There was a C-2 Greyhound that came up from Spain to Prestwick over the weekend. Presumably to bring something needed by the carrier air wing.
B52 just out of Fairford - there are a few stationed there as part of the current Bomber Task Force-Europe operation.
There's 4 B52s at Fairford at the moment. Just noticed one is tracking now, if you're in the area keep an eye out.
B52 just out of Fairford
Currently looking as though it lost something in the North Sea off Aberdeen.
Sleepy Joe probably dosed off and pressed the wrong button when he woke-up with a jolt.
Just popped my head out the door to see what was making so much din nothing to see at all but it's out there somewhere.
Looked on ads a
and it's busy
@pk13 are you in Yorkshire?
There is some seriously vigorous fast jet action going on over York(ish) currently, they usuakly have transponders on but not today.
Its pretty intensive compared to normal too (im well used to them!)
No I'm right in the middle whatever went over was loud and the only thing remotely close was at the time was a private Gulf stream.
Sleepy Joe probably dosed off and pressed the wrong button when he woke-up with a jolt.
Just in case you were asleep and hadn’t noticed, but there’s all kinds of shit going on in Syria, which has a major Russian naval base which gives Putin his only proper presence in the Mediterranean, along with the Lebanon, Ukraine, etc, and B-52’s are regularly based at Fairford.
No I’m right in the middle whatever went over was loud and the only thing remotely close was at the time was a private Gulf stream.
There are certain American jets that are particularly loud, and have a distinctive deep rumbling sound. When I was working in Westbury, which is fairly close to Salisbury Plain ranges, they’d be stooging around for considerable periods of time, and wouldn’t always have transponders on. When they did they’d show as lots of ‘racetracks’, at around 19,000ft, and they were always F-15 Strike Eagles out of Lakenheath. I sometimes hear them flying overhead here at home, but it was never possible to see them.
wouldn’t always have transponders on
They will always have ID transponders on. Multiple MLAT receivers will pick these up and give a location. Same with small private planes. However, if they are very low there may not be enough MLAT receivers to give a fix. ADSB Exchange and Flight Aware are the sites to check.
Flight Radar does not take personal MLAT data - relying on airport MLAT data - and so is useless for low flying planes (Big jets, SAR choppers etc give out a ADS-B signal together with location data).
ADSB Exchange:
https://globe.adsbexchange.com/
My personal feeder in Stirling: https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?feed=1FFKCa6EmbI9
Fun hobby which uses a Raspberry Pi and cost me less than £100 to set up.
Just in case you were asleep and hadn’t noticed, but there’s all kinds of shit going on in Syria, which has a major Russian naval base which gives Putin his only proper presence in the Mediterranean, along with the Lebanon, Ukraine, etc, and B-52’s are regularly based at Fairford.
I was not aware of that, ta. Just thought the big noisy aeroplanes flew around for the fun of it, armed to the teeth 'cos it looks cool.
It was a jokey reply to a jokey post about a B52 looking lost over the North Sea; I appreciate if humour (in loose terms) is lost on the internet, but probably best to have a think before going for the full condescend. But, in all seriousness, Biden is (and has been) a liability; his latest decisions go some way to back that up. I'd still prefer him to the orange thing though, which is damning with faint praise indeed.
U2 !!
Currently above Skye at 60,000ft.
Not seen / tracked one of those before!
Nice! You won't see much else popping up at that altitude, either.
Nice! You won’t see much else popping up at that altitude, either.
A few military private jet types (Gulfstream / Cessna) at 45k ft and one unmarked plane over Kenya at 63k ft, I assume another U2. They pretty much have that bit of sky to themselves.
Edit, that Kenya aircraft is moving at 66kts, so not a U2!. I'm guessing weather balloon.
They will always have ID transponders on. Multiple MLAT receivers will pick these up and give a location. Same with small private planes. However, if they are very low there may not be enough MLAT receivers to give a fix. ADSB Exchange and Flight Aware are the sites to check.
Flight Radar does not take personal MLAT data – relying on airport MLAT data – and so is useless for low flying planes (Big jets, SAR choppers etc give out a ADS-B signal together with location data).
Except that I don’t use Flight Radar, I always use ADS-B, and these F-15’s don’t show on ADS-B, despite there being a deep rumbling sound, a distinctive feature of Strike Eagles, right over where I worked!
There’s been a number of AH-64 gunships flying around Salisbury Plain recently, two went over as I was driving down to Salisbury a week ago, and they’ve been stooging around leaving long convoluted tracks behind…
My U2 is now above California. That's a long solo flight.
https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=ae0953
these F-15’s don’t show on ADS-B
There's not enough MLAT receivers to pick them up - particularly if they are low flying.
Spotted this earlier this evening, I wonder where it’s going to…[img] 
[/img]
these F-15’s don’t show on ADS-B
There’s not enough MLAT receivers to pick them up – particularly if they are low flying.
Except that they’d show up most of the time over the exact same area over where I was working; only occasionally would they be be audible but not showing on ADS-B - plenty of other aircraft would be showing around the same area, it is one of the largest military live-fire zones in the country, after all.
There’s a couple of Eurofighters making a thorough nuisance of themselves around the Irish Sea, I’ll bet there’s a few people on the Isle of Man cussing them out!
Spotted this earlier this evening, I wonder where it’s going to…
Kaliningrad I imagine.
@slowoldman - yeah, my thoughts exactly, not long afterwards it disappeared. Maybe it crashed into the Baltic; poor maintenance…
Three F-5 over Arizona. I’ve not seen an F-5 in decades, not since Mildenhall displays in the ‘80s!
Red Arrows are transiting from Waddington to Lossiemouth later today, details on their Facebook page. They're up there for a week, flying around the Cromarty area and doing an impromptu display over Lossie on Thursday morning. Mrs S has suggested we drive up on Thursday.
B52 just left Fairford. Likely heading out over Norfolk for those en route, keep an eye out
Sitting at work I heard a loud thumping helicopter and ran out for a look - a pair of Chinooks flying overhead!
Salford (Higher Broughton) heading south(ish)
(Can't edit my post because it's not shown up yet 🙄)
Anyway, can't see them at all on the flight tracker, is that normal for military flights over a large city? Although there appears to be one parked nearby at Barton Aerodrome.
Sitting at work I heard a loud thumping helicopter and ran out for a look - a pair of Chinooks flying overhead!
Salford (Higher Broughton) heading south(ish)
A pair just gone north outside Ilkeston, presumably meeting for lunch in the Peak?
It's not military, but on adsb, has anyone noticed a hot air balloon, currently near Peterborough that's come over from Austria?
They've missed last orders.
Following on from the two Chinooks heading north on Monday, we had a pair of Apaches heading south yesterday, went right over our house, relatively low. Very impressive.
More on the balloon in the link below. Practice for a big race (Gordon Bennett?)
It's currently near Hawick.
That balloon is really odd - it launched from a site in northern France (thereabouts) and is now, as you say, near Hawick. How it get there when the winds today have mainly been from the SW? Are they more 'steerable' than I've been led to believe all these years? Can't check the Facebook page above, as I don't do FB
Balloon took off from Bavaria. Currently tracking to fly over my house in the next 10-15mins which was obviously their target all along. Will be interesting to see what happens when they get close to Edinburgh airport airspace!
Wondering what the plan is for when they run out of Scotland to fly over?
It's Scotlands all the way up
balloons landed in scotland..
more info here..
While browsing flightradar after looking at that balloon I happened to notice that there are currently 6 police choppers around Shrewsbury in pairs, plus another one by itself that's been watching Whitchurch. That seems a lot for a small not very busy area! Is there a training base near there or something?
Is there a training base near there or something?
You sure its police and not military?
The military helicopter training school is just to the north of Shrewsbury so its busy there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Shawbury
Yep, I'm counting 11 up at the moment; some good weather for RAF helicopter training, mainly in the Eurocopter EC135/45, which does give the appearance of a police chopper on the map due to a lot of forces using similar aircraft.
Yep, there's nothing new about a pack of helicopters around North Shrops, they're flying out of Shawbury all day every (week)day.
The lassie across the road from me works in the Meteorological Office on site there.
on a similar vein to adbs... does anyone else use MarineTraffic to track ferries that they are going to use in the near future?
Ah ok thanks. The dark blue & yellow paintjob is the same as the copper choppers around here (Manc).
There seems to be a big increase in military flights up and down the Derwent Valley in recent weeks.
F-35s, Chinooks, other stuff(!) and this flew over Chatsworth on Tuesday...
(not my pic - nicked off local spotted Facebook page).
Ah ok thanks. The dark blue & yellow paintjob is the same as the copper choppers around here (Manc).
Yeah, it's the UK standard design for close flying; the dark blue gives contrast for aircraft below to see the helicopter; the yellow for anything above or to the side.
Airbus A400M doing some very low level flying in West Yorkshire - gone south over the M62 now.
It went over to Cutgate and has turned back - it must have been shocked at the mud
https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=43c5ee&lat=53.492&lon=-1.860&zoom=10.9&showTrace=2025-03-20
Airbus A400M doing some very low level flying in West Yorkshire - gone south over the M62 now.
It flew by me as I was riding home from work!
The valley that runs south from Hathersage to Grindleford and on down to Baslow following the River Derwent.
I was climbing up the lane that takes you via the closed-to-traffic road to Eyam, heard a racket that sounded like quad bikes then the A400M went past me at my height! Couple of slight banks as it followed the valley down. Very impressive, super low.
This went over my head today very low and it's surprisingly quiet I mean very quiet. It's also huge like a flying bus
Had this bad boy hovering just above the farm today. He was absolutely stationary for a good couple of minutes, probabably below the ridgeline doing some sort of over the horizon testing or somethihng similar. But by gawd it was loud. I really wouldn't want to be on the opposite side if one of them came hunting for you.
There's a USAF C17 Globemaster just been over - it's actually showing on Flightradar, not just the ADSB. Took off from Memphis 8hrs ago, flew over Manchester and the northern Peak District, it's now descending over the Peterborough area.
Edit: must be landing at Lakenheath
RCH726 ident on Flightradar.
Three Typhoons around it 
Quite a few Eurofighters up at the moment.
Beginning to gather for the VE Day flypast. A tanker, the Poseidon and a C17 circling just off the Norfolk coast, the Lancaster has just popped up on the ground as well.
ADSB-tracker.
Edit - oh there's an A400M hiding right underneath the Poseidon as well.
We had a couple of KC-135s come down Thirlmere on Friday last week. How they fly those planes so low is unbelievable. More so when you consider the youngest was built in 1969. The stresses on the air frame of low level flight must be huge.
We had a couple of KC-135s come down Thirlmere on Friday last week. How they fly those planes so low is unbelievable. More so when you consider the youngest was built in 1969. The stresses on the air frame of low level flight must be huge.
Relatively young then! Like you said, it's impressive when you see some of them; there's currently a '58 up, along with an RAF RC-135 on a 1964 airframe.
Interesting the f15s from lakenheath have been tracking a lot more than usual. Worth keeping an eye out on adsb for them if you're in the lake district or north York moors.
There's one having great fun over Thetford at the moment.
Three F15's ripped over our campsite in Bala around breakfast time. Had two F35's yesterday too. Not far from Mach Loop
The Lancaster's up. It left Coninsby earlier, headed west to look at Melton Mowbray, then a tour of Perton (Wolverhampton) followed closely by Cosford, flew almost overhead here, did a figure of eight over Telford and then set of NW to its next appointment
Had one of (what looked like) those C17 Globemasters flying around the Leuchars area yesterday.
A big old bird ,and I don't know if it's just the scale of those planes,but they look like they are hardly travelling /just hanging in the air .
Globemasters are massive. We has one doing fly rounds of Manchester airport in lockdown and it was huge (747 size). Went in one last year at Fairford (RIAT) and they are huge. If you do google maps for RAF Fairford currently, and the satellite/aircraft map, you can see all the static aircraft on the runway from last year's RIAT - we found our tent on it ! The Globemaster is huge.
The Lancaster's up.
BBMF have a schedule on the website which is normally pretty accurate (subject to the usual weather stuff although it's so good at the moment there's little chance of cancellations for that).
https://www.military-airshows.co.uk/press25/bbmfschedule2025.htm
Gives locations and approx times (usually to within a 30 min window). Loads going on this weekend because of VE Day.
16th May is the anniversary of the Dambusters raid and they sometimes fly the Lanc over Derwent and Ladybower Reservoirs. They used to publicise this, used to be quite A Thing but then the parking and traffic and disruption became so bad they stopped advertising it. However if you're in the area, it's worth keeping an eye on ADSB cos they'll often do it "unpublicised".
I'm in Lincoln tomorrow for the Lincoln GP cycle race but there's supposed to be a Spitfire over the Bomber Command HQ about 11am and it normally does a flypast of the cathedral too.
Quite a few F15's about today over the north of England!
Plus one on its own down at Imber / Salisbury which came in very low then shot up to 47000ft according to the tracker!
U2 out of Fairford earlier this morning and heading N over Irish sea. Not uncommon but rarely have transponder turned on.
There's a B1 tracking in the US, south east of Albuquerque. They don't track often
U2 currently southbound over Glasgow at 60k feet
U2 - I could hear it, but not see it, as it came by about 4 miles west a few mins ago. Was still above the 7/8ths cloud
Well that was a long commute.
Have had my own personal air show today as various aircraft have been flying to, and practising their displays, for Cosford air show this weekend.
Also, I noticed some months ago, Google map images have updated over Fairford, some good aircraft spotting to be had.
I heard something practising for Cosford today too, but by the time I'd got outside with binoculars to see what it actually was, it had buggered off. Suspect Typhoon. Whereabouts are you, @houns? Near me in Shifnal?
If it was around 15:00 it was an F16, I was driving back to work and right outside the gates at Cosford d as it was screaming around overhead. I work in Pattingham, right under the flight path for stuff heading across to Wales or over to the North Sea
(typos due to this **** site)
Ah, right, that'll have been around the right time. Pattingham would put you in the line of flight for sure
Is that trump's new 747 from the Qatar government about to head over Birmingham?
If it is it's being returned.
Lots of Lynxes about recently. I had 3 come over on Friday, then another one earlier today, and then 2 more just now (only 1 of them tracking, apparently). All going from Barton near Manc to somewhere further south of here
