Military AircrewA forum for the professionals who fly the non-civilian hardware, and the backroom boys and girls without whom nothing would leave the ground. Army, Navy and Airforces of the World, all equally welcome here.
This appears to have been missed in Wednesday's Daily Mail:
"Tower Block terrorised by RAF jet
Thousands of office workers cowered in terror as a massive jet thundered towards their tower block.
Visions of the World Trade Centre catastrophe flashed into their minds as the Hercules swept to within 400 yards.
Now the RAF has apologised in a letter to the 3000 staff at the DVLA centre in Swansea for the day in February they were 'buzzed' by the C130 transporter.
They explained that the plane had veered off course during bad weather.
A woman clerk at the centre, which processes licences for every vehicle in Britain, said yesterday: 'It was huge and brought memories of the pictures we saw in New York on 9/11.
'Anyone working in a high rise building is sensitive to seeing aircraft flying close by - a lot of us were scared stiff'
An RAF spokesman said that at no time did their plane breach safety rules"
And there was me thinking that the RAF were a professional bunch and diverted due to bad weather, rather than veering about the countryside
Even allowing for media hype, this is not really a matter for levity. A large ac heading for your high-rise office block must be disconcerting, to say the least. I understand the RAF took it very seriously.
Shy Torque, do you want one of my V5s? They've sent me 2 for the same vehicle! I'm sure there's something illegal I can do, but my imagination fails me!
Good to hear that the people working really hard at the DVLA, not gazing out of the windows all day looking for stray aircraft!!
And I thought that they were only interested in penalising the people who re tax their vehicles albeit a little late (two weeks due to holls) to the sum of eighty pounds! Hope it shook them up good and proper!
Pontius Navigator - Do tell where in Lincolnshire 100ft is allowed (assuming you dont actually live on a runway or one of the danger areas). In any case the 250ft has to be with prior authorisation does it not?
1. If the RAF had a higher public profile, your average office worker might recognise a C130 as a military a/c and therefore cheer rather than cower under the desk.
2. The MoD seems incredibly nervous about upsetting other govt departments at the moment - if no rules were broken why apologise? (Maybe still feeling guilty for wasting so much money on procurement projects )
3. The DVLA are a right royal pain in the a** so, french connection UK the c u next tuesdays!
I'm not sure why you would expect DVLA workers to be spotters and I wonder how good they or any other average member of the public would be at recognising a C130 head-on and possibly in silhouette.
Swansea, as a Town with a population of more than 10,000, is a town avoidance (see www.mod.uk/issues/lowflying), so, presumably, it would be unusual to see a military transport ac flying there below 2000ft. If the DVLA building is, say 300 ft high, and the ac was '400 yards' (okay, make that 800 yards) from the building, then one could assume the ac was flying well below 2000ft, within the town avoidance. If the crew really were avoiding weather, fair enough, but I think an apology was in order, in the circs.
I doubt slagging-off DVLA helps the cause of the aircrew involved. It might give people the wrong idea.
Great deal of low low flying Alberts in Norfolk last week - scared the c*** out of me in case any flown by old mates of mine!!! Strong wind made for some interesting drift even at 250'
Further thought; if this scares the living daylights out of our civil servants, would anyone from Rompers Green care for the lat long of my local tax office? There could be a good drink in it.....
)
