Motor Sich AN12s to Doncaster

[jensdad]

Very, very strange. The straight line from Gothenburg to County Durham followed by a 90 degree turn South could possibly be explained by a desire to shorten the over water stretch, given the lack of airfields on the East Coast between Teesside and Humberside, but even then I'm doubtful as a southerly route off the coasts of Germany and Netherlands would give more diversion possibilities. However, this routing taken by the same aircraft from Eindhoven to Finningley on 2nd Jan seems to be over water for as long as humanly possible.
https://www.flightradar24.com/data/a...r-kdm#1002e5d2

[Harry Wayfarers]

I used to fly on Motor Sich An24's & An140 in/out OZH many a year ago, Motor Sich were banned from the EU at the time ... How times change!

[AircraftOperations]

Due to the relatively low cruise level flown by the An-12s, might they be having to avoid the military training areas in the North Sea by routing round them on UK-Scandinavia (& vv) missions?

[Midland 331]

That's an interesting possibility. The are usually at around FL220 (but sound much lower.. :-) )

We've had another couple over, to and from Doncaster very recently, and they've been exhibiting the same behaviour, that is, what appear to be routings via specific points, rather than a direct track. An outbound on Tuesday night headed almost due north before turning due east abeam Newcastle. Most odd to watch!

[Mike Tee]

I wasn't aware of this thread so I was puzzled on Tuesday evening (9th Jan) when I heard a very loud Prop Jet at 22.15. I even ventured outside but couldn't see anything but the noise was very different to the usual ATP of West Atlantic which usually passes overhead on the Aberdeen / East Midlands run around this time. A quick look at Flight Radar 24 showed it to be an AN12-B of Cavok routing Doncaster / Malmo. As reported previously the routing was rather strange, heading more or less due north from Doncaster before a right turn over Teesside. Altitude when crossing the coast was 23,500.
Another one following the same route yesterday evening, over Ingleby Barwick at 18.20 then coasted out over Hartlepool, eventually climbing to 27,000 ft. Do any of our Doncaster Spotters have any info on what the cargo is ?.
Up-Date. Apparently they are moving automotive parts, don't know yet if they are being moved to or from Doncaster, come on "Donny Spotters", help us out here !!.