Civil Airlines Don't Fly Circuits
 

The RAF's main noise generator is in the circuit. Large and noisy civil aircraft seldom fly circuits see Heathrow, Gatwick et al

With one noisy take-off & landing every couple of minutes there's no need or opportunity to fly circuits to make lots of noise.

Are you suggesting that Heathrow & Gatwick are quieter places to live than Brize? Brize Norton is for the most part a sleepy hollow with relatively few ac movements per day, certainly compared to the 'glory days' of 3 ac in the circuit & a couple in the instrument pattern that used to be the norm at Lyneham. Even then the locals didn't use to complain much.

Personally though I did find the noise of a 15 ship formation starting up to be quite wearing. If I wasn't in it of course......

Additionally
 

Not sure if anyone's mentioned it, but right up until after take off! the Propellers will be un synchrophased. The slight differences in RPM and Phase Angle will mean that the noise won't be steady but will tend to beat slightly and come and go. This doesn't enable the brain to exclude it or treat it as background noise so easily. Consequently it will seem to go on longer and be more annoying.

Miss the good old K, it must confuse the crap out of people that the J is "newer" :)

Why? Which 'people'?

Beggers,

A point worthy of mention, the lack of synchrophasing in the ground range. Obviously I've never forgotten all you taught us.

"Miss the good old K, it must confuse the crap out of people that the J is "newer"

I must admit, it never crossed my mind "dyslexia rules KO, as they say.

Smudge :ok:

Ken,

Think about it....A B C D E F G H I J K - there you are. J newer than K!!

The ones which do the usual Alphabet Ken :)

But not the ones who understand the convention of UK procurement of US ac in the 60s.

Obviously I'm 'a bit slow on the uptake', although I have to confess to never actually being confused about which was the newer ac, possibly because I knew that the K was really an E with H engines anyway. Although I was a little confused as to why we called it a K in the first place, particularly as we then designated it C1/ C3 (short/ long) and then the J (manufacturer's designation) as C4/ C5 (long/ short).

Ken,
i was called the C130 K as it was exclusively for the UK but RAF designations at the time did not allow for a double suffix so like our Phantom the F4 (U)K, another 'one off', the U was dropped when the a/c entered service.

Except the F4K was originally for the Royal Navy! The RAF A/C was the F4M.:confused:

130/Hercules designations
 

I was the MoD desk officer in D Air Ops for the Hercules fleet as we signed the contract for the J and then started planning for its arrival. OR 51(?) managing the actual procurement claimed primacy over designations for the J and insisted that numbering was determined by entry into service.

That idea certainly seems to fit in terms of the Ks, thus:

On initial delivery, all short and Hercules C1.
Then we modified one into Snoopy and it became Hercules W2.
Then we stretched a few and called them Hercules C3.

I wanted to maintain consistency and call the short ones C4s, the long ones C6s and leave C5 empty for any special then as yet undetermined role modification. However, OR51 over-ruled me because of the supposed rule and, as we got the stretched Js first, they became the Hercules C4 and then when the stubbies, the last 6(?), arrived they became C5s.

Xercules: I did know the reason for the C4/5 bit, it just added some spice to my theme of confusion, but thank you for your knowledge. It's one of the strengths of PPRuNe that lurking somewhere amongst the users there is often someone who was actually there when a decision or action was made.