Norfolk
 

Hello

I've recently been on one of my regular jaunts to the delights of north Norfolk, and rather perturbed to discover the skies being remarkably devoid of aircraft.

I realise that since the heady days of the 80's a succession of increasingly short-sighted and penny-pinching politicians have decimated the numbers, but surely a couple of squadrons of Tornados and the Typhoons at Coningsby, plus our colonial guests from Lakenheath, should make more jet noise than I encountered.

The few fast pointy things I saw were all above 8,000ft, whereas they used to regularly cross the coasts of Cley, Salthouse and Holkham around 250 to 1,000.

Anyone able to say why the lack of low flying in this region now?

Having said that, there was a high-ish Typhoon over Felbrigg on Friday with a lovely noisy climb and wing-over! Fantastic sight through binoculars!

Possibly due to the number of offshore helicopter flights to/from Norwich and the GA traffic that frequents the coast and the minor aerodromes. There have been some airprox between FJ and hello/GA over recent years. You might say airmanship is playing a part.

What you probably saw in days of yore were jets transitting to and from the Wash air weapons ranges. Since we don't practice many low level weapons delivery profiles any more there is less requirement for low level transits.

There is also one less Wash weapons range now and Coltishall used to provide a fair amount of trade.

Rest assured the Air Forces of all hues are still able to bomb and strafe the bad guys as accurately as ever (more accurately in many regards). You just won't see them as easily.

BV

Great to hear. I will feel safer than ever using the toilet in the Prussian Queen.

In recent years Norfolk has been reclassified as part of the rotary region of the low flying system. This change takes effect from about 5 miles east of Marham. As a result you will not see much low flying by fixed wing in Norfolk other than for occasional specific exercises.

That's only true at night. Fixed wing LF is still possible by day but for reasons already given it's been on a long-term decline. Another factor is that with LF being further down the priority list of things to train for, crews try to do what little LF they have time for in rather more challenging terrain.

I've recently got into watching one of those on line radar sites, and filtering out all but military movements, there isn't a lot flying most days.

There isn't alot on the ground these days as well!

They have made some lovely bird sanctuaries on the N Norfolk coast and a US helicopter was downed by a goose a few years ago at Cley with multiple fatalities, since then low flying over the wash seems to be less.

Memories of Eastern Radar in the 70s, when the skies were solid aluminium. But times change.

What did I have to deal with back then? Coltishall, Wattisham, Bentwaters, Woodbridge, Lakenheath, Mildenhall, Honington, Wethersfield, Sculthorpe, Oakington, Wyton, Alconbury ... and feeding the stack for Upper Heyford. Did we do CAC to Coningsby as well?

One weeps, nostalgically.

Thanks for the replies chaps.

@MPN11 oh for a return to those days! Warthogs, Jags, F-111s, Canberras, Phantoms filling the East Anglian skies with the sound of freedom.

I guess the odd high flier and a few helos is the best we can hope for over north Norfolk these days then.

Lord Riot, you've hit the nail on the head. The shrinking nature of inventoried RAF aircraft is the reason why you don't, more often, hear the 'sound of freedom' in the skies of much of the UK.

It was mainly F-100, F-4, F-111, Lightning, Canberra, Varsity and the assorted Mildenhall collection in my time! Jaguar and A-10 came later!!

I remember the F-100 had some nasty failure mode that required an immediate diverse recovery. Details lost in memory cell somewhere. Something akin to Hunter 'turret drive failure', but worse? Oil issue?

Move to Downham Market. Eagles from Lakers and Tiffs from Coningsberg doing doggers several times a week, plus Tonkas (not doing doggers).

Working at NWI, as I do, the place was drowned in F15 noises for what seemed a good portion of last week. Could hardly hear the ratchets on our socket drivers!
We get the (very) odd A400M pass by but haven't even heard a tonka or tripehoon for ages.

Northumberland and even the Scottish Highlands are the same these days - back in my youth you would see several aircraft per hour. These days, lucky if you see one a day.

As Rigga rightly mentions, F15s doing ACT over the top of a major regional city is not uncommon. Seeing the odd Tornado and Tiffie do approaches into NWI (I have a nice line office window to see them Rigga, you back on the shop floor in 3,7 or 8? Need to eyeball some time). The 15's may be angels one five, but by hell the F100s make a racket at max dry. Not uncommon up at Wells-next-to-the-sea to similar and Tornado/Tiffies at medium level. Haven't seen a low level pass by anything in Norfolk for donkeys..

I bet the skies were busier when this film was made >>> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/F...ng_to_Wing.ogv

Loved the video link. Conked out at 7 minutes 55 seconds though. The jet sound effects were obviously added by a beginner. :ok:

And I do wish that, sometimes, they would go and play over their own homes when turning fuel into noise, nice to watch but not so nice to hear when trying to hold a conversation... now if them engines were merlins...