FlightRadar fans - whats going on?!

[KenAdams]

I'm on the M1 and Ryanair flight FR41(East Mids to Shannon) is just circling above EMA. Several aborted landings, I'm also watching it on FlightRadar. Anyone know what's going on?

No but I'm watching it now that you've posted. I'm v familiar with SNN so this is bizarre. I've never seen a plane hold over a departure airport before 😳.

Can only assume something technical is wrong but it must be worrying for everyone on board 😳

That sounds scary!

Not sure what was going on but it seems to have landed at EMA safely!

It's landed! Do pilots ever train at EMA? It's quite common to see Ryanair circling at Shannon as pilots do circuits and bumps but FR never shows a real destination.

Ooo snap 😌

Just gone on Flightradar can't see that plane.

A couple of weeks ago there was a plane that took off from Manchester and it then spent about 3 hours circling the NW with increasing numbers of people watching it on FR.

In the end it turned out that one of the engines had gone bang shortly after takeoff and they were burning off fuel prior to landing again at Manchester. The last loop was a slow descent via the Peak District, which was fascinating but terrifying to watch as we didn't know what was going on..

However, this one looks like it's just landed again, so no risk of anyone losing the next 2 hours seeing what it's up to.

It’s an aircraft used for training. A regular occurrence for this flight no/ aircraft

Looks like it's now landed. But appears to have circled the airport 5 times.

Don’t worry, it is a training flight. Just Google Fr41.

I think it might be a training flight. There is no flight due to arrive into SNN from EMA today and I don't even think EMA-SNN is a route FR operate.

Ah landed

Ahh phew!

They do. Or at least they did when I worked at EMA. FR used to have a training centre with a sim at EMA, no idea whether they still do.

For Background...

Circuit flying on a real aircraft as part of training used to be very common until the arrival of then modern flight simulators maybe thirty years back

These days generally experienced pilots with previous jet time do their whole conversion course in a simulator if one of a suitable standard is available. The first time they fly their new airliner type for real there will probably be passengers on board and an experienced training captain in the other seat on the flight deck...that's called Zero Flight Time training, or ZFT.

OTOH a newbie who as never flown anything bigger than a light/medium weight aircraft will have to do what is known as base training - "circuits and bumps" on a real aircraft. That's usually done at a quiet airport where they can round and round the pattern undisturbed, so very common at Shannon and places like Châteauroux in central France.

You'll also sometimes see circuits flown on transport types if there's a need to requalify a load of people who haven't flown for a while...it might be more efficient to get a whole load in one aircraft and give each individual a few circuits than hog a whole load of simulator time (which in itself isn't cheap).

HTH.

We were camping near Newquay recently and Flybe were obviously doing some take off/landing/approach training at the airport as one plane approached and took off again 20 times - 10 times it circled right before re- approaching, ten times it turned left. I love watching planes but tbh after 20 fly pasts I was totally fed up with this one

As others have already said, it's a training plane. On the back loop round it goes over my house. My toddler always waves 🤣 they go round and round practicing take offs and landings.

I've noticed on FR24 it often says it's going to/come from Shannon, but that's not at all true.

It's up again doing it now.

I've noticed on FR24 it often says it's going to/come from Shannon, but that's not at all true.

I believe (but may be wrong) the issue there is FR doesn't have access to current flight plans, but it's database holds records of what routes a particular callsign/flight number has been on in the past...so it sees a flight number..delves into the database.

As a result if the callsign/flight number today being used for EMA local flying is the one usually used for EMA-SNN-EMA training FR tags it with EMA-SNN

In Hampshire we have F15s and the Red Arrows practising for the Farnborough air show next week. Was slightly worried about scrambled jets until the dates clicked in my mind - thought this thread would be about that!!!

Me too! I'm on Hampshire and loving the display over my garden. Someone said they are the Black Eagles - the South Korean display team. They're great!

Do display teams show up on Flight Radar?

Do display teams show up on Flight Radar?

Not sure what goes on now, will have to have a look, but traditionally in a close formation often the formation leader squawked (i.e. had the transponder on) , but everybody else in the formation had that bit of kit, the one that transmits data, switched to standby.

That was to avoid cluttering the Air Traffic Controllers radar picture with lots of overlapping returns.... may all have changed.

Yes so did I - the flights for the airshow don't appear to be on Flightradar though.

So annoying to be able to hear the planes but not see them due to too many trees around our house, although I eventually saw the F15s flying off together.

Black Eagles not F15s.

Yes so did I - the flights for the airshow don't appear to be on Flightradar though.

Flightradar isn't great for military traffic in general - some of the other tracking sites such as adsbexchange are better for mil stuff but may lack some of the FRs features..