Hercules Transport plane flying over Leeds, Saturday, 22nd March 2014

jonleeds · Post by **jonleeds** » Sun 23 Mar, 2014 6:09 pm

As I mentioned the Hercules I saw was on Saturday morning, if there were any similar looking planes flying around the city today (Sunday) they might have been entirely different aircraft.

gars21 · Post by **gars21** » Sun 23 Mar, 2014 11:43 pm

I saw the said aircraft flying directly overhead bramley town end yesterday (saturday morning) at appx 2500 ft, i can confirm it was a hercules and it landed appx 45 minutes later on the usual flight path over the city centre. Also this morning i saw a dark aircraft possibly the same plane but i cannot confirm this on final approach on the same flight path at around 12 miday www.yorkshire-spotters.co.uk confirms it was a c-130 on the left hand side in the LBA latest movements section

Tyke · Post by **Tyke** » Mon 24 Mar, 2014 9:52 am

I don’t know if its still the case but in past times military pilots had to be familiar with all the UK airports so they could be used in times of emergency.

Post by **tyke bhoy** » Mon 24 Mar, 2014 12:01 pm

gars21 wrote: Also this morning i saw a dark aircraft possibly the same plane but i cannot confirm this on final approach on the same flight path at around 12 miday www.yorkshire-spotters.co.uk confirms it was a c-130 on the left hand side in the LBA latest movements section That will be conistent with my Sunday sightings in Stanley at about 11:20, mid way through the 2nd half, and again around 11.45 just after the final whistle of the junior football match I was attending.

jonleeds · Post by **jonleeds** » Mon 24 Mar, 2014 6:50 pm

gars21 wrote: I saw the said aircraft flying directly overhead bramley town end yesterday (saturday morning) at appx 2500 ft, i can confirm it was a hercules and it landed appx 45 minutes later on the usual flight path over the city centre. Also this morning i saw a dark aircraft possibly the same plane but i cannot confirm this on final approach on the same flight path at around 12 miday www.yorkshire-spotters.co.uk confirms it was a c-130 on the left hand side in the LBA latest movements section Thanks for that gars21, its nice to know someone else saw the plane and that I wasnt imagining it! I'd never heard of the yorkshire spotters website before. I have become something of a plane spotter due to my living room window having a great view of the end of the LBA runway. I also have an airband radio that I occasionally listen to the pilots and control tower chatter with as well as a couple of books on modern commercial aircraft to identify planes... yikes I'd better get myself an anorak too by the sounds of it... Anyway here is a photo of the Hercules C130 that I found on the Yorkshire Spotters website, dunno if its the actual plane but it looks identical to the one I saw.

liits · Post by **liits** » Mon 24 Mar, 2014 7:42 pm

[mentioned in another thread] for anybody who has a smartphone or ipad, there is a free app called PlaneFinder which shows live date of either the plane flying overhead [that you point your phone at] or shows a Google Earth type view with similar info. Info is flight number, airline, point of origin, destination, speed and altitude. It also works with military aircraft. It surprised me how many flights are USAF.

Riponian · Post by **Riponian** » Wed 26 Mar, 2014 11:44 am

Two flew over a few minutes apart over the Riponian Mansion at 6am this morning whilst out walking the dog, it looked like they were part of an exercise based out of RAF Leeming.

compton · Post by **compton** » Wed 26 Mar, 2014 9:28 pm

The 2 C130s were flying West over Bridlington on the same day, I guessed they were heading for Leeds. We see them on the coast every couple of years usually doing exercises with the bootnecks and the time of year is about right for troop training if things havn't changed.

Richard A Thackeray · Post by **Richard A Thackeray** » Wed 26 Mar, 2014 9:28 pm

raveydavey wrote: Its been mentioned on another thread that military pilots will often 'drop in' at the LGI if they can when they're in the area for practice / familiarization purposes. Sea Kings and Merlin's aren't too uncommon and there is a rumour (probably an urban myth) that Prince Harry once dropped in whilst doing his Apache training.... Tony, one of our Consultants was a Registrar at LGI, during his days there, & has told me of looking out of a window at an Apache on the pad.

j.c.d. · Post by **j.c.d.** » Wed 26 Mar, 2014 9:48 pm

jonleeds wrote: Did anyone see the dark green Hercules Transport plane that flew over Leeds Saturday morning about 11:30 am? I saw it fly quite low from the airport direction towards the city centre before returning to the airport and nearly touching down before ascending to a high altitude and making off in a north westerly direction. Why would they fly such a plane over the city? Just had a thought was the pilot Chinese looking. ??