Interesting or unusual planes?

[Jakob]

[mrcharly-YHT]

Very pretty picture.

Is nearly-in the frozen lake the only safe area to land?

[Jakob]

Yeah, winter makes it both harder and easier. A lot more of the wetlands become landable, but the snow will also hide all kinds of surprises.

[rr]

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/230390103337964/?ref=browse_tab

[pcolbeck]

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/230390103337964/?ref=browse_tab

Blah its a T7 twin seater. If it was a single seater F.6 or FGA.9 I might be looking at how big a crane would be needed to get it into my back garden. Such a beautiful aircraft.

[Steph]

I was waiting at the bus stop post-Asda this afternoon when I heard the rotor slap.

"That's a Chinook or similar", I thought.

Yup. Right over Crawley.

[Jaded]

"Come, friendly Chinooks, and drop things on Crawley"

[Jurek]

They used to fly down the Lea Valley when work was based next to the River Lea.
Stuff on desks would vibrate when they were at their closest.

[Pingu]

What's that noise? A bunch of Eurofighters going over Furryboottoon according to FR24.

[Salvatore]

A Chinook with 2 netfulls of cargo dangling on cables or somesuch. Given that it had only flown a short distance  from RAF Odiham (a couple of fields distance at most) before it looped round above me to return, I guess it was some sort of training exercise. By the time I reached the other side of the airfield, it was hovering near the ground, with only one dangly thing.

With a totally unsuitable 20mm lens

[GdS]

I did a DIY which went past RAF Odiham in January; it was an operational day and I saw at least 4 Chinooks flying. You could hear them from the Meon Valley.

Booked a campsite for RIAT  can't believe how many people get stuck in horrendous queues to get there when you can just ride straight up to the fence

[mrcharly-YHT]

RAF Airbus 400M just flew down the loch at only 175ft altitude.

Erm, that's lower than many of the surrounding hills.

Took off from Elgin, been flying close to ground through Skye, through the loch valleys of Harris and Lewis ('through' not over). Then Buzzed stornoway airport.

Now doing a pass over the middle of Lewis, still sticking to no more than 150ft off the deck.

Low level flight training?

[Jaded]

There used to be a lot more low level activity than there is now. I don't think they have enough planes.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/operational-low-flying-training-timetable

This is somewhat useful...

[TheLurker]

RAF Airbus 400M just flew down the loch at only 175ft altitude.
....
Low level flight training?

Nah, it can't get any higher 'cos the engines are knackered. 

[TimC]

RAF Airbus 400M just flew down the loch at only 175ft altitude.

Erm, that's lower than many of the surrounding hills.

Took off from Elgin, been flying close to ground through Skye, through the loch valleys of Harris and Lewis ('through' not over). Then Buzzed stornoway airport.

Now doing a pass over the middle of Lewis, still sticking to no more than 150ft off the deck.

Low level flight training?

How are you judging its altitude? You do realise that the Mode C squawk works only on ISA numbers unless you have ATC conversion equipment. The barometric pressure at Lossiemouth is 1024mb. That means the altitude reading from Mode C transponders needs to be adjusted by 11mb (approximately 330ft) to get a reasonable approximation of the aircraft's height above sea level. If you had datalink (as Mode S supplies and the military and civil air traffic authorities can interpret), the radar altitude of the aircraft above the ground can be derived. The Minimum Separation Distance under normal circumstances for low flying fixed-wing military aircraft is 250', and it's not easy to maintain anything close to that in lumpy terrain. Within LFA7T (tactical training area) specially-qualified crews can fly down to 100ft MSD, but it's incredibly difficult to get down to that anywhere other than over ridges or large amounts of water or very flat ground.

It's likely that the A400 was operating to 250' limits, and was in fact around 3-400ft most of the time.

[mrcharly-YHT]

RAF Airbus 400M just flew down the loch at only 175ft altitude.

Erm, that's lower than many of the surrounding hills.

Took off from Elgin, been flying close to ground through Skye, through the loch valleys of Harris and Lewis ('through' not over). Then Buzzed stornoway airport.

Now doing a pass over the middle of Lewis, still sticking to no more than 150ft off the deck.

Low level flight training?

How are you judging its altitude? You do realise that the Mode C squawk works only on ISA numbers unless you have ATC conversion equipment. The barometric pressure at Lossiemouth is 1024mb. That means the altitude reading from Mode C transponders needs to be adjusted by 11mb (approximately 330ft) to get a reasonable approximation of the aircraft's height above sea level. If you had datalink (as Mode S supplies and the military and civil air traffic authorities can interpret), the radar altitude of the aircraft above the ground can be derived. The Minimum Separation Distance under normal circumstances for low flying fixed-wing military aircraft is 250', and it's not easy to maintain anything close to that in lumpy terrain. Within LFA7T (tactical training area) specially-qualified crews can fly down to 100ft MSD, but it's incredibly difficult to get down to that anywhere other than over ridges or large amounts of water or very flat ground.

It's likely that the A400 was operating to 250' limits, and was in fact around 3-400ft most of the time.

the figures in my post are from flightradar24.

As I watched it fly down the loch, it was above my eye height, but not by a lot. Similar altitude to the coastguard chopper when it is doing exercises over the loch.

My office window is about 30m above sea level.

250ft would match what I was looking at - but of course there isn't much diff between 250 and 300.

When I said it was about 175 above the deck, the reported altitude was 700ft, and the ground is at about 200m in that area (rising to 250m).

In some of the lochs, it was definitely flying lower than the adjacent hills.

[TimC]

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.

[mrcharly-YHT]

Oh I don't mean to imply they were doing anything wrong.

Just very odd to see such a large airplane at such a low altitude.

The altitude reported on Flightradar24 seemed to match what I saw.

[TimC]

Since the C-130 was retired, the A400 now takes on all the tactical low level stuff the C-130 used to do. Well, not all - the C-17 does some of it, but it's so much larger that it's impractical for much of it. Even the A400 is too large for most of what the Army want to do, which makes it ridiculous that they just got rid of the best aeroplane for the job! But, put simply, there's nothing smaller in the inventory that can do it, so it has to be the A400. The crews love it, of course, but they loved it more in the Herc!

[TheLurker]

...which makes it ridiculous that they just got rid of the best aeroplane for the job!

Yes, well, MoD.  Nuff sed?

In other news. Taking cranky old grid to the garage yestere'en when I saw the* Short Skyvan taking off from Brize.  Annoyingly there was nowhere safe to  stop and photograph it and it was only a couple or so hundred feet into its climb.


*There may be more that one that flits in and out, but I rather doubt it; hence the definite article.

[GdS]

Drop
Dead
Gorgeous

Apparently the same squadron that operated Hawker Typhoons for D Day.

Much nicer than Brexit Blackjack!

[rr]

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.

[TimC]

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.

It remained firmly in your imagination! 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...

[mrcharly-YHT]

Drop
Dead
Gorgeous

Apparently the same squadron that operated Hawker Typhoons for D Day.

Much nicer than Brexit Blackjack!

'scuse my ignorance, but what is it?

Looks very small compared to current generation of multi-role planes.

[spesh]

It's a Eurofighter Typhoon.