PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Interesting aircraft - what have you seen on your computer today?
Old 15th Jan 2022, 04:45
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treadigraph
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Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Too close to Croydon for comfort
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Hot air balloon drifting from Belgium into France at the mo. Isn't it still night there as well?

My similarly early bird colleague Angela and I used to sit in our east facing office with the lights off around 7am on sunny winter mornings, eating our breakfasts and watching trails heading into Europe and the other way, lit by the as yet unseen sun - "where's that one Treadders?" "Over Dunkirk", etc, etc.

Riddlesdown, my local common, affords great views in most directions and I have identified trails as far down as Truro and out over the Irish Sea west of Strumble, sometimes using turns to be certain of which aircraft on ADSB I was looking at. Some of them were BA flights out of Heathrow. One thing was some shallow turns didn't show up and it eventually dawned on me that I was watching the aircraft reach top of climb! On one occasion a distant trail west of Lundy was a Ryanair flight from Cork to Gatters... descent was over Dorset where it disappeared and a few minutes later I saw its lights turning final over East Grinstead as I scurried home along the muddy tracks listening to the owls preparing to breakfast!

MAC flights! Ah, no ADSB, just an air band and a bit of luck...

I once managed to spot an Irish Air Corps Beech 200 overhead Woodley at 28000' or something from maybe 30 miles to the south (a few miles west of Dunsfold) - it was was just a tint dot glinting in the sun but my 12x50 bins managed to magnify it enough to confirm the "pot". Ah, memories...
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