Often see them doing low level passes down along the M4 and have had them go right over me a few times near Bristol Airport as they and the C-130s seem to use Bristol on a flight path for some reason. The C-17 looks like it’s going to drop out of the sky as it’s flying so low and slow.
Hercs are based up at Brize Norton now, instead of Lyneham, but you still see them flitting around Bath and Bristol, mainly because they’ll be doing drops of men and equipment on Salisbury Plain, and they also do practice drops at Keevil, not far from Westbury, so they’ll be doing big circles back around to Brize, possibly doing navigation checks, too.
‘Circuits and bumps’ was the usual thing in Chippenham, where you’d have the planes going round and round in circles practicing landings and rolling take-offs.
It was even more fun watching the Hercs practicing Khesahn Drops; a 70 ton aircraft stoogeing in at about 1000ft, then suddenly the nose drops vertically and the plane just falls out of the sky! Heart-stopping, that.
