyflyer]

They both flew to the tip of Mull, turned around and came back at high level some time later. Went out to see if I could spot them, but it was too cloudy - heard them, but couldn't see either of them.

[PatMc]

26 minutes ago, leccyflyer said:

They both flew to the tip of Mull, turned around and came back at high level some time later. Went out to see if I could spot them, but it was too cloudy - heard them, but couldn't see either of them.

I was tracking them on Flight Radar flying around on Friday early evening, one at high level the other only around 4000ft. At the same time a Hawker Beechcraft Shadow R1 was flying around North Fife close to Leuchars. The Shadow R1 is zig-zaging over Forth estuary between N. Berwick & Dunbar at around 23,000ft as type this. 

[leccyflyer]

Yes Pat I saw those as well on ADS-8 - busy evening at Leuchars, must be a flap on ;). The Herky birds were over us and gone before I could even see what they were on the flight tracking, but they were departing westwards climbing from 200 to 500 ft pretty sharpish.

 

[leccyflyer]

[PatMc]

Is Leuchars active again ?

[leccyflyer]

Well that's where the Herky birds came from this evening, and the King Airs and there were a couple of Typhoons there a little while back.

[leccyflyer]

One of PatMc's Beechcraft R-1 Shadows has been circling over head for the past ninety minutes then headed off and landed at Leuchars a few minutes ago - all part of an exercise Chameleon 21-1, which accounts for all the unusual activity - Typhoon fast jet pair low and loud, multiple C-130s dropping paras, spyplanes circling and KC-35 tankers flying racetrack circuits over the North Sea for the past ten days or so.

[Mike Tomlin]

Hunter up again, out of RAF Leeming. As Cassandra said, doing circuits over Spadeadam.

 

[Cuban8]

On 14/01/2021 at 12:25, Peter Miller said:

A little story from my days on 220 squadron, (Shackletons).

One of our Shacks was sent on a "good will" visit to the USA. They had been flogging across the Atlantic for many hours and eventually arrived at the base they were to visit.

The prpoblem was that the base was having a major parade etc and the runway had aircraft lined up for inspection so the pilot was told that he would have to wait until the parade was over.

Well something aproaching 24 hours of Griffons roaring away was abit too much so the pilot cut the two outboard engines.

Instant panic on the ground and the parade was cleared away in nothing flat and the pilot was told to land.

When he was asked what had happened his reply that he was tired of the noise was NOT popular.

He then pointed out that Shack could fly on one engine if needed. At the later airshow he demonstrated that fact doing fly pasts on one engine obviously with a reduced fuel load

As a point of interest when the Super Connies were crossing the Atlantic if they lost and engine they promptly called for an escort by our search and rescue Shacks.

A Shackleton flat out on 4 engines could only just keep up with A Super Constellation cruising on 3 engines. which made the call out very unpopular.

Just what the Shack could do to help them apart from dropping rubber dinghies and reporting where the wreckage was is open to question