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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
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
*Pedant alert*
Despite what ADSB says, the UK doesn't fly Lynx anymore, they were retired in 2018. What is flying now is actually the Wildcat. It is built on Lynx airframe but most other working parts are different.
*Pedant alert*
@slowoldman Hah! More like my granddaughter.... I seem to be plagued by random clothing ads from Temu and the like at the moment. No idea why. Don't even see half of them
Lynx:
Not a Lynx:
😉
Highly excitable US F15 tearing around Suffolk/Norfolk border this afternoon
Royal International Air Tattoo (RIAT) this weekend at RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, there's been all sorts of stuff arriving over the last couple of days. A few videos on YouTube of some of it.
Last year in France we saw the Saudi air force display team parked up at Nice airport on their way home after RIAT.
Went to RIAT last year. Will probably go next year again. Camped for 3 nights at Wayside Camping - just a short walk from the runway and to the base entrance.
Went to RIAT last year.
I was looking at tickets for this year, the problem is that you can never rely on the weather. Naturally this is the one weekend after a shedload of heatwave where it's chucking it down - not sure how much of the scheduled flying has actually happened. It's such a risk with airshows in the country.
We went Thursday to Sunday. Thursday was roasting, as was Friday when we went into the show. We set up camp on the Thursday and watched the aircraft arrive and also practice sessions.
Slightly shorter display on the Firday, but it's cheaper (we only picked one day in the show - not that big a plane nerd). It did, however, give more time to wander round more, and having been in the grounds since 9am we were shattered by 5pm, and had a short walk back to the camp. However, Saturday, the clouds closed in, and we watched the display from the camp, and also by the runway. It was a 'flat' display, and only some of the bigger jets did the higher stuff, but you lost them in cloud. Hit and miss.
Got to see the F35's up close - immaculate when compared to active Typhoons which were filthy, and one was leaking oil. Also got what I wanted, to get inside a C17 Globemaster and a A400. the Globemaster was massive. I'd recommend camping near by to avoid the traffic.
Two Spitfires flew over the Prisoner of War bridge today.
That was nice 🙂