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We live in rural North Cumbria, this afternoon I watched a Merlin and a Chinook fly low up the valley along the river.
Not an unusual sight, it occurs fairly regularly.
I became aware of a jet overhead; a Typhoon came into view.
Then it all began.
The helicopters flew incredibly low, dancing left and right, as one of the two went one way, the other went the opposite direction. The Typhoon swooped and circled with an incredible noise.
The helicopters were just above the tree tops, genuinely you could feel the air stir and the trees sway as they hauled themselves back and forth, up and down the valley.
Suddenly there were two Typhoons, the noise doubled, they continued to circle, their speed was low, they looked to be travelling so slowly that they'd stall and fall out of the sky.
After about 20 minutes of this which I tried to capture on iPhone, they all gained height and moved away, jets to the South East, helicopters to the South West.
Not an idea what they were doing, I assume the helicopters were attempting to evade the jets by keeping to the valley and hiding amongst the trees, not easy considering their size.
It really was a spectacle, the whole village was out watching. People pay money for such a low level display.
Damn, I live in north Cumbria & missed all that!
One of the coolest things I've ever seen was a typhoon displaying at Ayr airshow.
I worked on Merlin's a few years back, and got the chance to fly in one doing the exact thing you are talking about. My guess it's the same, they do them every year, its a few weeks training for the helicopter aircrew to escape and evade fast jets. Bloody brilliant experience
I saw a Merlin & a Chinook together this afternoon as well, only these were heading North to South near Leeming, couldv'e been the same pair I suppose.
Best 'private' display I ever saw was in the mid 80's just outside Durham which involved 2 French Mirage F1's, 2 USAF F15's from Bitburg (so low I could see 'BT' on their tails) 2 Tornado's & 2 F4's, all screaming around at very low level trying to bounce each other. Breathtaking.
The exercise that I was on, was indeed based at leeming. So could well be
Nice, was a joy to see a mix of prop and jet training over the Lakes a few weeks ago
Get the video uploaded to youtube or vimeo and post here 🙂
@stu lucky you !
I was at Uni in Norwich near a couple of USAF bases and two F15's simulated a dog fight over the campus. Must have been 1993 as i was sitting in halls of residence with electric guitar in hand trying. I managed to knock out the Steve Stevens theme to Top Gun. Still didn't get me laid...
Dogfight made up for it though.
A long time ago was fishing on the oxford canal at the end of upper heyford airbase. The base practiced scrambling every available F1-11. The noise was mental and I was sat there thinking any minute now I'm going to get vaporised. In those days no iPhones to check the fact that ww3 had not in fact broken out.
We get a lot.
Normal day will see Apaches, Chinooks and the odd Squirrel on the rotary front. Lots of Little Nellies out of the local strip as well.
Then, on a few special days we have stuff like this overhead as well.
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Oh, and when the local festival is on, we get the likes of the Red Arrows, Vulcans and more. (Not last year, after Shoreham, sadly).
Years ago I went to helitech 89 at Redhilll heliport, the Russians were there. Including a Hind that had been stripped out, bloody hell for a big helicopter it was thrown about. Also the erm adherance to height and closeness to crowd rules were somewhat relaxed in a "I am a professional Russian" mode.
A Eurofighter appeared over my house the other week, and did a slow decending spiral of a few miles radius, from a high altitude to low. It then buggered off in the direction of Fort Augustus. Reappeared at the same low altitude a few minutes later to do very noisy spiralling climb up to the edge of my vision before scarpering.
War games up Cape Wrath way can lead to such excitement.
Best private display I saw were a pair of dambuster Tornado's on a quiet Wednesday day off work in the Peak district.
I was chatting to a couple of walkers then we fell into a giggling mess as they hauled past low and fast a few times[b] 😆
Then there was the Spitfire doing a fast low banked turn - I love midweek days off 8)