which type

I saw a plane today,quite an old looking plane,the most prominant feature was 2 large black spheres under the wings,has anybody seen these markings before?

hmm could you give a better discription? How did the wings look like? How many engines? Estimated size? Civil or military? Where did you saw it?

Was it a U2 perhaps?

how would a U-2 be what she described she said spheres the U-2 isn't even close I don't know what it could be it might have been a old aircraft with no retractable wheels with fixed wheels that from the ground might look like spheres maybe.

sorry not very up on planes,the only reason im asking is because ive noticed odd activity in my area recently with helecopters and planes.The planes have been following the same routes every day for about three weeks,moving across the sky in large circles.This plane i am refereing to was low enough to see the definate shape of two large black spheres on the under side of the wings,not wheels,the rest of the plane was silver,and if i was to describe the shape the best i could come up with would be to say it reminded me of an old spitfire,The helecopters come a half hour or so later,follow the same path,they are large with 2 roters one at each end.Im in the north midlands UK.

[edit on 2-7-2004 by subzero]

Whilst the Helicopters are almost certainly RAF Chinooks the plane has got me baffled. Was it a jet or did it have a prop at the front, or two on the wings? Still trying to figure it out.

Hercules with drop tanks maybe? check the picture: www.raf.mod.uk...

No it probably was not a hercule and the tanks don't look like circles from underneath but ovals also he/she said the plane looked like a spitfire does the hercule look anything like the spitfire hell no.

My latest best guess on this is a Canberra, but I feel the need to explain myself.
Does it look like a spitfire? no, but knowing how vague a non-aviation person can be it seems in my experience that to them everything in the sky either looks like a spitfire or Concorde, also the large B-type roundels under the wings (ie the dark blue and red ones with no white in them) can easily be mistaken for black spheres or discs from below, especially if the viewer doesn't know what markings they are looking for. The fact that there are no silver canberra's however means that my theory is not looking too good, unless I can call in the old 'trick of the light/glare of the sun' cop out