Did I dream it - low level night flying big jet?

[Riley Blue]

Can anyone confirm a low level jet flying south to north over the Midlands last night? I heard it at 1:50 in Chesterfield, very low and loud. It sounded 'commercial' and at any time of the day or night would have been an unusual occurrence. Or was it a dream?

[wolfracesonic]

It wasn’t just me then; Sheffield based, thought the thing was coming through my bedroom window Though I did wonder if I’d dreamt it when I woke up this morning.

[towser44]

Nothing on FlightRadar24 playback for that time, so may have been military which wouldn't necessarily show on FlightRadar24. An A400M went directly over Chesterfield around 11.30-Midnight though.

Edited by towser44 on Friday 22 May 09:19

[LotusOmega375D]

I was woken in East Northamptonshire by a plane at some ungodly hour last night, but I could instantly tell from the sound that it was a very low flying C130 Hercules, not a jet. It’s a common occurrence in other parts of the country, but less so in the Midlands.

[towser44]

LotusOmega375D said:

I was woken in East Northamptonshire by a plane at some ungodly hour last night, but I could instantly tell it was a very low flying C130 Hercules, not a jet. It’s a common occurrence in other parts of the country, but less so in the Midlands.

Yours was the A400M above at around 1.10am (add an hour on to the time on the photo, they are an hour behind) :-)

Edited by towser44 on Friday 22 May 09:23

[LotusOmega375D]

I’m not so sure. It definitely wasn’t at 9975ft when it passed over us, more like a few hundred. We get A400Ms over daily at 10,000ft: I recognise their distinctive whining sound and it takes a while to pass. They would never wake me up at night. This was a much more sudden and far louder Turboprop noise and disappeared very quickly. It also woke my son. I’m sticking to my very low flying Herc theory.

[Evoluzione]

This was from a few weeks ago when one was spotted:

"RAF Brize Norton Facebook page said: "This afternoon/evening, our A400M Atlas aircraft will be operating in the vicinity of Leeds, Doncaster and Birmingham, whilst engaged in essential training."

[Dashnine]

Checkout the FlightRadar thread at https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&... this has been going on for weeks. The C17, C130 and A400M have been using the unused civil airports all over the country for ILS landing practice.

They usually show up on FlightRadar, but you can see a lot of other military aircraft on sites like https://www.adsbexchange.com: Typhoons, the odd F35, Voyagers tankers in refuelling patterns, E3 radar palnes, training helicopters and planes, Chinooks, Apaches, V22 Ospreys, etc.

[Riley Blue]

Meanwhile, can anyone identify my mystery jet?

[stevemcs]

The C17 was doing circuits in and out of Wittering last night, in fact its been doing it most of the week, The A400 was here a few nights ago, the C17 has also been around BHX airport.

[24lemons]

towser44 said:

Yours was the A400M above at around 1.10am (add an hour on to the time on the photo, they are an hour behind) :-)

Edited by towser44 on Friday 22 May 09:23

That one flew directly over the house as we were going to bed. I said to my wife that’s an A400 and then opened freedar.uk which confirmed it. She was so impressed she went straight to sleep.