Coming back from Sainsburys I ate my Fig & Honey grossly overpriced at £2:30 bread while searching the 'Flightradar24'site. The man downstairs works at the airport nearby dealing with one of those long distance parcel carriers that arrive daily from the US or Germany or wherever. Thus, with nothing to do while chewing I looked to see if any aircraft were on site. Naturally there were a handful though many more come and go at ridiculous hours of the night. Consideration for those under the flightpath is not required. The usual flights were noted, 'Ryanair' overcharging for trinkets as much as possible, 'Jet2' hurling people into sunny Spain, and flights bringing holidaymakers back from unpronounceable places that lie far from their ultimate destination.
I then decided to look around the Ukraine area. Sometimes you get a response from aircraft that hang around Moldova watching what those pesky Ruskies are doing in Ukraine. Nothing to see there at the moment, so I wandered over to Cyprus to have a look at RAF flights from RAF Akrotiri.
Just the normal flights heading into Larnaca full of poor English pensioners running from the weather, and not much sign of anything else.
However, just of the coast of Israel I noticed two small yellow triangles flying close together. This could only be RAF Typhoons on an errand. I followed them for some minutes, realising that they were not on a fighting mission or the transponder would be turned off, so where were they going? They flew over Israel without any interruption from the home defences. On and on over Jordan until they approached the Iraq border. Here the two aircraft, flying in normal flight plan with one following just behind and to the side of the leader, and then they turned north. Here I noticed the airspeed on offer differed, and one appeared to be chasing the other. The practice manoeuvring then continued for some minutes 27,000 feet above the empty Jordanian desert. Clearly someone was being instructed, or both were practicing their role in dogfights against an enemy.
I was quite enjoying this when suddenly they disappeared!
Either they both crashed into the empty reaches of Jordan or they both switched of their transponders to hide from people like me watching them. Most irritating! I suppose we ought to be grateful the RAF actually train to do their job and do not just fly about enjoying the multi-million machines they have to fly.
Interesting also how both Israel and Jordan are happy to allow such exercises. Israel is well in with the UK, both in receiving and giving training in various military skills, and of course spends money here. As indeed does Jordan, our one friend in the Middle East, a friendship that dates back to Lawrence of Arabia. Of course we were not friends enough to stop the Saudi's kicking Abdullah and his men out of Saudi, hence we 'arranged' Jordan.
I enjoyed this so much that when a large black helicopter flying from Wethersfield flew across the town I had to follow it. He passes often and I wished to know who he was and where he was going. So, for the next 30 minutes we hovered our way across the northern reaches of Greater London, never going about 1200 feet, and often as low as 650 when crossing under the flight paths into various airports.
It just kept going, and I had work to do, but I followed him until he landed eventually near Windsor. Annoyingly I cannot specify where he actually landed, just the locale, but it is clear he considers himself important enough for an £8 million helicopter and a flight into the park. I do not think he landed near enough to 'LEGOLAND' to be going there. I could be wrong.
Time wasted, I had to then get up and work!
No comments:
Post a Comment