Mil aircraft on FR24
 

The other evening I tracked a C130J on FR24 into BZZ. It appeared to have departed from northern Norway.

Is it normal for mil flights to show up on FR24?

It depends what you class as normal.

RAF Voyagers frequently appear on FR24, and a number of airliner-type aircraft in mil use carry the correct equipment to be tracked. RAF Tutors usually show up, and on occasion I have noticed a Hawk.

It is unlikely that Typhoons will appear any time soon, however...:suspect:

Actually there was an aircraft call sign Chaos22 showing for a short period this morning - registration was that of a Typhoon ZJ932. In addition, a Shadow ZZ504 and a 32 Sqn146 were over East Anglia at the same time.

There are lots of Mil aircraft showing up on FR24.

Yesterday there was a RAF Sentinal doing the most accurate race track patterns I've ever seen, over the north east coast. There are plenty of F15's, Typhoons and GR4's showing up. Keep an eye for them coming out of Conningsby, Lakenheath, Marham, etc.

They seem to show up as a certain type of aircraft icon on there. Small stubby twin engine icon.

Eurofighter Typhoon off Blackpool now, it will be from Warton

yip here you:

Flightradar24.com - Live flight tracker!

Its also Interesting when you set the altitude slider to 50K and wait to see what appears, mostly executive jets but the other night I watched 3 planes using big icons but identified as twin engine business jets set off from various locations in the US and converge on San Diego all at the same time:mad:

Clicked on the link - first time I have viewed the site. Interestingly there is one showing "Blocked" rather than a reg. Left Stansted and is now on a heading of 302deg just passing to the N of Bedford at 16.12.

Theres a Typhoon and a Voyager over the North Sea just East of Skegness at the moment

The "BLOCKED" flights are almost always business jets, blocked at the owner's request.

I had a look at lunch time. More interesting than I thought it would be...

- Three Falcon 20s circling over the North Sea. FRA / Cobbham ?
- Some civvy light aircraft instead of flying in a straight line, spiralled its way across country.
- A Ryanair 737 took of from East Midlands, did a holding pattern and landed back at East Midlands a few minutes later (technical problem or training ? )
- The RAF King Airs looked busy. Quite a few Widget callsigns up.
- A few helos operating between North Sea rigs and Aberdeen / Norwich, which surprised me considering the weather.

"Tartan 21" Voyager been circling for quite a time, off coast Norfolk

Glad I'm not the only one asking the question, it definitely seems to be a recent change as there never used to be this amount of mil traffic on there.

Tracked a AW101/EH101 a few days ago, as well as a Dornier Alpha Jet over Boscombe Down...

Havoc41 (ZK327) active over Norfolk earlier this evening.

Does no one think this is bad for our defence?

Why? All it shows is an aircraft's current position/altitude/track/speed, relative to the ground... It doesn't show intended track or altitude, it doesn't show planned flights prior to launch or details about the sortie, so why should it be 'bad for our defence'?

-RP

Lytebyte

I can see why you would ask that. It certainly would be very useful to an adversary in some situations that don't need to be stated on a public website.
It also shows how many aircraft we fly on a daily basis and how long they fly for, and where. This was something that the old Warsaw Pact spent a lot of time and effort in man hours to find out not that long ago.
As the King Airs were mentioned above as showing you can guarantee that not just plane spotters follow those :)

Evidently the MoD don't have an issue with it or the callsigns/info would also be blocked for UK military aircraft. I am surprised the Shadow appeared on FR24 and suspect it was a training flight, but I'm more inclined to think that the particular device that allows it to be tracked is not in use when it is going about its normal business -as too would any aircraft the RAF doesn't want Tom Dick or Harry to know what it's doing. For example, I think it's unlikely Typhoons will be transmitting their location on a public website if launched on QRA or any other operational sortie.

Thanks all, FR24 is now all that more interesting.

This is not a mil a/c but a B757 (G-FCLK) out of FAB has spent most of this morning bumbling around Norfolk, flying various patterns.
Any ideas, guesses?

Took off from Lasham so probably post maintenance check flight