How low can BBMF fly?

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Discussion

RedAndy

1,207 posts

153 months

Sunday 22nd May 2022
quotequote all
Not just the best low fly video on youtube, but the best video on youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNV4yv8N4mA

Holy ********* !

ecsrobin

17,016 posts

164 months

Sunday 22nd May 2022
quotequote all
RedAndy said:
Not just the best low fly video on youtube, but the best video on youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNV4yv8N4mA

Holy ********* !
He nearly landed short and squished the spectators so had to go around.

One Amp Andy

1,462 posts

189 months

Sunday 22nd May 2022
quotequote all
ecsrobin said:
RedAndy said:
Not just the best low fly video on youtube, but the best video on youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNV4yv8N4mA

Holy ********* !
He nearly landed short and squished the spectators so had to go around.
I think he also inadvertently killed some sheep. I mean, we have some sheep, and they find very inventive ways to kill themselves.
Sometimes they just fall over and die. At least they went out with the sweet sound of our Vulcan.

Edited by One Amp Andy on Sunday 22 May 16:44

FiF

43,960 posts

250 months

Sunday 22nd May 2022
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ecsrobin said:
FiF said:
Re the 100ft rotary wing, we were on our bottom field which is mostly a rough grass flood plain when the Severn is really high, sort of height when Bewdley is actually flooded. Anyway we could hear a chopper getting louder, to the point the volume got excessive and the dog was starting to freak out and cowering in the long grass.

Turned out to be a US Army Apache coming up river at below treetop height, definitely below 100ft. As it came out of the tree 'cover' the crew looked across at us on the bank about 50m away roughly at same height as them.

Judging by the action clearly an "Oh fk" moment by the crew, they gained some height and pissed off upriver sharpish. What to do? Report it? Realistically they have to train, so no.
As per my original post rotary can be cleared to below 100ft, from memory the joint helicopter command flying order book has a blanket dispensation to 50ft with additional authorisation to ground level.

I have been a passenger along the Colorado river outrunning boats it’s good fun

I can’t be bothered to upload the video as it will blow everyone’s speakers with the sounds of the engines but here’s a photo from a 50ft trip.



Regarding reporting if you believe it’s unsafe or it’s annoying you can report a low flying complaint. It will be investigated by the RAF police who will contact the stations involved with that aircraft type, it can then be quickly narrowed down and checked against programming of sortie times and then checked against radar plots.

I have previously provided sortie data for someone who broke their arm falling from scaffolding after a low flying aircraft past over. From the radar plot it was about a mile away and after the time of incident and I’m guessing the injured party had seen it and thought I can make some money.

Edited by ecsrobin on Sunday 22 May 16:22
OK but considering my estimation they were roughly at bank height, so let's say 15 /30 foot above the water, and over on the other bank upstream a short way are residential caravan sites, is that really likely to get cleared?

Unsafe? Apart from scaring the dog witless probably not. If he'd bolted and we'd not managed to provide enough reassurance probably would have reported it. Annoying? I guess there were some who would be as they still looked quite low by the time they'd reached town.

But as written the reaction of the flight crew when they spotted us suggested they were pushing it.

Actually the Electricity line chopper is more of a pita than the military.

eharding

13,594 posts

283 months

Sunday 22nd May 2022
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DavieBNL said:
Wingspan of a Lanc is just over a hundred feet, could its height be measured in a few wingspans?

Had a neighbour snap a Chinook he claimed was at under 100 feet, a bit of comparing of the fusegage length with the height on his photo put it closer to 350ft. Tempting to always think low flying aircraft (especially large ones) are lower than they are.
Even folk who are practised at estimating aircraft height and attitude can be fooled by differing aircraft sizes e.g. competition aerobatic judges. If you are called low by the judges - in my day, below 1000ft at Standard and Intermediate levels, 600 feet for Advanced and 300 feet for Unlimited - you incur hefty point penalties and a single Low is generally enough to preclude you ending up with and gongs or silverware. I remember being called Low flying a Standard sequence in the Yak when I knew for a fact I was at 1200 feet, but then I also ended up winning a competition when I ended a sequence at 800 feet in the Pitts without penalty, the Yak being at least twice the size of the Pitts. Part of the art of flying competition aerobatics is not "showing your error" - if the judges *think* you might be low or off axis and then see you make a sudden correction, then you've just confirmed it to them, whereas if you hold your line and make the correction gently you may not be penalised (along things like slightly over-rotating hesitation rolls abeam the judges, so that your rotation angle *appears* to be correct from the ground).

I never flew Advanced or Unlimited competitions, but did gain an aerobatic Display Authorisation approved down to 500 feet for aeros and 150 feet for a fly-by, and that was plenty low enough for me. I did the DA evaluation at North Weald where the Examiner generally had an arrangement with the controllers at Stansted for some extra headroom on those occasions, but on that day they weren't able to comply so in order to complete the evaluation I flew the sequence in the Yak with a base height of 300 feet, and there is an uncomfortable amount of green in your view when you're aerobatting at those heights.

I have no idea what the BBMF display heights are compared to regulations for transit, but I remember the Lancaster managing to set off a lot of the car alarms in the carpark at White Waltham on one occasion. It's been a while, but the BBMF did used to overnight the Spitfires at White Waltham (despite the bumpy runways - I remember one BBMF Spitfire having an absolute howler of a landing when it came down right on the gnarly bit where 21 and 25 cross, proper "Boomps-a-daisy, it's enough to make you weep" stuff. I think the Air/Ground radio service was a bit of a mystery to some of them as well - I recall taxiing out for a summer evening hoon and a BBMF Spitfire at the 03 hold board was plaintively and repeatedly announcing he was ready for departure - I told him the Ops was shut, nobody was on the radio (and even if there had been nobody could give him a take-off clearance) and as far as I could see the circuit was clear and everything else was at his discretion, so he promptly lined up and poked off.


Edited by eharding on Sunday 22 May 17:31

ecsrobin

17,016 posts

164 months

Sunday 22nd May 2022
quotequote all
FiF said:
OK but considering my estimation they were roughly at bank height, so let's say 15 /30 foot above the water, and over on the other bank upstream a short way are residential caravan sites, is that really likely to get cleared?

Unsafe? Apart from scaring the dog witless probably not. If he'd bolted and we'd not managed to provide enough reassurance probably would have reported it. Annoying? I guess there were some who would be as they still looked quite low by the time they'd reached town.

But as written the reaction of the flight crew when they spotted us suggested they were pushing it.

Actually the Electricity line chopper is more of a pita than the military.
Without seeing it I can’t really comment. But the clearance is generic, before they walk to the aircraft they speak to the duty authoriser who is a pilot talk through the route plan and say at what heights they will be at certain times or just a generic we will be operating to ground level. If happy he signs the authorisation sheet and they walk off to sign out the aircraft. They won’t be going into “at this bend in the river we’re 50ft, at this bend 30ft” but they will consider larger sections of the route as high low and so on.

Although the pilot is then authorised to fly at that level he still has to assess and adapt during his flight based on conditions or surroundings.

But back to your question there’s nothing that you have described that I consider to be wrong or bad airmanship and would just file what you have said and I’ve worked on many flying complaints including against the Lancaster rofl

lost in espace

6,135 posts

206 months

Sunday 22nd May 2022
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I live somewhere very close to the OP I suspect, and was in Suffolk at 11 this morning. Damn.

Zumbruk

7,848 posts

259 months

Sunday 22nd May 2022
quotequote all
IME, reporting low-flying military aircraft is a waste of time. You will either be ignored or lied to.

Simpo Two

85,147 posts

264 months

Sunday 22nd May 2022
quotequote all
eharding said:
I recall taxiing out for a summer evening hoon and a BBMF Spitfire at the 03 hold board was plaintively and repeatedly announcing he was ready for departure - I told him the Ops was shut, nobody was on the radio (and even if there had been nobody could give him a take-off clearance) and as far as I could see the circuit was clear and everything else was at his discretion, so he promptly lined up and poked off.
An answerphone would helped.... 'This is the Ops Room. We are down the pub. Please take off after the beep.'

Dr Jekyll

23,820 posts

260 months

Sunday 22nd May 2022
quotequote all
eharding said:
I recall taxiing out for a summer evening hoon and a BBMF Spitfire at the 03 hold board was plaintively and repeatedly announcing he was ready for departure - I told him the Ops was shut, nobody was on the radio (and even if there had been nobody could give him a take-off clearance) and as far as I could see the circuit was clear and everything else was at his discretion, so he promptly lined up and poked off.
bow

To think I thought it was exciting when I was told 'line up after the Spitfire'.

Tango13

8,395 posts

175 months

Sunday 22nd May 2022
quotequote all
I used to work right next door to RAF Henlow and the BBMF Lancaster once went overhead low enough to set car alarms off thumbup

Madness60

571 posts

183 months

Sunday 22nd May 2022
quotequote all
Zumbruk said:
IME, reporting low-flying military aircraft is a waste of time. You will either be ignored or lied to.
Warning sweeping generalisation alert!!

Zumbruk

7,848 posts

259 months

Sunday 22nd May 2022
quotequote all
Madness60 said:
Zumbruk said:
IME, reporting low-flying military aircraft is a waste of time. You will either be ignored or lied to.
Warning sweeping generalisation alert!!
You know what "IME" means, right?

eltawater

3,107 posts

178 months

Sunday 22nd May 2022
quotequote all
Pinkie15 said:
About 11 this morning the BBMF Lancaster fly over my house. Bloody glorious it was (and loud). Shame I didn't have camera on me.

It was surprisingly low, guess would be a few hundred feet.

I'm between Stevenage & Welwyn Garden City, can't see there was anywhere it was displaying.

I thought aircraft we're meant to have minimum altitude of 1500 ft over built up areas ?
Higher or lower than this do you reckon from yesterday?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2nHkd3ZGWQ

Today's run down south presumably was part of this:

https://www.raf.mod.uk/news/articles/runnymede-mem...




Edited by eltawater on Sunday 22 May 20:02

DavieBNL

292 posts

62 months

Sunday 22nd May 2022
quotequote all
Zumbruk said:
IME, reporting low-flying military aircraft is a waste of time. You will either be ignored or lied to.
Crikey, how many complaints have you put in? Do you know if you live in a low-flying area?

Madness60

571 posts

183 months

Sunday 22nd May 2022
quotequote all
Zumbruk said:
You know what "IME" means, right?


Yep, I also know what lied to means and I doubt you're being truthful about that, I can buy ignore but not lied to, any proof?

normalbloke

7,401 posts

218 months

Sunday 22nd May 2022
quotequote all
RedAndy said:
Not just the best low fly video on youtube, but the best video on youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNV4yv8N4mA

Holy ********* !
No, gotta be this one…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iOoiEbtf2w

anonymous-user

53 months

Sunday 22nd May 2022
quotequote all
ecsrobin said:
The shoreham crash has no relevance here.
Agreed but it was an epic demonstration of cut and paste from Panamax if nothing else.

Zumbruk

7,848 posts

259 months

Sunday 22nd May 2022
quotequote all
Madness60 said:
Zumbruk said:
You know what "IME" means, right?


Yep, I also know what lied to means and I doubt you're being truthful about that, I can buy ignore but not lied to, any proof?
Don't be ridiculous. What do you want, video of the aircraft and recordings of the 'phone call to the MoD reporting line telling me "We have no aircraft operating in your area"?

Zumbruk

7,848 posts

259 months

Sunday 22nd May 2022
quotequote all
DavieBNL said:
Zumbruk said:
IME, reporting low-flying military aircraft is a waste of time. You will either be ignored or lied to.
Crikey, how many complaints have you put in? Do you know if you live in a low-flying area?
Three, and yes, I know. And I don't (live in a low-flying area). Two ignored and one told a lie; that the aircraft I saw and heard did not exist.