"No Callsign" over London

[IHF]

Anyone know anything about Reims Cessna F406 G-TDSA and PA31 G-UMMI which have been operating at FL90-100 over London (E M25 and just E of LHR respectively) this morning ?

(data from FR24)

Regards

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

They might well have been using the registrations as callsigns. I saw G-TDSA at around 9.20z over Finchampstead heading for the London area and FR24 provided the ID.

Flights of the nature you describe are not unusual over London and are often involved with OS mapping or other aerial surveys,

[IHF]

Many thanks, HD.

(Originally I'd wondered about conflicts with inbound LHR flights. On reflection I guess anything heading for LHR around Twickenham would be significantly lower. I assume it's still a bit interesting for the ATC folks though!)

IHF

[chevvron]

You may find GTDSA replaces GBWLF which used to do similar flights.

[BOAC]

Those will be the callsigns - not every operator has a dedicated callsign and the vast majority use registration.

As far as I know G-UMMI is operated by 2 excel, that's Andy offer and Chris Norton's outfit) and the old lady of the skies (G-UMMI) may well be involved in trials of a collision avoidance system. I understand G-SA sometimes works for the police.

[MerchantVenturer]

The CAA GINFO site shows TDSA belonging to a leasing company in Surbiton and UMMI to a company in Northampton.

Anyone who wants the full details can access the publicly available GINFO site themselves.

[DaveReidUK]

the old lady of the skies (G-UMMI) may well be involved in trials of a collision avoidance systemGiven that they are doing these trials over West London, let's hope they are successful. :O

[IHF]

Indeed ;) !

Thanks, as ever, for the input.

(Off topic - there wouldn't be a a Bristolian theme in your byline would there, Merchant Venturer ?)

[Airbanda]

G UMMI is often up and about. Observed last week broadly following route of M40 with orbits over Banbury etc before a lengthy detail over Birmingham.

They also have a B727, observed on FR24 over Cambridgeshire and South Lincs on Thursday using a 'Broadsword' callsign.

[Airbanda]

G-UMMI over now over North London flyong round in circles!! FR24 track suggests it set out from Northolt.

[DaveReidUK]

FR24 track suggests it set out from Northolt.

Possibly standing in for a u/s Islander?

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

...then it's probably best not to discuss it on here.

[Agaricus bisporus]

He he! Lets all pretend it wasn't one of those grey Islanders that no one knows the Army haven't been using for sigint for decades because people on prune like to pretend they don't exist and we'd give the game away if we admitted to seeing them. Anyway, as long as no one on pprune mentions them the people who might actually be bothered by them won't know, because we won't tell them they don't actually exist, and let's face it, no one else knows, do they?


Are they supposed to be a secret then? Wups!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britten-Norman_Defender

nb. this link does not work and refers to something that isn't actually there at all.


The RAF operate two Marks of Islander, they are known as a CC.2 (ZH536) and a CC.2A (ZF573) and form the Station Flight at RAF Northolt near London. These two aircraft are flown in a classified surveillance role, aimed at picking up communications between individuals judged as posing a threat to the UK.

That from a mere 30 seconds on a search engine that also doesn't exist...

[SpringHeeledJack]

As a side issue to all the other things going round in circles (must be soul destroying for the crew :{ ) a 'survey' Piper Aztec or similar was flying in a very low orbit near one's abode recently, perhaps taking photos/film for some developer. I would guess that it was around 500ft AGL, so low that the registration could be read with the naked eye….Legal, allowable etc etc, but what chance would they have to avert a potential disaster if the engines had trouble, especially bearing in mind the very dense urban environment below ? I would suggest none, and the poor sods under their path would suffer.



SHJ

[fireflybob]

If it was an urban environment that would be a "congested area of a town city or settlement" which would require a minimum height of 1,000 above the highest point within 600 metres of the aircraft - there are exceptions but am commenting on the circumstances described.

So 500 ft would be in contravention.

[treadigraph]

SHJ, there was a Partenavia tooling around the Croydon area at lowish level on Saturday (I'd have guessed it was at 1000'), and a photographer I know of through work was planning on doing some aerial photography around London yesterday - he usually uses a Seneca with the door off and whenever I've seen him at work, the aircraft is at least 1000'.

When I got up early yesterday, a C406 (G-FIND?) was just finishing an impressively neat series of NE/SW runs across Gatwick at about 10000', each perhaps 15 miles long - quite a grid formed by the trace on FR24.

Once saw a banner towing C172 orbiting Croydon at well under 1000' - our offices are around 180' off the ground and at times it looked to be nearly level with us...

[Groundloop]

They also have a B727, observed on FR24 over Cambridgeshire and South Lincs on Thursday using a 'Broadsword' callsign.

Was he calling "Danny Boy"?:ok:

[SpringHeeledJack]

SHJ, there was a Partenavia tooling around the Croydon area at lowish level on Saturday (I'd have guessed it was at 1000'), and a photographer I know of through work was planning on doing some aerial photography around London yesterday - he usually uses a Seneca with the door off and whenever I've seen him at work, the aircraft is at least 1000'.


As we all know judging the height of aircraft by sight is littered with falsehoods and depends on so many factors being taken into account, such as perspective, light, reference points and so on, BUT if I were to go out on a limb, I'd say the plane was at half to two thirds the visual height of The Shard (1000ft) and seemed to be at the halfway point, therefore 500ft give or take.


SHJ

[Cremeegg]

All the above aircraft have been very busy lately - some on survey work - believed to be Env Agency flood related work and others who spend so much time in tight orbits they must get dizzy whilst listening.

[NacelleStrake]

The protection of the realm, and it's 'infrastructure's,' ought to be to be of primary and enormous import to all the 'bona fide' contributor's to this forum.

I work in the 'telecom' industry and it really does concern me about the amount of speculation, albeit, 'innocently' proffered that is 'aired' on here.

My brother, who is a builder' was going about his lawful business, doing alterations to his own daughter's large detached property when trading standards and the police turned up to do a 'spot-check.'

Although all his documents were in order, he told them nowt about, why and, what he was doing there.

DO NOT DISCUSS MONITORING, OR, OTHER POTENTIALLY SENSITIVE ISSUES ON HERE.............

[Sir George Cayley]

OK I won't. :ok:

SGC

[SpringHeeledJack]

Anyone know what the very low flying Partenavia P68 is doing around London the last few days ? Although at a legal height, I always wonder what the plan is if one of the engines has issues, bearing in mind that for the most part it's just street after street of houses ?


SHJ

[DaveReidUK]

I always wonder what the plan is if one of the engines has issuesEr, abort the mission and land at the nearest available airfield, perhaps ?

[Baseline1]

It's not uncommon to see an aircraft over London with no callsign. Could have been for many reasons.

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

Every aircraft flying over London will have a callsign. The fact that it may not appear on FR24 or SBS means nothing as those "callsigns" may have no bearing on the true callsign.

[SpringHeeledJack]

I always wonder what the plan is if one of the engines has issues
Er, abort the mission and land at the nearest available airfield, perhaps ?

Indeed, that would be the only course of action, but when one suddenly has an aircraft, however light and adept at manoeuvrability, faced with asymmetric flight at very low level and few safe options the risks seem to outweigh the benefit.

[mad_jock]

Once at loiter power settings even in the cruise at cruise power it is relatively easy to deal with an engine failure in a twin. As soon as your 20-30 knots over your Vyse your rudder is way more effective and you have energy to trade for height.

No where near as exciting as an engine failure at rotation, low speed and everything working against you in a low energy state with absolutely nothing to trade, no height for speed and no speed for height.

[DADDY-OH!]

Be careful on here, Guys & Gals, some sleazy, gob****e hacks are aware of this page....

[Gulf4uk]

Above is very right be careful . these flights been going on for years its only
now you notice because of what's Avail on line . There for our Safety
and Security . The Press and TV Has got into this all week one paper even
posted maps and Aircraft Registration when they should know better but then it sells papers .


Tony:mad:

[DaveReidUK]

The Press and TV Has got into this all week one paper even
posted maps and Aircraft Registration when they should know better but then it sells papers.It always amuses me when the debate about these flights being "hush hush" resurfaces periodically.

If they really are that sensitive, one wonders why Heathrow regularly publish the flightpaths in question on their WebTrak site. I did suggest to them a few months ago that if they were, it might be prudent to suppress them, but I didn't get any response.

Here's the one in question from earlier this week, for example:

WebTrak My Neighbourhood - Home Locator: London Heathrow Airport (http://myneighbourhood.bksv.com/lhr//home/webtrak/2385167)

[ex_matelot]

I can't help thinking that the ones giving it the "hush hush" are doing the online equivalent of the pub bore who tells you he was in the "army", touches his nose and winks. An attempt to indirectly allude to secret knowledge and/or connections without the need to put one's cards on the table.

[3rd_ear]

Sorry to drag this thread up from the deep -I noticed on Friday, at some considerable height above North London, a very small single-engined aircraft chugging slowly around in a sort of random pattern. I noticed the same thing last year on one occasion.

As chance would have it, I photographed a "pollution halo" at around 5pm Friday and there was our friend still meandering about. The silhouette is pretty clear, square-tipped wings well forward on the fuselage. Of course, it could be a little UAV of sorts and the scale makes it look higher than it really is, but single-engine? I thought that was a no-no for civilian flights over London?

Here's a link, click on "original" and download for a good zoom in (plane in upper right part of image): 2015-04-18_18707-1: 57LowRider: Galleries: Digital Photography Review (http://www.dpreview.com/galleries/8140615607/photos/3187312/2015-04-18_18707-1)

[treadigraph]

3rd, was it definitely a single? Hard to tell from your pic, but might it not be an Islander? I was walking along the Regents Canal towpath on Thursday and there was, I think, a BN2T mooching around.

[3rd_ear]

tread, I was fairly sure it was a single, although checking the Islander profile it may be that I just couldn't see the engines - and when I actually heard it last year (directly above me) it did sound remarkably like one of those parachute club flights (slow revving engine). It didn't sound like two engines but I couldn't ascertain that for sure, again because of its altitude. The tailplane wasn't squared, though, from my recollection.

Why would it be so high? Wouldn't that cause one or two ATC headaches? It just mooches over a whole area, takes sharp turns hither and yon at about 0 knots; the area in question can get quite busy when aircraft are coming off the holds and are on the "S" into the Heathrow slope, although that's more like 4000 ft altitude. On the day in question, there were Heathrow outbounds occasionally coming over but again, not very high.

Edit: ah, I read elsewhere that there are three Islanders kitted out to suck up mobile/wifi comms for GCHQ's delectation, flying between FL12 and FL15. Seems a bit desperate, tbh.

[kcockayne]

What you've read is correct.

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

Those aircraft, one type or another, have operated over London for many, many years often in cloud so they are not easily seen. They are little concern to ATC, who can see them on radar.

[AndoniP]

sssshhhhhhh don't tell anyone! (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1041011/MI5-launch-spy-sky-UK-manhunt-British-Taliban-fought-Afghanistan.html)

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

I see that they monitor long-wave radios, presumably to listen to Taliban submarines?

[pax britanica]

I like that comment HD, again showing how fearsomely accurate out brave press lads are.

In the Mail article I don't want to speak ill of the dead but do they really need an RAF style flying suit for an Islander?

[DaveReidUK]

I see that they monitor long-wave radios, presumably to listen to Taliban submarines?

Or maybe they just want to listen to Radio 4.

BBC Radio 4 LW - Schedules, Tuesday 21 April 2015 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/programmes/schedules/lw)

[AndoniP]

pax b - it's an RAF islander isn't it? or do some RAF pilots have the freedom to wear their jeans whilst flying? :}

[teeteringhead]

do they really need an RAF style flying suit for an Islander? Errrrr ....

1. Zip/velcro pocket closures, reducing possible loose article hazard

2. Built in (and secure - see #1 above) pen/pencil holders

3. Built in knee pads, either for note taking or secure (see #1) - small - map storage.

4. Fire resistant

etc etc etc