To think the RAF shouldn't do this

[concernedforthefuture]

I was rudely awoken at around 3am this morning by an RAF plane flying fast and low (c 600ft) above my house. I honestly thought it was coming down; it was so loud and scared the shit out of all of us.
I appreciate the need for training but... IT WAS 3 O'CLOCK in the morning??! We live a long way (150 ish miles) from Brize Norton where this plane came from (and indeed we aren't close to any airport / airfield), so low flying aircraft sounds are very unusual.

AIBU to think they should fly low elsewhere at night (like out at sea )? I probably am, but fancied a moan as I'm very tired this morning.

[bookmum08]

How to you know it was a training exercise ?

[ivykaty44]

Do you know the full details of what was happening?
Is it a one of or a regular occurrence?

[Bluebellpainting]

I highly doubt that they would be flying that low, at that time of the morning purely for training. It is likely they were responding to something.

[BumpBundle]

YABU
What makes you think they're training? Also, sometimes they need to train at night so what time of day would you like them to train night flying? How do you know it was from Brize? Do you understand that flying over the sea is very different to flying above buildings (have you noticed that the sea moves for example?!)?

[curtainsforme]

YABVU.

There was no RAF place flying at 600ft unless on approach to an airport. In which case surely you would be used to aircraft noise?

[Lurkingforawhile]

That sound strange - how did you know it came from Brize? If they scrambled one of the emergency response jets they come from Lincs I think

[DartmoorChef]

They regularly fly at under 600ft on training where we live, and we are nowhere near an airport. But thankfully not at 3am.

[singtanana]

We have regularly had RAF planes from Brize Norton doing training around Glasgow Airport. You can find out more about it on their twitter feed

twitter.com/rafbrizenorton/status/1267492148489990146?s=21

[StrawberryPeach]

Weirdly I was woken early hours by the same thing! Pretty sure it went over at least 3 times 😬

[DesignedForLife]

Highly doubt they were training at 3am.

[curtainsforme]

No they don't.

[singtanana]

And I haven’t voted but you’re maybe a little unreasonable if it was a one off. I think while the skies are quieter they are able to do more training so should take advantage. Easy for me to say when I wasn’t woken with a fright at 3am though!

[curtainsforme]

Highly doubt they were training at 3am.

The RAF fo night resining regularly. They don't do it at 600 ft over residential areas though.

[XDownwiththissortofthingX]

How dare the RAF go flying around in their noisy aeroplanes without phoning you first (at a decent hour of course) to get the ok.

Bloody cheek.

[PhoneLock]

We get them flying over us in the middle of the night. There's usually more than one and they are the big fat four propeller ones. They do fly very low though, below the level of the top of the surrounding hills.

I can't say it bothers me. It isn't every night.

[NothingIsWrong]

There are no fast jets at Brize, it's a transport base. I think the fast ones come from Coningsby in Lincolnshire.

[LakieLady]

I think they need to do this occasionally, and if it's a one-off, I think that's ok. They have to practice low-flying at night to see if there are any problems.

I was camping in the Sussex Downs a few years ago and we got loads of Chinooks flying over, between 2 & 3 am, two nights running. The first time, it sounded so low I was scared it was having problems and might come down in the woods where we were camped, but after a couple more, I realised it was fine and went back to sleep.

[Ellisandra]

Given the reason the RAF exists and needs to train and that this isn’t even frequent - YABVVU!

[bobbiester]

If you live 150 miles from BrIze Norton what makes you think this aircraft came from there?

[CafetiereCoffee]

Get thee onto FlightRadar24 then the next time it happens you can track where it’s been/going to.

[curtainsforme]

You won't see a military plane at 600ft on flight radar

[Lockheart]

There are only 3 areas of the country where the RAF train for low flying and when they do, they are restricted to 1-hour windows at lunchtime or in the afternoon.

They would absolutely not be doing low-flying training over a residential area at 3am.

Their low-flying timetables are published and easily accessible on the gov.uk website if you bother to look.

[concernedforthefuture]

@ivykaty44 I looked up the flight details on a tracker app. In my panicked 'WTF was that' state I wanted to make sure it wasn't a commercial plane because I was genuinely concerned that it was coming down nearby (I was half asleep ).
It was a Hercules so not a jet. Big noisy thing with 4 propellers.

[AlwaysAnotherName]

I think OP is not being too unreasonable (in regards to being frightened). I was woken up once by (what sounded like) around 20 police cars with full sirens going full pelt down the road outside my house. I was terrified. I would also be worried if I was woken up by low flying aircraft flying full pelt over the house, and probably pissed off if I had young children.
I would have assumed it was a training exercise, too. No reason to think otherwise.
OP, as long as it's a one off, try to forget it. We used to live fairly close to an RAF base, and I don't ever remember being woken by aircraft, so it's not a frequent thing.

[notimagain]

I appreciate the need for training but... IT WAS 3 O'CLOCK in the morning

Some training / recurrent practice has to be done at night - hours of darkness are very much reduced over the UK at this time of year......