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.

[Ironmanrocks]

We get the C17's - Hercules coming over quite often at 3am - slow and VERY loud. Also Chinooks. I always wake and it frightens the life out of me - but I kind of like it. I do NOT like fast jets though.... x

[concernedforthefuture]

@Bluebellpainting Hence why I was a little surprised. It was a Hercules which I understand is a transport aircraft? It was out on a circular ish route from 1:35-4:00am so I assumed training but could be wrong.

[curtainsforme]

Nobody is flying a herc at 600ft over a residential area at 3am.

[concernedforthefuture]

@curtainsforme Plane tracker app said it was RAF and also showed it was at 600ft as it flew directly overhead. Maybe the app was wrong but it certainly sounded extremely low.

[curtainsforme]

Like I said, unless it was on approach to an airport it wasn't flying at 600ft. I don't know what app you are using but it wasn't an accurate one.

[concernedforthefuture]

@StrawberryPeach This was the route it took according to the app I checked (screenshot hopefully attached). Do you live somewhere on this path? I

[concernedforthefuture]

@XDownwiththissortofthingX I did qualify it by saying I accept that I probably was being unreasonable, but was grumpy from lack of sleep

[MoaningMinniee]

I'll ask someone who works there if he knows... Watch this space!

[iVampire]

Not everyone lives in a ‘residential area’

Are you very rural, OP? Because some places have much more interesting terrain to take low training flights over (or drop paratroopers into - would they come out of a Herc?) and they tend to be rural/hilly and only sparsely inhabited

[SummerDayWinterEvenings]

RAF round near me have been doing night training for the last 2 weeks. It's essential. They post on local FB pages etc this seems to be just training. In the past we had it for a week -low flying at 2am but that was just before all of the sq went to Afghanistan.

[Buttybach]

We were camping last year in pembrey in wales and they had an overnight exercise of 3 planes doing loops at 2am-4am
It was constant!! Ear plugs couldn't have blocked it! I ended up getting up for that time and reading

[GladAllOver]

For a once off flight - YABU

[MoaningMinniee]

Yup, the someone who works there has confirmed it was training.

[concernedforthefuture]

@curtainsforme I used the 'plane finder' app. It was on there. Showed it as RAF, gave a flight code and showed the full route and altitude.
I've attached a screenshot (not the bit from above my house obviously as that would be a bit outing, but another point on the route where it was flying even lower).

[StrawberryPeach]

Nope, not anywhere even close! This is gonna have me wondering for the rest of the day 😂

[SharkasticRhymes]

My experience of nightime RAF training is that it is multiple passes/planes going on for some time. Plus, as others said, they post on the local facebook page when they are going to do so.

A plane that loud could well be something like the Eurofighter Typhoon which sounds LOUD and so sounds very low, but isn't really. It's louder than any other plane I've ever heard (father worked in the RAF and until he retired a couple of years ago, he worked on the Typhoon). If you only heard it a couple of times then it's possible it was scrambled for a security reason. Which also happens more often that you'd expect.

[AwwDontGo]

YABU but very reasonable in your unreasonableness 😅.

I'm pretty pissed of with the pidgins for waking me up this morning. I'm probably being a bit unreasonable too. 😁

[janet1267]

This happened once and you think it's unreasonable?

You wouldn't get on very well living under the Heathrow flight path. I'm finding the silence deafening at the moment!

[Student58]

We regularly had very low flying noisy RAF helicopters over us at night about a month ago. They were moving supplies between different hospitals.

[c3pu]

Ah, a big noisy Hercules.

Wonder if they put out a NOTAM for low flying at night? You might be able to get a heads up if you check them? Not that it would do much good...

[concernedforthefuture]

@iVampire Not very rural, no. Rural compared to many places I suppose but our town, although surrounded by countryside, has a population of c.10K.

[Bluebellpainting]

@curtainsforme yes. Sorry I meant training over residential area at 3am. Do understand night training happens. Not RAF but do get a very tired and grumpy husband when he comes off night training with the Navy.

[concernedforthefuture]

@janet1267 But living near an airport you presumably expect and are used to this sort of noise. Where I live it's so quite you can hear a sparrow fart and I am nowhere near an airport or military base. A low flying noisy plane when you're fast asleep is quite unexpected and terrifying.

[thecatsthecats]

Lol at the people dismissing this who probably don't know how BLOODY LOUD a jet is when it swoops over your house.

Not everyone lives in a ‘residential area’ - THIS! The valley I grew up in was classified as non-residential, and the jets came so low over our house that we could see the pilot in the cockpit.

I actually think YABU OP, but knowing what it's actually like, I do feel your pain!

(I was actually out in San Francisco when the US equivalent of the Red Arrows were doing a display, and my colleague asked me why I wasn't flinching at the noise whilst others were gasping and staring - I'm fully used to the sound of a jet right overhead though! And they were obviously way above the skyscrapers etc)

[concernedforthefuture]

@MoaningMinniee Thank you for confirming. Could you ask them to please train elsewhere next time (I'm joking..!).