B-52 at Kemble

[A and C]

Flight radar is showing a B-52 showing 7700 landing at Kemble. Can this be true or has flight radar had a brain fart ?

[bobward]

Possible b-f, A and C. Fighter Control report that there are 4 Buffs on TDY at Fairford for a BTF mission.

[Jhieminga]

Mistook it for RAF Fairford? It could be FR24 misbehaving as well. I'm sure we'll see some photos show up if it did turn up at Kemble.

Snap!

[ORAC]

Cue stale joke about “dreaded 7 engine approach”…..

[B Fraser]

Could it be the same chap who displayed at Farnborough, much to the enjoyment of those on the ground at Blackbushe ?

[RAFEngO74to09]

Incorrect - it landed at RAF Fairford

[chevvron]

Incorrect - it landed at RAF Fairford
Just proves once again how inaccurate FR24 can be.
I tracked a Chinook the other night (after midnght) which I heard going past my house; it landed (according to FR24) at roughly Thorpe Park before suddenly re-appearing and going to to Odiham.

[Liffy 1M]

Could it be the same chap who displayed at Farnborough, much to the enjoyment of those on the ground at Blackbushe ?

Which was well-explained here at the time but the narrative that they just couldn't find Farnborough was far more appealing and became an Internet "fact".

[AeroAmigo]

I'd imagine that the B52s are limited to being tracked by MLAT

(explained here: https://www.multilateration.info/surveillance/multilateration.html#:~:text=MLAT%20ground%20stations%20rece ive%20replies,(TDOA)%20of%20the%20replies.)

as they won't broadcast their own position, this is notoriously unreliable at low altitudes when there aren't many receivers around the aircraft. On top of this, FlightRadar records where it thinks aircraft (at least aircraft without known published origin and destination) have "landed" by the distance of their last known position to the closest airfield, it looks like when the B52s dropped out of tracking range the nearest airport was Kemble.

ADS-B Exchange can be particularly useful for observing when this has happened as it shows a live timer of how long it has been since there was a known position for the aircraft, and how long it has been since the aircraft was "seen", so even if there aren't enough receivers to give the aircraft a location, generally when the seen timer is updating regularly it is at least visible to one receiver, is still airborne, or at least has power on the ground

I tend to use ADS-B Exchange for tracking anything that won't broadcast its own position via ADS-B for the reason listed above, and the network of receivers at least in the UK that support MLAT seems to be much bigger so there is better coverage across the country. Can access it here if anyone hasn't heard of it or seen it before: https://globe.adsbexchange.com

[DaveReidUK]

Incorrect - it landed at RAF Fairford

Yes, fortunately - if it had landed at Kemble it would have quickly been parted out ...

[West Coast]

Which was well-explained here at the time but the narrative that they just couldn't find Farnborough was far more appealing and became an Internet "fact".

Yup, right up there with the USN Carrier and the light house.

[dixi188]

Wasn't there a B2 that got lost going to Farnborough also?

[Less Hair]

Which was well-explained here at the time but the narrative that they just couldn't find Farnborough was far more appealing and became an Internet "fact".

This is from pprune back then if I found the right thread:

StbdD
24th Jul 2004, 15:41
Sorry to drag it back to the topic but the following might be worth a read as the other side of the story:
".... the ATC gents decided to vector them and they followed, knowing they were being put out of position. When they were 2 miles from the approach end 3 miles to the left they were cleared for their "hard right turn to line up"! This obviously was not doable and they flew a safe path. The ATC gents now know a B-52 cannot pull 5 g's to overfly a runway full of spectators. The situation has been resolved and they have made their fly-by's on time and target since. "
*With acknowledgement and respect to the gent from whose e-mail the above was borrowed. Sorry mate, you should know LNOs are sneaky.
So, a less than favorable situation, good airmanship, no harm, no foul.

​​​​​​​https://www.pprune.org/archive/index.php/t-138328.html

However having been there and having seen the B-52 far away to the north it just came from the east and flew to the west. This is why I cannot follow the right hard turn maneuvre mentioned above. Still London airspace is busy and holding must be tricky this is why I am not making jokes about them.

[SLXOwft]

Just proves once again how inaccurate FR24 can be.
I tracked a Chinook the other night (after midnght) which I heard going past my house; it landed (according to FR24) at roughly Thorpe Park before suddenly re-appearing and going to to Odiham.

Chinooks are often flying too low to be registered, assuming their transponders are in a relevant mode /setting to be interpreted by FR24, ADS-B etc. Mind you their interpretations can be ropey, on ADS-B Exchange I have seen the reported position of a certain four engined FW aircraft swapping between London and a secret airfield near a cathedral city every few seconds and a BUFF disappearing on approach to Fairford before reappearing further west having clearly had to go around, presumably as AeroAmigo says due to insufficient data for MLAT calculation.Four U.S. Air Force B-52 Stratofortress aircraft assigned to the 5th Bomb Wing arrived at Royal Air Force Fairford, in the U.K., launching a routine bomber task force deployment this week.

While deployed, the unit will operate as the 69th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron under the banner of Bomber Task Force Europe 24-3. Throughout the deployment, U.S. Air Force Airmen and aircraft will integrate with NATO Allies and other international partners to synchronize capabilities and assure security commitments across the U.S. European Command area of responsibility.
Source: US European Command May, 22 2024

[chevvron]

Wasn't there a B2 that got lost going to Farnborough also?
The B1b is the one that got lost and did a pass at Blackbushe in spite of the radar controller telling him where Farnborough was; for some reason everybody ignores that and quotes the B52 which was just a case of the pilot opening up all 8 engines in the middle of a steeply banked turn thus widening the turn radius; I handled the vectoring on the next run and made sure it was on the opposite runway and I got him on centreline at 8 miles. The B2 couldn't find the airfield as for some reason they couldn't pick up the TACAN at Odiham so we had to vector it inbound; we later found out they hadn't loaded any of the local navigation data in their nav system.

[chevvron]

However having been there and having seen the B-52 far away to the north it just came from the east and flew to the west. This is why I cannot follow the right hard turn maneuvre mentioned above. Still London airspace is busy and holding must be tricky this is why I am not making jokes about them.
'Far away to the north?' A subjective guess; On radar it actually flew between Blackbushe and Farnborough, maybe 1.5 miles north of the runway.
I never heard of the 'hard right turn' instruction; it was actually 'hard left'; the controller told me about it later and I believe we listened to the tape to confirm.

[Less Hair]

Far away compared to the Farnborough runway it had been announced to fly over. On the horizon if you watched from the ground.