OT: bizarre flight movements around Luton Airport

Apr 07, 2020 Last reply: 6 years ago 20 Replies
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I've been out in the garden weeding and as we're not far from the flight path to Luton Airport was enjoying the unusual silence apart from birdsong. Until I heard and then saw something like a Jumbo Jet come in to land, rather noisily.



I was not near enough to see the plane number but can usually spot easyJet orange etc. and this was none of the usual brands. It's actually rather unusual for 747s to land at Luton as the runway is too short for them to take off unless rather empty. I now think this was a C-17 Globemaster III, which can land on a short runway. But it didn't, or at least not for long.



A few minutes later I saw another - which turned out to be the same plane coming around again. In total it did about 9 or 10 loops, going low along the runway, maybe touching down, and then taking off again for a loop around the area before coming around again a few minutes later. Very odd, but I suppose it must be training for something. Luton Airport is currently only handling a handful of flights a day, mostly WizzAir and a few private jets, so I suppose it's runway is idle and up for grabs.



A flight tracker app showed the flight as RRR829 ZZ171 if that help anyone, one source has RRR829 as owned by the RAF another by the USAF, so I've no idea really. But can anyone shed any light on what it might have been doing?


We get things like that doing training at Prestwick airport all the time. I guess now that there is the air and runway space down south, they have no need to trek up here.

Tim

'Circuits and bumps', aka touch-and-go landing?

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An unusually large aircraft for loops ;-)

ISTR the Globemaster is one of the very few aircraft which can deploy its thrust reversers before touchdown.

The mission will be low level seeding now the masts are being destroyed. Harry will have a video link.

Had the same th

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Methinks the jest was missed ...

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The correct terms for what the aircraft was (almost certainly) doing are "touch and go", "roller" or "low approach and go-around".

In message snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net>, Clive Page snipped-for-privacy@page2.eu writes

I saw that this evening. 2 or the same one twice. East of Luton and heading South West. Urgent delivery practice?

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<snip>

The other day nephew took Red 6 off Stanstead, vectored him round Southend a couple of times before going back to Scampton, a bit of fun and some good training. ;-)

I believe Southend was closed yesterday (for the day).

Cheers, T i m

Well if its military usually delivering military gear I'd suppose, but there are still cargo flights around as far as I can tell. Brian

zz171 is indeed an RAF C-17

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I think they are called 'circuits' aren't they? ;-)

Cheers, T i m

Graham Harrison snipped-for-privacy@btinternet.com posted

produces "403 Forbidden nginx"

It finally made it into the BBC news:

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Try reformatting the link to start.

Use a text editor to edit the pieces, so it looks like this.

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As long as you have access to three or four browsers, you'll be able to find something to load a page with.

Paul

They've moved on to Manchester Airport today.

SteveW

No, it doesn't, if you enter it correctly...

No, It does not. IF YOU ENTER IT CORRECTLY

Here is the URL again. And it works.

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I put <> around the URL, which any decent newsreader should recognise even if the URL gets split over two lines.

But in any case, it's easy enough to reconstitute the entire URL in your browser's address field.

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