Flying times/days at Lakenheath and Mildenhall

[theplayingmantis]

Is there any way to find out when planes will be active at either of the 2 bases mentioned?

i will be in the area this week but will also have some free time so wondered if there a way to tell so i can go and do some viewing from the designated areas, but i once did it many years ago and there was 0 activity.

Thanks

[steveo3002]

they dont publish times and dates

Lakenheath mon- thurs days 8-5 , fri 8- noon ...can be outside those times , never on a uk or u.s holiday , friday mornings often have the unrestricted take offs where they go almost vertical

Mildenhall pot luck.... week days most likley

id try the official Lakenheath viewing area on a weekday

[anonymous-user]

As a kid I went to a boarding school that was under the flight path for landing at Lakenheath. Seeing an F-111 flying over was very common, but one night there was a huge amount of activity out and then 5-6 hours later back in again. It was only in the morning that on the news we saw they had dropped a lot of bombs on Libya.

[IanH755]

steveo3002 said:

they dont publish times and dates

Lakenheath mon- thurs days 8-5 , fri 8- noon ...can be outside those times , never on a uk or u.s holiday , friday mornings often have the unrestricted take offs where they go almost vertical

Mildenhall pot luck.... week days most likley

id try the official Lakenheath viewing area on a weekday

Just to add a little more info, most Military airbases, such as Lakenheath/Mildenhall etc aren't ever as busy as a civilian airport (only pilot training bases like RAF Valley etc seem to get continuously busy) so if you do say 8am-noon at most airbases you might be lucky to see just 4-8 take offs/landings in that time (usually in groups of 2-4) so you you might be there for 3-4 hours and see almost nothing.

[eccles]

IanH755 said:

steveo3002 said:

they dont publish times and dates

Lakenheath mon- thurs days 8-5 , fri 8- noon ...can be outside those times , never on a uk or u.s holiday , friday mornings often have the unrestricted take offs where they go almost vertical

Mildenhall pot luck.... week days most likley

id try the official Lakenheath viewing area on a weekday

Just to add a little more info, most Military airbases, such as Lakenheath/Mildenhall etc aren't ever as busy as a civilian airport (only pilot training bases like RAF Valley etc seem to get continuously busy) so if you do say 8am-noon at most airbases you might be lucky to see just 4-8 take offs/landings in that time (usually in groups of 2-4) so you you might be there for 3-4 hours and see almost nothing.

Mildenhall is a bit different . With so many different types based there with different roles it's often busy 7 days a week.

[towser44]

Only been to Lakenheath and Mildenhall once, it was a rainy day a couple of October half terms ago. Watched a fair few Big Jet TV videos from there beforehand though. We were staying in the area and on the day we went to Lakenheath we were only there an hour or so and saw numerous take offs and landings of F15s (it was just before lunchtime) and a C17 land too.

Then we popped to Mildenhall and parked on the road near the campsite for about 10 mins and saw 3 Osprey take-offs and 2 KC135 doing go arounds.

We were staying near Swaffham for the week and heard and saw countless movements over the cottage and off the coast of Gt Yarmouth during the week both day and night, so if that experience is anything to go by you'll be unlucky to go and see nothing.

I look at Global ADSB every day as well and it's very rare to not see numerous movements from both every single week day.

We were even lucky enough to see a F35 Lightning out of Marham on the 2 days we happened to drive past the base.

Edited by towser44 on Wednesday 2nd February 22:27

[steveo3002]

you should see something if prepared to hang around a few hours and not bank hols etc

on a clear day you can see stuff going into Mildenhall in the distance from the Lakenheath viewing area

theres a few fb groups you can join , sometimes they get a tip off when something special is coming or if theyre flying nights etc

[Flying Phil]

We were at Centre Parcs in Elvedon Forest on Tuesday and yesterday and it was quite frustrating hearing quite a few big jets taking off and not being able to see them! However we did see a big C5 Galaxy (??) coming in to land as we were going along the A11. I presume there is a lot more activity at present due to the Ukraine situation.

[theplayingmantis]

towser44 said:

Only been to Lakenheath and Mildenhall once, it was a rainy day a couple of October half terms ago. Watched a fair few Big Jet TV videos from there beforehand though. We were staying in the area and on the day we went to Lakenheath we were only there an hour or so and saw numerous take offs and landings of F15s (it was just before lunchtime) and a C17 land too.

Then we popped to Mildenhall and parked on the road near the campsite for about 10 mins and saw 3 Osprey take-offs and 2 KC135 doing go arounds.

We were staying near Swaffham for the week and heard and saw countless movements over the cottage and off the coast of Gt Yarmouth during the week both day and night, so if that experience is anything to go by you'll be unlucky to go and see nothing.

I look at Global ADSB every day as well and it's very rare to not see numerous movements from both every single week day.

We were even lucky enough to see a F35 Lightning out of Marham on the 2 days we happened to drive past the base.

Edited by towser44 on Wednesday 2nd February 22:27

Thanks all for responses.

Are there free Global ADSB's tracking sites available?

[theplayingmantis]

steveo3002 said:

you should see something if prepared to hang around a few hours and not bank hols etc

on a clear day you can see stuff going into Mildenhall in the distance from the Lakenheath viewing area

theres a few fb groups you can join , sometimes they get a tip off when something special is coming or if theyre flying nights etc

I'm not on FB but do you have links to the groups?

Thanks

[eccles]

theplayingmantis said:

Thanks all for responses.

Are there free Global ADSB's tracking sites available?

https://globe.adsbexchange.com/

[NM62]

theplayingmantis said:

Thanks all for responses.

Are there free Global ADSB's tracking sites available?

Do you use Twitter as there are various accounts that tweet about thing happening at the majority of RAF / USAF Bases ( Fairford, Mildenhall and Lakenheath )