RAF Benson (Wallingford, South Oxfordshire)

Keith_Beef

Keith_Beef

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I stumbled upon this but of news on the BBC news website.

I've seen threads about horses' reactions to helicopters, and thought it might be of interest.

Chinooks from RAF Benson could be flown until 03:00 during the night flying training over the coming weeks

Residents living near an RAF airbase are being warned helicopters will be flying into the early hours over the next few weeks as students complete their training.

RAF Benson said 28 (AC) Squadron would be flying Chinnocks away from the base near Wallingford, in South Oxfordshire as much as possible but they would also be flying local circuits.

Thanking residents for their "cooperation and continued support" the base said it wanted to flag the night flights due to the hot weather and ongoing exam season.

The RAF said the helicopters were currently scheduled to fly until 02:00 and for four weeks from Monday 23 June until 18 July until 03:00. Night flying usually takes place Monday - Thursday.
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www.bbc.com

Residents near RAF Benson warned of overnight-flying Chinooks

Chinooks from RAF Benson could be flown until 03:00 during night flying training.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com
 
Our UK house is 5 miles as the crow flies from Benson, I’m rather glad we are in Greece and will only catch the last three night of training!
Don’t know how the equines at my rs and livery yard will feel about it…
 
The yard the horses used to be at, (hanneyish) the ponies field used to get Chinooks doing low flying training loops over it. As a kid I always thought if I stood in my stirrups I'd be able to touch the skids 😅 but the horses themselves weren't bothered after the first few times thankfully though they always had a look.. I'm glad we're now far enough away that they don't come out this way when doing the night stuff, I'm not sure how my night blind mare would react.
 
Don't know if it's the same now -
many years ago there was a standing joke amongst the horsey community around there that local horses won all the prizes at the local show as they were the only ones left in the ring 🙂
 
We get low flying RAF planes over our house quite often and the girls aren’t at all bothered, we’ve also had the electricity company low flying helicopters to survey the lines.
 

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We too get plenty of low flying military planes from RAF Valley. On the whole the horses take no notice - just occasionally Brads feels like he needs to react 😏. We also get planes all the way from Coningsby and Lakenheath (often Typhoons) and they seem to set them off. Just something they have to get used to.
 
Tiddlypom said:
We get similar low level night flying from another airbase, and tbh none of the horses are bothered at all, they soon get used to it. Mine are out at night.

Wokka wokka

Hot air balloons, on the other hand 😡…
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We don't get helicopters from an airbase but we do get helicopter flying over and around us frequently, the horses don't care. Neither do they take any notice of low-flying airliners, or fixed-wing aircraft from the local airfield.
 
I spent 5 years based at Benson the horses never batted an eye even when we moved there, in our last yard we had the apaches from Wattisham and all and sundry flying around the exercise areas none of the horses even noticed. They were more likely to turn themselves inside out at a crisp packet faffing around.
 
We get lots of Ospreys here and the horses aren't bothered
They generally don't mind the F35s either, except one day when they were doing laps over us and it all got a bit much
 
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