Plane Spotters / Flight Radar Thread

Rroff · 28 Jul 2021 at 00:45

I'd be kind of fascinated to know what the exercise was actually about heh. They did it about a month ago 2-3 times the scale and it went completely unreported despite massive amounts of helicopter traffic country wide at 2am.

Rroff · 28 Jul 2021 at 00:48

Spear25 reappeared - was one of the ones I saw earlier on.

Ambush2 appeared doesn't seem to have much data. Looks like Aldershot is gonna be the focal point of the exercise.

kaiowas · 28 Jul 2021 at 07:44

MissChief said:
There's a V-22 Osprey cutting about north Norfolk keeping people awake too.

That’s not unusual, they’re based down at Mildenhall and are often buzzing around either StanTA or Sculthorpe. As are the Apaches from Wattisham.

Didn’t notice anything last night but had a load of helicopters around the night before

Rroff · 29 Jul 2021 at 23:05

They are out again:

SKUA93 - Wildcat
Recon21 - Wildcat
Valent61 - Wildcat
Carbon10 - Wildcat
SHF347 - Puma
Hydra1 - Apache
Hydra2 - Apache
AWARD70 - Apache
Viper2 - Apache
Knight54 - Beech Shadow R.1 (probably involved)

At least 2 maybe 3 Pumas up with no call sign and/or not showing on flight radar.

Another Apache up with no call sign.

Some possibly unrelated but last time these were inter-agency exercises so might be involved:

S92 - Sikorsky S-92A looks like search and rescue or the likes
GYAAC Airbus H145 (air ambulance)
UKP155 - Vulcanair P68R (police)
RRR5721 - C130 (probably unrelated)
STRIX78 - C130
SHF232 - No information

Longbow · 29 Jul 2021 at 23:50

SHF232 is a Puma from RAF Benson, oddly enough it keeps switching it's call-sign to C0YOTE02.

Rroff · 29 Jul 2021 at 23:53

The Pumas seem to be acting differently to the rest - no idea on the details of the exercise but they seem to be acting kind of like opfor capacity.

Rroff · 4 Aug 2021 at 00:11

Interesting quite a few training helis up tonight - and less usual models at that - Guimbal Cabri G2, Airbus Jupiter HT1 and a couple of Chinooks PEGSS1, PEGSS02 always bothers me a bit when they use variants of a call sign without standardisation in the sequence LOL.

Steven Rimmington · 12 Aug 2021 at 16:02

Seems to be flying around Leeds real low a few passes now

Rroff · 17 Aug 2021 at 23:12

Looks like heli exercises back on tonight - 7 or 8 flying around my area with the same or similar call signs as before.

GR63 · 18 Aug 2021 at 09:48

I happened to be near the USAF base at Lakenheath and stopped at the viewing area to see the take offs of about 10 of the F15s... Awesome.. Never done plane spotting before but that could get you easily interested

Longbow · 19 Aug 2021 at 23:32

A little busier tonight:

French C-130
Canadian C-17
Spanish A400M
USA C-17 & KC-135R
UK C-130 & A330

Rroff · 20 Aug 2021 at 04:47

Interestingly seeing some MC-130 variants that were supposedly retired popping up - they are configured for very specific special ops insertion/extraction roles - not sure if incorrect data or what they've been pressed back into service for. (I'm guessing if the ident is correct they are extracting high value persons from elsewhere in Afghan than Kabul).

Longbow · 21 Aug 2021 at 01:40

That MC-130 is there again, it's this very plane at RAF Mildenhall, photographed a few weeks back: https://www.fightercontrol.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=208112

"The MC looks like it could do with a bit of a touch up in a few places."

Rroff · 21 Aug 2021 at 02:49

Longbow said:
That MC-130 is there again, it's this very plane at RAF Mildenhall, photographed a few weeks back: https://www.fightercontrol.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=208112

"The MC looks like it could do with a bit of a touch up in a few places."

The one I was referring to before was a different variant - one of the W ones - though there seems to be 2-3 about which were supposedly retired.

I'm guessing they are either extracting important people and/or special missions in Afghan.

GR63 · 21 Aug 2021 at 10:45

Rroff said:
The one I was referring to before was a different variant - one of the W ones - though there seems to be 2-3 about which were supposedly retired.

I'm guessing they are either extracting important people and/or special missions in Afghan.

Oh I saw that flying a couple of times also last week

andy_mk3 · 15 Sep 2021 at 21:41

RAF C-17A doing some night flying directly over my house, pretty cool

Rroff · 15 Sep 2021 at 22:47

Lots of US and UK military stuff up at the moment, flying some oddly specific patterns.

Whole bunch of MC-130J Combat Shadow II (not sure that is correct but definitely a xC-130 variant) up with a tanker in tow so not sure where they are headed.

RoboCod · 16 Sep 2021 at 06:12

Rroff said:
Lots of US and UK military stuff up at the moment, flying some oddly specific patterns.

Whole bunch of MC-130J Combat Shadow II (not sure that is correct but definitely a xC-130 variant) up with a tanker in tow so not sure where they are headed.

In the UK? Ex Cobra Warrior.

Stu999 · 16 Sep 2021 at 11:55

Rroff said:
Lots of US and UK military stuff up at the moment, flying some oddly specific patterns.

Whole bunch of MC-130J Combat Shadow II (not sure that is correct but definitely a xC-130 variant) up with a tanker in tow so not sure where they are headed.

I was treated to two US C-130s in close formation at 2,500ft directly over my house last night. It was awesome.

whitecrook · 16 Sep 2021 at 12:15

Is anybody using SDR to feed info back into flight radar? Any good resources for setting this up ?