Was that a missile over York?

[cakeorwine]

It looked like one.

Really loud, not a plane - but could be wrong.

Or am I over imagining?
Nothing on Flight Radar

I’m in the Midlands, but it have been QRA?

Pair of F-35s according to the knowledge on the local FB page. So jet practice basically. Apparently they don't show up on flight radar.

I have no idea how accurate that is btw.

There is now some debate about whether they were typhoons or f-35s.

But yes, forces pilots out for a play.

I do wonder what a missile would have looked like

Because it did look exactly what my impressions of a missile streaking across the sky would be!

Did it have a massive fire tail??

Not just me

https://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/25131751.loud-bang-heard-york-thought-sonic-boom/

A loud bang heard above York has caused shock among residents.

The noise is thought to have been a sonic boom caused by low flying jets and was heard shortly before 1pm today (Thursday, May 1).
Andreas Lombrou heard the bang in Heworth and looked out of his window to see what he initially thought was “satellite coming down”.
“It appeared for about two seconds. There was a huge flash, it was scary,” he told The Press.
“I’ve never seen anything like that.”
Other residents said they witnessed an aircraft circling over the city centre.

The Royal Air Force (RAF) has confirmed to The Press that it had no “fast jet aircraft capable of supersonic flight or indeed any other aircraft” in the area at the time. Therefore, a spokesperson said it was not RAF jets.

Who’s flying about in fighter jets if it’s not the RAF?

There's a major NATO exercise somewhere near Iceland going on at the moment. Perhaps they've spread out a bit. 😂

The USAF still have bases in the UK.

USAF are still active over here and use several UK bases

There's a whole bunch of fighters playing around between Lincolnshire and Yorkshire at the moment, all out of RAF Coningsby etc. They are on FR.

Perhaps one got a bit lost 😁

Lots of Typhoon (RAF) round York now

I can hear one now

They can show up on flight radar, it depends snd as it happens it looks like there are a couple of Typhoons in the York area right now. ( 1955 uk.time)

We’re about 25 miles from York and spotted a very loud plane in the sky just now…very very noisy!!

They can choose whether to show up on FR or not.

Don't ask me why I know. Taps side of nose.

I've seen those Typhoon jets at air shows and they are ear blistering loud and super quick. A stray missile sounds unlikely surely. The RAF might have denied it was them for a multitude of reasons.

York Mix is on it

https://yorkmix.com/the-building-shook-low-flying-jets-that-buzzed-york-identified/

But a York aviation expert witnessed the planes and told YorkMix: “It was two US F15s.
“They were flying particularly low, and looked to be practicising dogfighting over York.

Just as long as they had a hard deck and stayed above it

There's a pair just nothe east of York right now, plus one further north, one further south.

Usual deal is if they are in roughly speaking open civilian airspace they'll elect to be visible electronically (for collision avoidance purposes.).

I've just looked at York around 1300 using playback and at that time there was nothing fast jet wise visible in the area.

Edit for fat thumbs

Please correct me if I'm wrong but I thought someone told me once that military aircraft does not show up on Flight Radar?

We've an RAF base quite locally have been enjoying the practices for VE day while sitting in the garden.

As mentioned upthread it depends.

As a rough guide as far as UK airspace goes if the mil, especially the RAF are operating in an area where they might conflict with civilian traffic such as light aircraft operating in open airspace at lower altitudes they tend to transmit identifying info in a format that makes them visible to the collision avoidance equipment the civvies carry.

Doing that also makes them visible on Flightradar and other tracking sites.

If OTOH they really don't want or need to be electronically visible, for example if they in areas the civvies don't go they'll either not be transmitting info, or doing so in a manner not trackable by the civvies and tracking sites.

There can be a bit more to it than that, for example some tracking sites selectively hide some tracks (includes some civil stuff) but that's a rough explanation.

There was little point turning off their position when they are practising dog fighting over a major tourist city on a clear sunny day!!

Well true, TBH air combat actually over a large built up area used to be a "no no" back day for hopefully obvious reasons, so?

For info I looked at replay on a couple of the tracking sites, one of which is more permissive than flight radar and there was nowt,.but if the F-15s were seen with mark one eyeball there's the answer.