Can anyone shed any light on what this aircraft may be doing?

Hi ATS!

I live in North West England. On the coast in West Cumbria to be exact and for the past six months I have noticed the same aircraft pass over my area most nights at around the same times. It is always on the same flight path and at approximately the same altitude.

The aircraft is a Jet of some kind as you can hear the engine noise as it passes over. It is slow moving and only ever passes over at night between 10 and 11pm. Sometimes later on I have caught it going back in the other direction but on the same flight path.

It flies much lower than passenger aircraft and on a completely different flight plan. Almost all passenger planes travel West to East over us, this thing travels South/South-east to North/Northwest. This is what caught my eye in the first place as it was such a different direction to the rest of the planes we see (barring the odd daytime prop plane etc.).

The plane only has two solid white/off white lights (one on each wing) and a red strobe on the fuselage. I made a couple of images to give you an idea of it's direction.

Here is the direction of travel from my point of view.



Zoomed out.



Finally this is what it looks like from below. Bear in mind the red light is a strobe.



I would like to know what it is doing as it has me curious I can't find any information on routine flights up and down the West Coast so I thought I would just throw it out there.

Thanks.

Perhaps a coast guard flight? or even just a standard military night time training flight?

Thats non of your business!!

Nah I see them kinda planes and helicopters sometimes I think they are like rescue flights.

reply to post by Maxatoria


My first thoughts are military, maybe a standard patrol of some sort. It's regularity would suggest so. I have been struggling to find any info on such flights however? There's a good chance such details are not available though.

They'd still need to be visible to civilian air traffic control as other craft may want to use the same airspace so it may be possible to trace it that way if theres a live ATC feed on some website

oh boy..i like this one..

I have personal connections with the airspace around this area..
but first of all, I think it is an aircraft coming to or from this airbase.. Warton.
www.abct.org.uk...

This is where the eurofighter was built by BAE systems.

From what I remember...from around 1995, there was some activity going on here that was classified top secret. I think the base even got locked down a few times. According to the chatter, there was a hanger that can be moved to any part of the airfield at any given time in order to prevent direct hits from attack.

The rest of the chatter was about top secret tests of similarly secret aircraft. We never did get to find out what types of aircraft, though this entire base was under scrutiny by many an interested person.

These persons being involved in the UFO hunting field. It was believed that some of hte tech being tested was from or part of a project involving such craft of unknown origin etc.. ie, black projects.. you may be witnessing such a project or at least unchartered flights to/from Warton.

I once observed an object coming from the direction of Warton.. what this craft is, has never been revealed. nobody has been able to explain this photo of what I saw on multiple nights, even on another year.
for some reason, the thread itself never got the attention I felt it deserved, but that may have been the way I wrote the thread.
here is that thread .
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Warton is one of those places that has dropped below the radar over the years.. shame really..

its funny that the last poster posted just before me, with exactly what came to my mind when I read the OP.

it is usually Warton to RAF Valley , or sometimes to a site near Liverpool. but the OP seems to be a bit higher up the coast.


thanks

Snoopyuk

reply to post by Extralien


First of all I must admit to a glaring mistake. My account of the direction of the air plane is correct, however the line I have drawn on the original maps contradicts this. The plane does travel, as I stated, (from my point of view) from what looks like a South Easterly direction into the North West but I seem to have lost the plot when I was making my diagrams?

No excuse, but I had been on night shift, and woken up early.

I have seen this plane from home and my place of work, which are about a mile apart. The flight plan would seem to bisect home and work, closer to home as it seems overhead but when at work it seems to be travelling more over the Solway.

The interesting thing is that when you draw a line from Warton Air Base straight through my work and home it looks about right.

Here is the proper flight plan from Warton into the North West, through my work and my home.



Zoomed out.



Now the question is: Are there any air bases up in Scotland our friend could be going to or coming from?

reply to post by Grifter81


Go down the line that it is a regular civilian flight such as mail/freight. Join a forum, post your query, and see if someone will be kind enough to plot it on their flight tracking software.

www.civilianaviation.co.uk...

www.aeroresource.co.uk...

I've managed to find some flight plan data and the planes path looks to match up with internal flights between Bournemouth or Southampton and Glasgow international.

It seems to fly really low for a passenger plane though? I expect it may be because they aren't traveling far so don't have the room to get up so high?

Also the lights on the wing tips bother me, I was under the impression they should be red and green?

reply to post by Grifter81



I have just gone back through a few weeks of data on planefinder.net... during the hours you suggested, all i can see is smallish commercial passenger jets almost directly on the same flight path.

If the plane is so consistant can you get a photo? or video of it?

The white lights on the end could just be washing out the navigation ones, maybe it it higher than you think?

reply to post by freakyclown


I'll try and get a picture or video. Problem is it has done nothing but rain here for days. Its been overcast with low cloud for what seems like forever . The weather is better today though so I'll have a look out tonight and see if I can capture anything.

There's a chance it is higher than I think, I'm no expert. It clears low cloud but doesn't seem as high as other airliners. After digging around for info I'm leaning toward a passenger jet of some kind.

Hi there OP,

I also forgot to say .... there is a private small charter jet company based out of Blackpool and Southport ., my friends father is a pilot for them. they do a run at night almost daily up to Glasgow for the BBC, not sure where they go from Glasgow, but i know they fly the Blackpool - Glasgow route every night,

there planes are quite small, think Lear jet style. so maybe it s one of these flights you are seeing.

I will contact my friend to ask for the name of the company, they are quite a popular company with media types.


thanks

snoopyuk

Could it be a royal mail special delivery flight as i doubt they could get a parcel from devon to glasgow by 9am the next day via the roads for example

Perhaps its just some vip/ceo/general/etc. commuting too and from work? Would explain why its always at the same time of night.

reply to post by Grifter81

Errr instead of all the supposition and attempts to get photo's or video imagery why not simply download the planefinder app to your smart phone or tablet (if you have one) and wait till you hear or see it and then fire up the app. Odds are it will appear in seconds and show you the flight number, aircraft type, altitude, speed, and departure/destination port codes as well as the port names if you tap on the aircraft icon and if its an airliner, the airline it flies for. Simple quick and easy. Trust me its a godsend if you like that sort of thing, I use it to track my aircraft at work when I am waiting for an arrival as it is more accurate than our own internal systems.

LEE.

Is it slow moving? And does it go over the same area a couple times?

I went for a walk last night and noticed a big UAV type thing flying over the area (metro vancouver) with a Red strobe, and sometimes they would turn the light off. It had a noticeable hum on it's engine.

at first I thought it might be a typical plane but it was slow and had the red strobe light that they would turn off periodically as if to remain somewhat unnoticed to the general public in the area, so I thought it might be a UAV of some type but that wouldn't make sense flying over the city unless they have moved ahead with using UAV's for surveillance in Canada now?

reply to post by yourmaker

Yourmaker, exactly what about your sighting made you believe it was a UAV? Being a "big thing" with a red strobe doesn't make it a UAV. ALL aircraft operating in unrestricted airspace and in controlled airspace (which over metro Vancouver it would be) must carry an operating red anti collision beacon and usually more than one on the airframe. They most certainly are not permitted to turn it off at will and in fact must be in operation prior to engine start let alone takeoff and even taxiing or being towed around. Additionally it just wouldn't make sense to turn it off then on if you were trying to hide it. far better to take it to a remote location where there are no people instead of over a city with millions of eyes. What you almost certainly actually saw was the beacon disappearing periodically as the aircraft banked and turned relative to your observation point, masking one or both of these. Some aircraft such as the Dash-8 300/Q400 do not have an anti-collision beacon on the lower fuselage, only on top, so should it bank away from you it would appear to turn off. In addition you said the aircraft you saw had a distinct "hum" to its engine, this sounds very much like a turboprop and certainly a Dash-8.. Given that Dash-8's are common around the world and are made in Canada Im betting this is what you saw and not a UAV.

LEE.

reply to post by thebozeian


Thanks I'll take a look at that app. I'm on android, hopefully its available!

reply to post by Grifter81


Hi there,

did you see my posts ?? esp the last one ??

thanks

snoopyuk