Giant practical joke
 

It's really the crews that should read this but I didn't know quite where to post it so here goes! This happened a long time ago - 1983 to be exact. I was living in Sunderland then and on a clear day, I looked up and saw the contrails of two aircraft on reciprocal courses at FL gawdknowswhat. Their position must have been about 5 miles off the North Sea coast between Sunderland & Middlesborough.

Plane 'A' was tracking N-S and plane 'B' was on the reciprocal, the tracks being separated by a mile or two. When I first saw them they were a few miles apart and closing.

As I looked, the lateral separation made avoidance a forgone conclusion; but what was this?..... plane 'A', on its N-S track, was turning slightly right, and looked to intercept 'B''s track! It quickly settled on its new course of (say) 190 and I watched with mounting horror as the two approached a seeming aerial disaster. The closer they came the more transfixed I was, aghast at the terrifying spectical I was about to witness.

There was no doubt the pilot of 'A' had got it just right because he intercepted 'B' bang on the nose.....a thousand feet or so higher! After the "impact" he turned back & resumed his original course. 'B' sailed serenely on. For minutes afterwards, the contrails hung there as evidence to the prank.

At the time I knew nothing of the semi-circular rule, so to me it was the grandest theatre, a stellar silent practical joke; visible to millions, watched by....dunno, a hundred, spread over the North East? I mentally applauded the perpertrator(s) :D and I wonder now if anyone on pPrune's excellent forums know of remember this event.

Kev

Might have been air defence traffic; there's no means of telling.

A total non-event, and the pilots were probably not even aware of each other. If they were contrailing, they would have been up in the 30k'+ region, separated by at least 2k'. At that altitude, there would have been no interaction between them at all. You purely saw one aeroplane passing well beneath another and turning, but at no stage having anything to do with the other. Rather than hundreds watching, you may have been one of only half a dozen, and only in your immediate vicinity would it have appeared as if they even came horizontally close to each other.

Obviously my powers of description are not up to the job. I would insert a diagram into this post but I don't know how to. Suffice to say that anyone who saw it would know it was pre-meditated and deliberate.

My bet is military, Kev - and they may even have been at the same level, doing a 'passing visident' or just sporting with a mate.

Because of the location and the lack of airways there, I agree military messing around is probably the more likely scenario.

Yup, I think I can vis the scenario now. Thanks for your input, chaps; that's a 23 year-old mystery probably sorted! :)

Kev