Tootling along the quiet lanes near Silloth and Aspatria this afternoon, keeping ears and eyes open for the occasional car when there was a tremendous noise and four fast jets skimmed over my head. Christ on a bike! Or more accurately Christ nearly fell off his bike, if I’d been going faster than my tootling speed of 15mph I’d have been in a ditch. Shouldn’t the jets have some sort of early warning, a bell, hooter or perhaps one of those whirling windmill things that can be bought at the seaside and are sometimes used for deterring moles? Obviously they’re too fast for someone to walk in front with a red flag!

Wouldn’t really work, you’d only hear it after they’d passed

(To pendants, don’t do it!)

They could send a small plane in front of them with the bell or hooter.

They could send a small plane in front of them with the bell or hooter.

1
jimr80
Free Member
They could send a small plane in front of them with the bell or hooter.

simple and elegant solution

Or maybe they could employ someone to drop, say, leaflets in front of them warning people…

Fast jets, I’ll raise you super bikes giving it a hoon ! Jeepers !

Best fast jet surprise I’ve ever had was on Merrick in Dumfries & Galloway.
As we walked up the shoulder a pair of Tornado’s snuck up below us and performed what today would be called the ‘Top Gun inverted to clear the mountain and turn into the next valley’ stunt’.
I, and the group, didn’t hear a thing – until a moment after my brain registered the waving, inverted navigator about 50m above and in front of my head…
…and a couple of seconds later the second plane all but gave the kids in front a fresh haircut, with another waving navigator.

Typically the belles already have hooters

Typically the belles already have hooters

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣  Thank you, it’s a bloody good thing I didn’t have my mug of beer to my mouth when I read that!

Fast jets, I’ll raise you super bikes giving it a hoon ! Jeepers !

Christ yes! I’ve been driving before now, keeping an eye on the traffic in front, when some PowerRanger has gone past at obviously triple digit speed, and pushed my adrenaline level and heart-rate into what could have seen me needing medical attention!

I’ve been riding my bike out of Ladybower and had that happen to me. They were gone before I knew it, brutally fast, scared the crap out of me. I assume it was one of them mangled in a stone wall in the following descent into Sheffield.

@matt_outandabout they headed out to Dumfries and then returned about half an hour later – still no warning. At least they didn’t do what a lot of Americans did in the 40’s, crash into the mountains or The Solway Firth, that would have made me jump more!

Similar experience to MattOAB’s, but around 1975 I guess. As a family, we had just finished the Snowdon Horseshoe and were sitting on a low wall on the Pen y Pass carpark, waiting for the last member of the group to come down the last 1/2 mile or so of the track. Suddenly, out of nowhere it seemed, there was an almighty roar as two Jaguars (I think that’s what they were) in close formation flashed over at what felt like head height. Nobody had heardcthem coming, or seen them coming up from Pen y Gwryd diretion. B****r me, we didn’t half jump.

@mashr

Wouldn’t really work, you’d only hear it after they’d passed

(To pendants, don’t do it!)

read that back

bad person

It was 4 Belgian F16s, out and back from Coningsby I think. Out over my house and same back!

Not just the Belgian air force…

https://www.thestar.co.uk/news/defence/sheffield-jet-fighters-this-is-why-belgian-f-16s-were-seen-and-tracked-over-sheffield-today-4048721

Weirdly in my quiet part of Spain we get the odd notice on the local Facebook that the fighter jets will be out playing.

Nothing like a sonic boom to raise you from siesta or cause a daiquiri spillage.

@maccruiskeen that should be post of the week (if there was such a category), or even the year!

Had the joy of a sonic boom this morning.

Not sure we need to know that!!

Had the joy of a sonic boom this morning.

Did you warn her/him it was coming?

No, it just happened nothing I could do.

bainbrge
Full Member
It was 4 Belgian F16s, out and back from Coningsby I think. Out over my house and same back!

When I saw them I wondered if they’d made a run over the ranges at Spadeadam.

I was working near Annan and thought they looked like they were coming from that kinda direction 🤔

The RAF like to use the Usk Valley as a training run, for anything from helicopters to fast jets. Easy to tell when we’re at a high alert status as they lower the flight floor to below 300ft. During both Gulf Wars they not only had this lower limit but they also had full reheat clearance once they had cleared Crickhowell if heading North, purely down to it mimicking a strategic valley over in Iraq. That meant that every jet would hit the reheat button as they were going directly away from my bedroom window. The scenes in the original Top Gun movie had nothing on my view at night with jets lining up and then flooring it away from me, full orange glow and a wall of sound that was just below a sonic boom. It was so violent that it shook my window frame loose one night and the lower panes fell out! It’s a conservation area so we (and the neighbours) had to use wood frames but when the RAF guy came round to agree to a replacement he got us permission to have a upvc one instead. For nearly a decade it was the only plastic window on the street but a new neighbour argued successfully with the National Park that it set a precedent and now everyone had upvc fitted.

Doubt a bell or flag would have helped save the original window but it’s sacrifice was worth it for me to have those memories of the jets essentially boy racering it away from me every few nights.

Was parked up on the area of Bardenas Reales the other week. Got to see the fast jets doing low passes through the valley. Was quite exciting in the first day, less so on the third

Years ago the GF and I went for a walk along Hadrian’s wall. Standing on high point, all of a sudden something appeared above our heads…. A second later a massive roar cracked off above our heads…. The jet went past with what we felt was within touching distance. Obviously wasn’t… A good 15-20m above us, but still bloody close.

Say there for two hours and had several jets go blasting past within what felt like touching distance…
Oddly, only h
Ever experienced this once in the Bavarian alps despite living there for 15 years. Was up on a hill in winter when a jet do a low pass through the valley.

I had to laugh at the tv series Warship recently when the captain of the carrier very dryly said to the interviewer during a jet fly past…

“Our American colleagues reliably inform me that that is the sound of aviation fuel being turned into freedom”.