Big increase in military flights

That's cool.

Mildenhall have F16s flying at the moment and there are some Canadian f18s about too, as well as all the usual stuff.

Given the amount of US and UK tankers tracking theres a lot up in the air lately.

Lots of jet noise over the last hour here in Northumberland, is it military does anyone know?

You do have two large danger areas off the coast used for 'high energy manoeuvres' and you're in low flying areas for both day and night so highly likely it's military.

Exercise Cobra Warrior probably:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/military-low-flying-mod-sponsored-air-exercises/mod-sponsored-current-or-planned-exercise-list-30-september-to-6-october-2024

https://www.caa.co.uk/publication/download/22677

There's an E2 Hawkeye tracking in the north sea. It doesn't show where it's taken off from. I've never seen one over here before. Makes me wonder if there's an aircraft carrier in the north sea.

Anyone know where they are flying from?

I answered my own question, seems there is a aircraft carrier in the north sea

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/american-supercarrier-and-escorts-arrive-off-british-coast/

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 aand 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!

B52s are up - heading towards the North Sea:

It's been doing loops over Estonia.

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.

Posted by: ossify

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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?

Posted by: ossify

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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?