Interesting or unusual planes?

[Cudzoziemiec]

Flying ‘below the hills’ doesn’t mean that it was flying unusually low - or doing anything wrong, which is the implication of your statement that it was at ‘175ft altitude’. The 250’ MSD limitation means that 250ft is the closest the aircraft can be to any land, water or man-made obstruction. It does not mean that it must be 250’ above any land within a few miles. The whole point of low-flying training is to use the land to obscure your presence - and not just from electronic detection, but visual detection too.

I remember as a youth looking down on a Hercules as I walked on the Malvern hills, as it was on the west side I imagined that the SAS were practicing jumping into haystacks.

What you see was actually trials of a totally top secret new system whereby electromagnetic trampolines, disguised as haystacks, were used to catapult SAS members up into the sky and through the open door of said Hercules.

[TimC]

It's a Eurofighter Typhoon.

Indeed. In fact it's a Tranche 1 aircraft which will leave service early next year, along with 29 others, and will be 'reduced to spares' (ie scrapped). That will leave just 107 Typhoons in service, along with around 47 F-35 Lightning 2.

[Hot Flatus]

The SBS were more fun to drop, as their tasking was basically loopy, whereas the SAS (and other Special Forces like 2 Sqn RAF Regt) at least considered survival as a potential benefit. But most of that kind of crazy stuff no longer happens. However, exposure to real warfare tends to bring it back...

Oddly enough it seems the opposite has happened. My neighbour (until last summer) was a former officer in the SBS. He told me that there was real concern that the SBS were losing their maritime skills as a result of such a heavy commitment in Afghanistan for such a long period of time.

[TimC]

What you see was actually trials of a totally top secret new system whereby electromagnetic trampolines, disguised as haystacks, were used to catapult SAS members up into the sky and through the open door of said Hercules.

You joke, but the Americans had a system known as Skyhook colloquially (the Fulton recovery system) which could pick up troops from the ground while flying at around 120kts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulton_surface-to-air_recovery_system

[TimC]

The SBS were more fun to drop, as their tasking was basically loopy, whereas the SAS (and other Special Forces like 2 Sqn RAF Regt) at least considered survival as a potential benefit. But most of that kind of crazy stuff no longer happens. However, exposure to real warfare tends to bring it back...

Oddly enough it seems the opposite has happened. My neighbour (until last summer) was a former officer in the SBS. He told me that there was real concern that the SBS were losing their maritime skills as a result of such a heavy commitment in Afghanistan for such a long period of time.

I was never involved in that theatre (it seems crazy that it's 26 years since I retired and a lot of wars have happened since then!), but I imagine that it didn't call for many of the SBS's specific maritime skills. One of the sillier things SF (47 Sqn Special Forces Flight) did with them was dropping a troop of guys in a large Zodiac-style semi-rigid speedboat into the sea from very low altitude (around 7-10ft), using a little drogue chute to pull them out. Barking, and unlikely to have ever been tried in Afghanistan.

[Mr Larrington]

It's a Eurofighter Typhoon.

But photographed from?

[Adam]

It's a Eurofighter Typhoon.

Indeed. In fact it's a Tranche 1 aircraft which will leave service early next year, along with 29 others, and will be 'reduced to spares' (ie scrapped). That will leave just 107 Typhoons in service, along with around 47 F-35 Lightning 2.

That makes me feel very old!  Years ago, I was lucky enough to have a walk around the Tornado production line at BAe Warton, and it just seems bizarre that the Tornado's replacement is now starting to be phased out.

[TimC]

It's a Eurofighter Typhoon.

But photographed from?

A Canberra, of course.