Anyone know why military jets are constantly flying overhead today?

[PurrVue]

York area, but maybe happening elsewhere. It’s been all day back and forth. Kind of freaking me out as it’s unusual.

Just training in the different weather.

I'm York too so have seen them, i know someone who flew for the RAF and he says other countries come over at different times of the year to the bases around here for training flights, that's all.

Thank you 🙏

And looking at Flight Radar, at least two of them are Red Arrows, presumably learning how to show off do displays.

I'm also in York and have noticed them today. Someone told me one of the regular pilots was born in New Earswick and likes to fly over York - don't know if it's true but they have certainly been busy today!

No worries OP 😊i asked him at Christmas as i'd also noticed the increase in planes and wondered why!

The Red Arrows recently appointed two new pilots for the 2025 season so possibly them practicing with the planes.

https://www.flightradar24.com/REDARROW/389e8bfd

Yep, Red Arrows

I'm between Leeds and York, something flew over very low about an hour ago that wasn't on flight radar.

I know sometimes it's foreign military planes, none of the red arrows have been this far west today.

Haha, thought this thread would be about York. It's pretty common here, although they haven't been training for a while.

My partner reckons they were escorting/training with a large US airbus thing.

There’s an exercise of some sort on….lots of the military airspace over the North Sea is active and there’s been USAF tanker (KC135) on a towline over the east coast/North York Moors for some time now.

Mmmm. We are in the national park and east of York, but for the last couple of weeks flight radar is showing no activity in the NP when there's obviously a plane over head. Coverage isn't normally affected, but I'm wondering if there's something going on todo with Fylindales.

Flightradar isn’t great at all displaying military traffic, some other trackers such ADS-B give a bit more coverage but even so a lot of the time often the mil, especially the fighter world, choose not to advertise what they are up to.

Fylingdales was/is a Ballistic Missile warning facility and AFAIK it had little if anything to do with aircraft, in fact for various reasons it was very much an “avoid” by a decent distance when low flying.

TBH almost since Pontius was a pilot, and certainly in the Cold War era there was always a lot of low flying activity on an absolute routine basis over Yorkshire and Lincolnshire and elsewhere, much more than there generally is today…

These days you however occasionally get the odd upturn in activity when the military are running exercises.

'normally' military stuff shows up on flight radar over us for me. Its just at the moment there is nothing showing in the skys above me when there is obvious 'activity'. And normally I'd expect I'd be able to identify what it was going over head. And I can see the rest of the country's aircraft including the red arrows round Lincoln and a fueling tanker.

There are routine exercises over us and have been for decades. I believe they use the NP to practice low level flying and defensive techniques.

Now I come to think of it the military police patrols have been 'extra present' and so have the speed vans since the new year! So maybe something is going on!. eek.

There are routine exercises over us and have been for decades. I believe they use the NP to practice low level flying and defensive techniques.

Yes I know and yes almost certainly.

For info way way back the Uk Low Flying system consisted of a few smallish blocks of airspace over relatively rural areas, joined by narrow link routes..no military low flying was allowed outside the areas and link routes. From memory I think the NP was in one of the original areas.

Around 1980 the system changed so that almost all the airspace over rural UK that wasn’t controlled airspace became open to military low flying to try and spread the distribution of low level traffic…the NP and surrounding area is still pretty handy for the mil - not far off the North Sea, a handy route up/down the eastern side of England and you’ve got Leeming to the west as a handy bolthole/operating base.

13 helicopters noodling around Shawbury defence flying school today.

Not an unprecedented number, but more than the usual weekday eight or nine.

My dh used to be a Tornado pilot (many years ago lol) flying from Anglesey. One of the farmers in North Wales painted on the roof of his barn Fuck off Biggles.
Guess what was no 1 point of interest for all the trainee Tornado pilots now.

Some of the military stuff shows up, yes, but not all. As @notimagain said, they often choose not to be trackable on FR. Understandably e.g.: https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2022/september/twitter-trackers-jeopardize-military-aircraft-0

Sometimes I’ll be watching an RAF aircraft on FR and it suddenly “disappears”, because it’s no longer trackable for whatever reason. Or one will suddenly “appear” as if it’s taken off from the middle of nowhere!

Training exercises, which can be large scale and involve several different countries, are planned way in advance and not exactly advertised to the public.
What is the sinister “something” that people seem to think is going on?

@FictionalCharacter

Training exercises, which can be large scale and involve several different countries, are planned way in advance and not exactly advertised to the public.

Exactly,

I’ll have to own up to having been involved of some of these sorts of fun and games way back in my misspent youth.

There were periodic exercises that went under generic names such as Malletblow where it seemed like the whole of European NATO air forces headed for the UK via the North Sea (possibly tanking on the way) and it wasn’t uncommon to have 100-200 fighters a day flying at low level through things like the electronic warfare ranges at Spadeadam.

These days there are probably fewer aircraft involved but they are now often visible thanks to the ADS tracking sites…so in a way nothing has changed and there’s nothing sinister or even new going on.

Always amuses me that my dogs don't react at all to sonic booms, which we hear occasionally on the coast. I'm pretty sure there's a rule that flying that fast is only supposed to happen far out to sea. I guess it happens regularly, but dogs' hearing is so good, they're used to the sound when it's overland.

I know but I’m not allowed to tell you.
Hope you have your 3 days emergency supplies ready…

I heard this in South West Wales last night, definitely more than one, nothing on flight radar and it went on for some time!

Two Red Arrows busy today over Waddington. They were there at 9.30, still going 3 hours later.
It's the flight path for leaving Manchester airport I think, but no vapour trails from them today.
Passenger planes must fly a lot higher than the Reds. I wonder if they can look down and watch them. Or is the distance deceptive and they are miles apart?

AFAIK the Red’s normal, standard displays don’t get above 10,000 feet agl.

The main civil airways in that part of the world are over to the west or north of Lincoln and in any event anything civil routing off airway coming out of Manchester would be well well above 10,000 by the time it got anywhere near Waddington/Scampton.

Yes you can see Red Arrows displays from other aircraft, certainly when they are using smoke.

Just to say that 'normal' coverage has been resumed in my part of Yorkshire! So I can see activity over national park eg a Hawk from RAF leeming as well the air ambulance.