RAF Globemaster

claret09

claret09

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I was riding this afternoon - we are just outside warwick when there was an horrendous aircraft noise, we stopped - i wasn't sure if it was a helicopter or what - suddenly, just above the trees an RAF globemaster appeared - it was literally in less than 300m above the ground and just in front of our noses. jay shot sideways but fortunately i had got him and he did no more than that. apparently, it had flown from brize norton up and down the country. mentioned it on my local facebook page and everyone thinks its amazing - what's wrong with the world!!! omg. never ever seen any plane that low - absolutely terrifying - i have seen them landing and taking off from birmingham when i have been at SRC but never expected to see one so close up and personal. on my 17.2 it almost felt i was the same height as them!!!
 
I've been buzzed by one of those before as wel, they usually fly up the river out of the way but this one came right over the school with the rear doors open! I swear it felt low enough to jump in! It barely cleared the trees.

Thankfully pony is this definition of bomb proof and just gave me a comical look like "that's a bit blooming low"!

We regularly get low flying jets and I grew up being buzzed by jets and helicopters, a chinook rattled my houses windows so we are fairly used to things like this but still. Too low!
 
A couple of years ago I was reading in my garden with my egg chair facing the field next door and after what sounded like a rumbling dinosaur approaching we beheld what can only be described as a scene similiar to Platoon as a chinook rose above the field and hoovered in slowly until I could actually see the pilot waving and smiling until he took note of the ancient giant Oak tree that he needed to avoid. Scared the daylights out of me so nope I would not want one of those near the garden lol
 
That might have been the awful noise that flew over my house at 9pm last night. God knows what my horse would have made of it but glad I wasn’t sat on him!
 
Wow, well done for staying on, mine would've been in the next county! What time was that yesterday claret? A friend lives down your way and coincidentally said she heard a v loud plane, may have been the same one.
 
I was once out hacking on a coastal route on holiday, wearing enough high viz to be seen from space and two helicopters saw us and made the biggest diversion around us.

I have a high viz quarter sheet which was a freebie from the RAF when they were doing stalls at BE events. They explained that they always try to avoid flying over horse riders if they see them and can safely avoid.
 
It was the one my friend heard! I've just asked her roughly what time it was and she said around 3.45/4 ish so had a mooch on FR24 and there it is, Christ you weren't exaggerating about the altitude either, it really was that low!! What a treat (although not when riding obviously!)
 
Brummyrat said:
Wow, well done for staying on, mine would've been in the next county! What time was that yesterday claret? A friend lives down your way and coincidentally said she heard a v loud plane, may have been the same one.
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i thought it was around 4.30 ish. bloody frightening - would you send me the link so i can look?
 
so some of you lead a very sheltered life. If you’re near a RAF station (and even if you’re not) low flying planes are a fact of life. Fortunately our horses don’t seem too phased by them it’s usually the unsuspecting jockeys that panic when they hear the noise. By that time it’s usually too late and the planes have disappeared as quickly as they came. It is a bit unnerving riding along a track above woodland to realise there’s a plan below you especially if it just appears and doesn’t seem to be going very fast. You can apply to receive notices of low flying exercises or even in exceptional circumstances to become an exclusion area but you have to have a pretty robust reason.
 
gallopingby - i clearly have lead a sheltered life - even though we have planes coming into land a birmingham and i have had horses for 50+ years i had never experienced RAF planes flying directly overhead or at such low altitude. i appreciate that if you live near to an RAF base that might be a regular occurrence and that your horses develop a tolerance. however, i at 61 and jay at 28 have never ever seen anything like it and were "shit scared"
 
claret09 said:
gallopingby - i clearly have lead a sheltered life - even though we have planes coming into land a birmingham and i have had horses for 50+ years i had never experienced RAF planes flying directly overhead or at such low altitude. i appreciate that if you live near to an RAF base that might be a regular occurrence and that your horses develop a tolerance. however, i at 61 and jay at 28 have never ever seen anything like it and were "shit scared"
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Yes, this is the problem - if you don't get them regularly you can't expect horses to be acclimatised. We have low flying fast jets over all the time and the horses are consequently pretty well totally unbothered. However extremely low flying transport planes are a rarity around here - a few years back I was riding in a sunken lane with a friend when I heard an enormous noise, and not one or two, but THREE Hercules came over, so low it looked like they were on a final approach to a runway (they weren't, obviously). The first one we coped with, the second one my horse started to lose his mind, and by the time the third one appeared I really thought I was going to die in a ditch. I did enquire afterwards as to how this had been allowed to happen and apparently it was fine, they weren't low enough to constitute low flying (having done a bit of light aircraft flying myself I am still fairly sure this is untrue but of course I can't prove it because I didn't have it on film). Since then I have lost any faith in the RAF and their bulls**t "wear hi vis so we can see you" messaging.
 
gallopingby said:
so some of you lead a very sheltered life. If you’re near a RAF station (and even if you’re not) low flying planes are a fact of life. Fortunately our horses don’t seem too phased by them it’s usually the unsuspecting jockeys that panic when they hear the noise. By that time it’s usually too late and the planes have disappeared as quickly as they came. It is a bit unnerving riding along a track above woodland to realise there’s a plan below you especially if it just appears and doesn’t seem to be going very fast. You can apply to receive notices of low flying exercises or even in exceptional circumstances to become an exclusion area but you have to have a pretty robust reason.
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I have lived under various different RAF fly zones since I was 10 and the big plane that came over most recently was seriously low.
 
I've had low flying Chinooks and a Lancaster bomber fly over when I've been riding. Fortunately fine, though pony isn't too fond of the hang gliders we encounter.
The most scary encounter was long ago when I was in the Lake district riding along a narrow fellside path and two fighter jets passed along the valley just below us. Pony took off along the path we'd been carefully navigating at walk but fortunately for a change he wasn't the clumsy clod he could be and we survived intact.
 
Have had an Atlas (C1) low fly over the house which was annoying but spectacular. Horses have never been bothered by planes but balloons firing its burner going over their field was scary as hell. Fortunately the balloons that used to fly locally have stopped.
 
Brummyrat said:
It was the one my friend heard! I've just asked her roughly what time it was and she said around 3.45/4 ish so had a mooch on FR24 and there it is, Christ you weren't exaggerating about the altitude either, it really was that low!! What a treat (although not when riding obviously!)
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I don't have a link as such but if you get the Flightradar24 App on your phone then select your area and playback you can clearly see it come over and the altitude is around 300ft!
 
I keep my horses near one of the RAF training schools and 'something' will regularly fly over on a Friday to buzz them for their parades. It also buzzes me!

The low flying heavy stuff gets a bit of tension but the Typhoon coming over did get a decent wobble. We also had the red arrows once on their way back from some show down south.

I grew up on RAF bases though so I think I'm pretty immune which helps
 
Can I raise you the Vulcan bomber? If you never heard it go google. It’s a beast. Was riding at the top of a hill along the ridge with a friend when we heard this noise, which we couldn’t work out what it was. We looked across and it was the Vulcan bomber on one of its final runs coming up the valley doing a fly round of the locality as an ex pilot lived in the village. It was an interesting moment and the only question I got asked was no photographs to which I replied thought better keep both hands on the reins at that moment. Was at an air show when the Vulcan took off and I actually couldn’t believe how loud and large it was.
 
There is (or sadly was) nothing like the awesome sound of the Vulcan. LOUD!!

Picture taken standing in my horses’ field. Horses completely unbothered as ever, but we get a lot of low flying forces aircraft so they are used to them..

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But a hot air balloon - proper panic stations, hate the bleddy things with a vengeance 😡.
 
We get the Globemaster, Galaxy, Atlas, in and out all the time and have done for years, and the Antonov, and back in the day, Ilyushin cargo plane, and of course the Hercs.

The last Vulcan certified for flight was grounded in 2015.

The Typhoon makes a great noise.
 
We get all sorts flying over, high, low and mid altitude. The Atlas came over the other night while I was looking for meteorites. It's a big beast!
The best one was the Electricity helicopter, checking the power lines. They fly hedge-top height, and they were inspecting the hedge line that my ponies were asleep right next to. I happened to be working up the field at the time and I wasn't surprised that the ponies didn't even get up. They are fairly blase about it all.
 
Crackerz said:
I live in a triangle from Brize and Fairford, so I've seen all sorts so low, and the air traffic the last month has been insane, much lower and louder than normal. Mine are pretty acclimatised to it all but i can imagine how scary it would be when its so low and unexpected!!
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My horse used to be near at the Fairford runway and we’d hack up to the crash gates. Was interesting during the tattoo but they were very good at sending out the flying time sheets so you knew what was flying when - so if it was a helicopter display you have time to ride quickly in the school before the next fast jet came over. There was one horse that really struggled with it and the owner used to send him away for the week but the others settled after the first few jets. Can imagine it is a lot busier at the moment.
 
Back a (very) long time ago a friend and I were coming off the Forest practising our sidesaddle (as you do as kids) when Concorde went supersonic over the Channel. The resulting sonic boom caused both ponies to bolt, fortunately down a traffic free gravel track, and somehow we both stayed on (still sidesaddle) and managed to pull up, still laughing 🤣
 
My dad was a navigator on Vulcans! Back in the day... It was his favourite plane I think. Speaks fondly of it still.

We were riding in Wilts on the edge of Salisbury Plain in the fog & got buzzed by low flying fast jets. We all jumped but they were gone so quick that was all thankfully.

On holiday in Spain riding along a narrow coastal path (& i get vertigo so was already unhappy) & we could see 2 jets coming inland very fast. Fortunately everyone spooked towards the cliff, but didn't make me feel better about riding on cliff paths!!
 
SEL said:
My dad was a navigator on Vulcans! Back in the day... It was his favourite plane I think. Speaks fondly of it still.

We were riding in Wilts on the edge of Salisbury Plain in the fog & got buzzed by low flying fast jets. We all jumped but they were gone so quick that was all thankfully.

On holiday in Spain riding along a narrow coastal path (& i get vertigo so was already unhappy) & we could see 2 jets coming inland very fast. Fortunately everyone spooked towards the cliff, but didn't make me feel better about riding on cliff paths!!
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If there was a problem, the navigators had to eject out of the bottom of the plane. Definitely not a nice one for them. What an exciting father to have.👍
 
We live a few miles north of Lyneham (home of the RAF Hercules) and south of Fairford and Brize. My lot don't turn a hair at even the lowest of these massive planes. We've has B1 bombers over most days lately, as well as the "normal" stuff. Horses don't have any arial predators, so they are not hard wired to be bothered by flying things, although I must admit I sh@t myself one day up on the Downs as I rode past an old barn which blocked the view of the Red Arrows approaching and suddenly screaming low overhead from over the barn, trailing smoke. Horse was unconcerned 😂.
 
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