Light aircraft doing doing tight laps, not on FR

[105.4]

There’s a light aircraft doing really tight laps at very low altitude above my house and it isn’t showing on Flight Radar. It’s been up there for about 20 minutes now.

Any ideas why it would be doing this and why it wouldn’t be showing on Flight Radar?

There’s a similar plane doing similar tight laps just to the west of Manchester City centre, but that one is showing on Flight Radar.

[Rubymurray]

The one to the west of Manchester appears to be doing circuits at Barton airport, do you have a similar airfield near to you?

Just had a look on freedar, there’s a police plane just south of Sheffield over Dronfield, is that where you are?

Edited by Rubymurray on Friday 10th July 22:43

[anonymous-user]

Where roughly is this?

[anonymous-user]

https://tar1090.adsbexchange.com/

Adsb sometimes shows stuff not on fr24.

If you just want to see military press the U button. (Top right)

[105.4]

Rubymurray said:

The one to the west of Manchester appears to be doing circuits at Barton airport, do you have a similar airfield near to you?

There is a seldom used grass airstrip one valley over from us, but the aircraft, which has now left the area, flew off in the direction of Manchester, about 45 miles to the west of us.

It just seemed a really strange thing for a light aircraft to be doing at this time of night, especially at the very low altitude it was flying at and the fact that it wasn’t showing on Flight Radar. When aircraft have been up before doing mapping or aerial photography, the laps they fly are of a greater circumference, taking in the entire valley. This was doing laps of no more than a 800 metre circumference I’d estimate.

[105.4]

El stovey said:

https://tar1090.adsbexchange.com/

Adsb sometimes shows stuff not on fr24.

If you just want to see military press the U button. (Top right)

Thanks for that link Stovey. I’d never heard of the website before.

[Rubymurray]

Possibly this chap? Seems to be heading back to Doncaster now

[anonymous-user]

105.4 said:

El stovey said:

https://tar1090.adsbexchange.com/

Adsb sometimes shows stuff not on fr24.

If you just want to see military press the U button. (Top right)

Thanks for that link Stovey. I’d never heard of the website before.

It’s great for military and police and other stuff fr24 doesn’t show. For general aircraft though fr24 has much better coverage.

[105.4]

Rubymurray said:

Possibly this chap? Seems to be heading back to Doncaster now

I think we have a winner.

So what was the pilot doing? And why was he doing it?

[anonymous-user]

https://twitter.com/Lincs999Air

Police air support mission apparently.

[Rubymurray]

‘Tis the police, on the look out for bad dudes

[105.4]

I wondered why they’d been so many Police around here this evening, (which is unusual around here).

I wonder why they were using their light aircraft and not the local helicopter? And what were they supporting?

[dr_gn]

El stovey said:

https://tar1090.adsbexchange.com/

Adsb sometimes shows stuff not on fr24.

If you just want to see military press the U button. (Top right)

That’s a good site - two aircraft just flew over our place near Sheffield; 2x USAF C-130s apparently.

[48k]

105.4 said:

I wonder why they were using their light aircraft and not the local helicopter? And what were they supporting?

https://ukaviation.news/police-get-four-new-fixed-wing-eyes-in-the-sky/

"The aircraft, Vulcanair P68, offer greater speed and operational endurance times compared to helicopters so are often used for tasks such as crowd monitoring as well as crime detection."

[Supercilious Sid]

48k said:

105.4 said:

I wonder why they were using their light aircraft and not the local helicopter? And what were they supporting?

https://ukaviation.news/police-get-four-new-fixed-wing-eyes-in-the-sky/

"The aircraft, Vulcanair P68, offer greater speed and operational endurance times compared to helicopters so are often used for tasks such as crowd monitoring as well as crime detection."

I hope not like the Optica