Looking Up in London

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Looking Up in London

crashrescue 25/07/2006, 9:24 AM

I'm curious - Can you help?

For the last 7 nights I've been observing an aircraft on circuits over North London. The AC arrives at dusk and completes triangular circuits of about 8 minutes per lap & is overhead for about 1 - 1.5 hours.

On the first night it ran with a single white light to the rear and the red wing tip light. I couldn't see the AC on this occasion but it was high say FL080 to FL100. At first I thought it might be the RAF Andover doing some sort of testing and measuring (but I've only ever seen this at low level on approach etc).

On the subsequent nights I've seen and heard the same AC at the same FL and same circuits but this time with no lights - no strobes - no green, red or whites, no cabin lights. It's not doing a very good job or being invisible!

The AC is grey in colour, twin engined, high wing mounted - a Twin Otter maybe? Probably military but not RAF, NATO maybe?

Have you seen it? What is it? What's it doing and why is it safe to fly without its lights???

I've done a few Google searches and searched these forums without luck so any feedback or ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Re: Looking Up in London

crashrescue 26/07/2006, 9:04 PM

Not much happening here then?

I'll try else where.

Good luck to all.