Intense Military aircraft activity UK
 

Hi, I know especially as airspace is quieter, more military flights are flown, but can anyone tell me why there is so much RAF/USAF activity over the UK over the last few weeks? Day and night, from Hawks to Globemasters, Sentry aircraft and Airbus all together last night and today?!

Cheers!

Rob

We’re going to invade Europe, but keep that to yourself.... :oh:

haha ;-) they're still up there, from a Herc' taking a tour of John O Groats to a couple of A400's circling Jersey atm :-)

I keep an occasional eye on ADSB in case anything interesting is lurking and I can't say mil traffic appears any more busy than usual - maybe stands out more as there is less civvy stuff cluttering everything up?

I don't pay much attention to tactical stuff, but my app that captures daytime high-level traffic over SE UK is currently seeing around half-a-dozen per day, which is pretty usual

Today's haul so far has been only 4: an RAF Voyager, USAF C-17, German AF A319 and a US Navy Clipper.

There's something going on this week. This afternoon there were 4 QID KC-135Rs out of Midenhall and MDS39 Voyager from Brize all running racetrack refuelling patterns over the North Sea and at least 3 TASMAN Cobham Falcon 20s operating in the same area.

Exercising Planes n pilots?
In Medical terms, if you don't use it, you loose it. Eg: Jogging exercise good for maintaining bone strength in lower limbs in older ppl.

It's probably a few flights to Scotland to pick up some lobsters, and other stuff that the Scottish fishing folk can't export to France at present.
It's easy to tell - if the planes have unnecessary spare fuel tanks, then they are for the Mess.

Some of the activity is Exercise Point Blank. Point Blank is a recurring large force exercise. No doubt there will be a press release on it in the near future?.

Sounds like a throwback to the days when Luftwaffe Starfighters used to return from Lossiemouth with bottles of Scotch stuffed into the empty gunports.

Generally speaking, there does seem to have been a marked increase in military aircraft activity over the UK in the past couple of years, but I haven't been able to determine whether this is down to a genuine increase in activity or just that they are getting easier to track online. Could be a bit of both.

.....and the days when the RN Dragonfly at Lossie used to go out and about on their daily evolutions to check lobster pots.

It looked to me like we were being invaded by the Dutch :confused:

Was out and about (legally, M'lud!!!) earlier today on the Suffolk/Norfolk border when there was a sharp bang. Must have been about 1030-1100-ish or thereabouts .... possibly........ I wonder if that was someone getting slightly "overenthusiastic" over the N Sea. :E Had a couple of F15's enjoying themselves yesterday(?) South of Norwich. Not that unusual - but always nice to see peeps having fun! A few Apaches out later too. Anyway, just in case anyone else heard the "bang"! Just curious. :ok:

A lot of military aircraft still do not show up on any of the flight tracking sites (including globalADSB) so you never see the true amount however recently more have started to appear on these sites that didn’t previously so that may account for an apparent increase.

Info from the aircraft enthusiast forums; Exercise Point Blank 21-1 and Exercise Diamond Dash are ongoing this week.

The A400s circling Jersey are doing practice approaches. They have been doing this since last March. It keeps ATC occupied while it is deathly quiet.

Brize was very busy with transport types showing up on ADS B mostly travelling north, looking at movements log many long duration, also activity supporting campaigns in North Africa

Was the contrails equipment fitted ? Was it being used ? Be very careful that stuff can ruin the waterproofing on your anorak ,
and has been known to absolutely destroy some folks sense of humour and haha :)

Living near Yeovilton I've been surprised how little traffic I've been seeing. I know, it's quiet over Christmas and the New Year but it's only been in the last few days that operations seem to have picked up. Mind you, that's just from personal observation, not any of the ADS-B sites so i suppose weather may well have had something to do with it (but it doesn't usually they launch in every direction).