Prop planes over Scotland

[Graeme]

(Aberdeenshire) Quietly standing in the garden yesterday, hanging out washing, when I heard an unusual noise and, looking up, saw a four engine prop plane fly over the village from the north, then bank towards the west. A few moments later, a second one did the same.

Was not wearing my specs, so could not say what type of aircraft they were, or even details of markings. Unusual, though. The only planes we normally see are occasional RAF fighter jets on practice or training flights. Quite often see helicopters flying west to Balmoral, but nowhere there to land a plane.

Any thoughts?

[Bob Minchin]

No unusual to have prop planes for short haul. We get quite few in and out of our local airport. Maybe a service to Scottish Islands?

[Chris Hogg]

Turboprop or piston engined? I assume the former, which are not uncommon.

[Bob Eager]

I once flew from Aberdeen to Orkney for Jo Grimond's funeral!

The plane was a turboprop.

[Nightjar]

I would expect those to be twin engine turboprops, rather than four engine. With RAF Lossiemouth in the area, military transport aircraft is one possibility, although none are permanently based there.

[Chris J Dixon]

You might be able to see it here

Chris

[Chris B]

If you get any military aircraft in the area I would suspect an A400M

fairly recent acquisition for the RAF and makes a very distinctive (and quite loud) noise.

[Brian Gaff]

Was the sound like turbo prop or normal piston engines? There are a lot of the prop planes built in Canada around these days on some routes to the smaller airports. Some are two and some four engine and normally short take off and landing designs. Brian

[newshound]

My guess would be a brace of Hercules. Surprisingly quiet for their size.

[Graeme]

In message , Chris J Dixon writes

Excellent idea, but I cannot see anything like those I thought I saw in the time frame, which is fairly accurate as it was while my wife was out, which was 10.30 to 11.20 yesterday morning.

I'm no expert on planes (i.e. fairly clueless), but 4 engines which I thought were traditional not turbo, and I would say the wings came out of the fuselage like a Lancaster, not sitting on top like a Hercules, if that makes sense.

I wish I had posted just after seeing these planes. 24+ hours later, and some Googling, I would say twin tail - like a B-25 Mitchell, but 4 engines.

[Chris Hogg]

Many years ago (very many years ago!) Avro Shackletons of Coastal Command used to fly out from West Cornwall to patrol the Western Approaches. They were based at St. Morgan near Newquay, where there is, or used to be, a stripped out shell of one, looking very sad. Shackletons were a development of the Lancaster. Because their engine speeds were never perfectly synchronised, you used to get a beat-frequency in the sound of their engines, with a frequency of perhaps two or three seconds (at least, I assume it was engine synchronisation that caused it). Several have been preserved, but I don't think any are airworthy.

[harry]

OR

[The Natural Philosopher]

Military transports? Lockheed Hercules probably.

[damduck-egg]

Or a couple of Tupolev Tu-95 got through and there has been a news blackout due to red faces.

G.Harman

[Tim+]

We see a fair few of these near Prestwick, particularly when international tensions are high.

You generally WON'T see them on flightradar24.

Tim

[Graeme]

In message , Tim+ writes

Yes, I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that what I saw was a pair of Hercules transports. Nothing else seems to make sense.

[Bill Wright]

My nephew is an airline pilot. He says if it was a four engined turbo prop it would be military.

Bill

[Graeme]

In message , Bill Wright writes

Thanks Bill. That certainly makes sense. We are about 45 miles from the nearest airport (Aberdeen), but very rarely see commercial flights. On the occasions they do fly this way, they are much higher, and almost silent, whereas the two yesterday were relatively low, and audible.

[Martin Barclay]

Russians use Antonov An-30B turboprops to overfly on military inspections under the the international Treaty on Open Skies.

[Bill Wright]

Here in South Yorkshire overlooking the M18 we often see flying machines of various types following the motorway. We also see planes from Doncaster Airport ('Robin Hood') and mysterious ones like the one you saw; low flying prop driven things and others. I stand on the hill and look at flightradar24 and I can track planes that are an incredible distance away: right across on the west coast.

We had a curious incident a year ago. A light plane flew low across the field. As it happened I was heading that way with the dogs. In the field the dogs were pleased to find three red apples, widely spaced. They had labels identifying the grower in Italy and as far as I could discover that grower does not export to the UK.

Bill