Low flying planes

[Ladydragon]

My daughter's pony comes from a little village near the St Athans air base... An aircraft could land in his field and he'd not bat an eyelid... They had very low, neatly cut hedges in that area though and the first time he went out on the road here with fairly *ahem* 'natural' tree and hedge growth - he really got goosies hearing the wind in the trees... Go figure given the noise of the jets flying low...

Best story I ever heard was on a TREC forum. Someone doing the orienteering / endurance stage out on the Welsh mountains somewhere. She could hear an aircraft but couldn't see it in the sky above her. Crested a hill and a giant military helicopter appeared in front of her - she couldn't see it above her as it was below her in the next valley! Apparently the horse didn't bat an eyelid and she was too busy waiting for Daniel Craig to leap out and mark her card

Possibly the Brecon Beacons fairly near me... The forces use it quite regularly for exercises - I've seen bushes with legs pootling along at a good speed... Never draped over Daniel Craig unfortunately... Even the sheep up there don't give a fig when they hear aircraft dropping off or picking up from survival training...

 

[pixie]

I'm guessing it was one of the jets from leuchars! She is ok with the light aircraft but this one was the army/raf ones. eek

lol, I used to ride there. Gave me a huge fright the first time the planes flew in formation overhead. Horse didn't bat an eyelid.

 

[MagicMelon]

I was sure they were only able to do it in certain areas after a few of serious accidents with people and horses and they had to be above a certain height? Don't think my horse would be getting used to that any time soon, flew over so low and fast!

Think they have certain zones they generally stick to, but you might be in one of those zones. They obviously cant avoid all people/horses. We have them coming over my horses fields all the time. You do get the odd one which scares them when they come particularly low but if Im on a youngster or something and I can see it coming, I hop off quickly! I thought that if you can read their identity number on the side of the aeroplane then thats basically too low! If you can read it, I think you can report it. You can phone the MOD I believe to ask what flights are happening in the area that day.

 

[Mare Stare]

The planes fly low where I am too. It's normally a winter thing though.

Once one flew so low it was in line with the roofs of the houses.

I think the sound the planes make as they fly past is horrible - it sounds like they are ripping the sky open! Sometimes the noise can make the horses jump but they are so used to it that they settle down almost immediatly.

 

[NoseyPosey]

The long & short of it is yes - you can complain if you feel the need. Just find out where your nearest RAF base is and you should be able to phone the guardroom who will then give you the number of the Ops Officer who will deal with the complaint. You will obviously need as much information as possible, certainly time & place. If you can identify the aircraft type then that's even better - even if you can tell them what kind of aircraft it was (fast jet/helicopter/transport/small/big) then they should know about it, even if it's not from that particular base. It may be a foreign aircraft visiting a UK base. Be very wary of estimating height & speed though, those are extremely hard to get right from the ground.

Don't always assume that they are just training or "having a laugh". Military pilots are strictly controlled as to where and how they can fly. Some will be on Quick Alert (as the Typhoons that caused the sonic boom were a while back) and in the course of actually defending UK airspace against potential threats will have to avoid other airspace users including microlights, hangliders, balloons, skydivers etc. You may not see these but at the speed the aircraft are travelling at, they may have to take quite a large detour over where you are.

 

[lachlanandmarcus]

The other thing to bear in mind is that right now (it was publicised so Im not being naughty) there is a truly massive exercise going on which they said would involve a lot more flights and exercises than normal. So it may not be something thats going to happen regularly, it may be due to that.

 

[NoseyPosey]

The other thing to bear in mind is that right now there is a truly massive exercise going on

The flying aspect of it isn't yet.

 

[OWLIE185]

If iit was acivillian aircraft then contact the Civil Aircraft Authority and if military then contact Tel: 0800 51 5544. Once they know you are an equestrian establishment they will try to avoid your immediate area.