Helicopters over Newbury, UK

First of all let me say hello as I am new here. Been reading the site for a long time but never got round to registering till today.

Over the past 10 years living at this address, we have occasionally had military helicopters fly over fairly low, but in the last few days it has become excessive. At lunch time today, we had no less than 6 helicopters fly over our house and surrounding area. In the past week they have been getting more and more frequent, and a couple of times now they have flown over late at night or in the early hours of the morning. The helicopters appear to be black with no markings on them.

I live near Newbury, Berkshire, in the UK. Does anyone have any idea what is going on round here this past week? Im guessing its some sort of training exercise, but it seems to be going on a long time.

Heres a picture I took of the one of the ones that flew over today:

I would hazzard a guess at training runs mate.
My cousin is a helicopter pilot for the marines and is based west of Newbury (Gloucester area) and he flies those things across towards this way (I live in Hampshire - not far from you).
We get a lot of military craft around here, being right next to the airport in Farnborough and next to Alder# (home of the british army) and I often see this kind of activity.

You will see plenty of funny looking aircraft this July as its the bi-annual airshow at Farnborough, trying to find out if the stealth will be making a fly by, as that always get the peole out of their houses!!

I'll see if I can find out if anything untoward is happening, but normally its just training exersices.

I live close to Newbury, and if you have only had 6 then you are pretty lucky. So far I have had countless helicopters flying overhead, and the last couple of nights it seems like its been fun for Chinook pilots to see how close they can get to my roof without crashing into it. Still, as long as they dont do it past 12pm, I have no problem. I would guess that they use this area as a training ground like jayrho said. They have done this in the past, though never as frequent as this. Must be the time of year...

You should enjoy it mate

I live near the heliport in Glasgow city centre and we occasionally get military helicopters landing... from Gazelles, Chinooks(in the SECC car park not helipad) Seakings etc

you can always tell its military heli's and not police etc cause they are so loud when they go over my flat they rattle the glass out the windows

reply to post by ray648


Hi

I have a friend that i've just checked with who flies helicopters for the RAF and apparently all this month there is the mother of all multi service training exercises going on.

apparently the mod are recieving about 30 calls a day from people asking WTF is goin on!

Originally posted by rat256
reply to post by ray648

 

Hi

I have a friend that i've just checked with who flies helicopters for the RAF and apparently all this month there is the mother of all multi service training exercises going on.

apparently the mod are recieving about 30 calls a day from people asking WTF is goin on!

very interesting this might shed some light on what happend today where i live (see topic Unusual Flight activity over Kingston on Thames UK )

Probably just traning.

I live on a mlitary base that is mostly F16s We have a couple of helicopters (rescue). About 30min down the road we have an Army base that is Special Forces, primarily helicopters.

Sometimes I can see dozens of copters in 1 day fly over our base. Other times its MONTHS before I see even one.


Military has to train. However, they are not training (in plain site) every day, or every week....or even every month).

reply to post by Dyer1


Yeah, it would explain some of it... I had a look at your thread. whilst i'm at a loss to come up with a valid explanation for your possible reverse triangle thing it would explain much of the other stuff...

i've noticed that ATS has noticed the increase in activity, there's threads popping up all over the place about extra activity.

the Dassault falcons from FR aviation wargames have been in and out like crazy all month too...

reply to post by rat256


Yes im at loss with the triangle myself. I called a fellow astronomer in to where I was and he couldnt work it out either. It was just odd. I think it was just an illusion but you never know.
As for the increased militarty activity it is odd that even people in london are noticing as it isnt normally a place for the military to practice. I will make some calls tomorow to try and figuere out what the hell that plane was doing so close to Heathrow.