Anybody watching Flightradar? What would this plane be up to?

[DarkAcademia]

https://www.flightradar24.com/NATO40/33d84869

It flew over my house earlier (I was too slow to spot it) and it was LOUD.

Is it just a pilot/pilots training?

It’s a NATO radar Boeing E-3A Sentry plane.

My aerospace engineer DH says it's military. It's a NATO airborne warning and control system plane. Spy in the sky basically, and it's on a training exercise.

There’s a huge NATO exercise going on across Europe at the moment, so lots of unusual things will be on the move and practising exercises you wouldn’t normally see.

https://www.act.nato.int/article/steadfast-defender-2024-signals-alliance-unity-and-preparedness/

It's been down to Brize Norton RAF. The RAF used to have some of those craft but they don't anymore, scrapped as didn't need them apparently. So we only get NATO ones now.

Oh, I instantly googled it when it went over, and now know a lot more about AWACS than I anticipated I would on a Friday afternoon when I'm supposed to be working (I'm freelance! Not skiving on a hapless employer!). But thank you for asking your husband, @ArchetypalBusyMum - I've never seen one before, and I'm mad that I didn't make it to the window fast enough.

That's really cool - thank you! I have absolutely zero need for any of this information, but I usually only hear/see RAF planes where I live, and was curious when I heard something different.

God I can't believe I just admitted out loud that I can tell by the sound when a non-RAF plane flies over. 😳

Love a random question. 😁 Are you near Brize then? Knowing your audio landscape so well?
You can see from its pic the receiver gizmo thing on the roof (not DH lingo) which is cool.

My relative is in the Aussie air force and they have these, they call them The Surfboards. The tech inside them is just absolutely phenomenal. Lucky you getting to see it in action!

Number #1 tracked flight today! Sadly I can't see it from my office window :(

Evidently this flew almost directly over me as well. Well used to hearing loud planes out of Brize so I'm surprised I didn't pick up on this one! Love a plane thread!

Am I reading the flight history correctly? It circled Brize Norton four times - and landed every time?

Can't see the history in detail but could be a bit circuit training ( sometimes known as "touch and goes") for the pilots..

Fly a pattern (the oval) around the airfield, fly down the approach, touchdown on the runway but rather than stopping put the power on again and lift off for another circuit...

@DarkAcademia started its journey in bremen and finished, after uk visit non stop, back to cologne

I didn’t know about circuit training like that - that’s really interesting, @notimagain - thanks!

Circuit training ! Thanks @notimagain, I think that's what was going on.

Sometimes I think they just try and draw patterns for Flight Radar for later.

I saw this one as I live about five miles from Brize .. we are so used to seeing all manner of planes and especially circuit training .. but every so often we are bemused !

Silly question but I’ve got this app, how is the best way to use it? I often see people mentioning interesting flights they have spotted on it but I don’t know how they spotted them?!

I moved to Brize nearly 40 years ago and I was in a second floor flat, that could see the runway, as I saw my first touch and go

I was a bit shocked at first until I was told this was quite the norm

Yes you're right, "touch and goes" were very common back in the day, especially in the military, even on the larger aircraft.

Even for fully trained crews there was usually a requirement to, for example, log x number of normal landings a month, x number of three engined landings (on a four engined type..obviously), x number of flapless landings...the list went on and a touch and go was a quick way of ticking them off.

In the days before really modern simulators the only way of doing them was on the real aircraft, maybe when you got back to base at the end of a longer flight (I gather that went down well with the "rear crew" )...

All probably a bit different now with high fidelity simulators but there's probably still the occasional requirement for some in the military to do them on the real machine.

Yes my husband was quite often on those VC10 touch and goes, quite often in the Avionics bay under the floor, so not seat belted or anything

He got thrown into some racking and ended up with a massive gash on his head once

I,'m sure I've heard "touch and goes" called "circuits and bumps", though that might be either just among civilian light aircraft people or old-fashioned

Would light plane training still include them?

Not really my aisle but I'd put money on there still being a lot of circuit flying performed in the run up to a student's first solo...

@Cloud44

Just scanning around really. You can also see squawks as they turn bright red.

The typhoons for instance are a different shape so easier to spot too. Dp will WhatsApp me with interesting things when he's at work, you can tell he's the boss!

A flying club at Brize with a light aircraft is frequently on the go at the weekend so youc could keep a lookout