I have seen them at Brize Norton doing circuits

Where's Brize Norton?
 

You don't say!!

Glider 90

Glider 90. I suspect rogerg's point is that the fun-police do let the Voyager guys do some trg in the real aircraft albeit at their home base!

I suspect they don't come to Waddo because they can't use QFE!!!

I hope it did, otherwise I was hallucinating, given I watched them stuff the fuselage of a Nimrod, having dismembered it with loving care, into the hold and then flew with it to Woodford.

We were delayed for a day "due to the late arrival of the incoming aircraft " as the well known expression goes, which also caused the RAF a bit of consternation as the poor thing was plonked overnight opposite the Engine Run bay.

HP. Rivet Joint doesn't use QFE.

Quite often we use airfields in Gemany, France & other European counties....

How far does the UK reach? Didn't know we had continental counties!!

The only circuit training Voyager does is Base Training. 6 circuits per pilot at the end of the type rating course. Same as the civilian airlines.

No side stick either

Or tray table :O

Where do they put their digital SLR cameras now then?

Wow, how sad! Not that long ago that the military pilot stayed sharp by practicing in the real aircraft. Such a shame that we have to dumb it down to the commercial system by doing almost everything in the sim.

Visual circuits are an academic exercise which are very useful when learning to fly, but with very little practical application. Why bother in an aircraft that has little use for them and is expensive to operate?

Beardy
 

Not true as I’ve flown a fair few out of necessity.
Zurich landing 28 was and probably still is a 14 cloud break followed by circling. Oporto visual circuit from the north saved at least five minutes..as did in the old days Marseille and Nice without having to fly the whole procedure over the sea - short cut intercepting FA inside the marker. Even did a visual circuit in a DC10 from 10,000 ft+ downwind at Caracas..saved a tonne plus and five minutes.
And more importantly met an airbus pilot who had multiple flight control system failures after getting airborne at Heathrow..declared emergency and flew a quick circuit (if he had followed the checklists he would have been left without any flight controls).

And you did academic circuits?
Like you I have flown heavy aircraft and like you I have positioned the aircraft visually to be stable at 500'. My experience of flying academic circuits in the military training system helped. But the obsessive repetition of academic circuits is not necessary.

Agreed, better to spend the time doing GH and aeros! Oh, no, you don't do that either!

Seriously though, the visual circuit is so much more than demonstrating that you can be the master and put the aircraft exactly where you want it. It combines handing skills, CRM, awareness, flexibility. Even if you choose to initiate a GA at 50ft to save wearing out the tyres, flying in the real visual circuit (not in the sim!) is an essential part of being a military pilot.

No dumbing down, just a change in technology, which you may not appreciate.

I did ZFT on the 767,no big deal, never broke anything , and did quite a few visual circuits on it in my time!

Being held hot and high by a radar controller , with the need to be stable by no later than 500 was a bigger challenge !

It works very well!

Circuits
 

In Zurich circling more or less yes bar starting the downwind half way down the runway. Normally very turbulent and if we were following company we got landing clearance around 300ft..some time in the flare but following the opposition was a mini cross country.
Only one very dodgy incident was when a Swede cut the corner with a new controller which saw two DC9s over the same point over the ground.
Gear down on downwind leg..stopwatch abeam threshold, approach flap, attitude and thrust from memory, 20 secs 30 degree left bank..roll wings level..about 10 seconds left bank selecting land flap around 500 ft..attitude and power stabilised by 300ft. We flew by numbers which initially I thought was bollox but last landing in a five day/ 26 sector block in winter was proof of the pudding.

To answer the original question. I've experienced similar at a Lossiemouth/ Kinloss when going away on det. The Tristar or VC10 couldn't land there as we didn't have the right amount / size of fire engines that's legally required for big passenger aircraft. So instead of the air transport coming to us, we had the long long drive down to Brize instead.

Yes, but! I have operated the TriStar into Lossie as well. :)
You are correct about the crash cat etc issues though. Sometimes it was thought worthwhile to upgrade the local capability for specific moves. However, it was desperately disappointing to see how poor the military could be at getting these things sorted!

OAP