OT: bizarre flight movements around Luton Airport

Clive Page · 2020-04-07T16:33:29+00:00

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?