Aircraft over N. Donegal at 1am last night

Cee-Jay-Cee

I was lying in bed last night at 12:55am when I heard a large plane overhead, the engines were slowing down and it appeared to be descending. I Opened 'Plane Finder' app on my phone but nothing was showing anywhere over the North of Ireland. I looked out the window but couldn't see anything due to low cloud cover but I could still hear the aircraft. I went back to bed and was looking at the app when the plane suddenly appeared. It was approx. 20 miles away from me at that stage and was flying at approx. 16k ft and descending slowly at approx. 330knts/h.
There was no flight data regarding destination or departure point or aircraft type etc. I cant remember the flight number but it was something like cvn....

I looked at the flight history and It was obviously a USAF aircraft. It had been on a flight across Japan a week ago, flew from Cheyene eastwards a week earlier. Another flight showed it leave new York, fly approx. 250 miles out into the Atlantic and then go off radar.

The flight history showed that it only appeared on radar every so often during its flights (shown by a broken dotted line on the map and then a blue line when it was on radar) It rarely made point to point flights but left a destination and could fly in several different directions in a short space of time. I continued to watch it on the radar map and it dropped down to 9600 ft just north or Belfast and then disappeared off the map as suddenly as it appeared at approx. 1:05am.

I was fascinated by its flight history as in the last month or so it has flown over Europe several times and not just east to west or vice verse but north south also. It was also over Bulgaria, Lithuania, Norway, Japan and the US plus many others.

I'm so curious to know what kind of aircraft it was and what the hell it was doing descending while over Ireland yet not landing? Also when I run playback for that time, it doesn't show on the map...

PinOnTheRight

Cee-Jay-Cee wrote: »

I was lying in bed last night at 12:55am when I heard a large plane overhead, the engines were slowing down and it appeared to be descending. I Opened 'Plane Finder' app on my phone but nothing was showing anywhere over the North of Ireland. I looked out the window but couldn't see anything due to low cloud cover but I could still hear the aircraft. I went back to bed and was looking at the app when the plane suddenly appeared. It was approx. 20 miles away from me at that stage and was flying at approx. 16k ft and descending slowly at approx. 330knts/h.
There was no flight data regarding destination or departure point or aircraft type etc. I cant remember the flight number but it was something like cvn....

I looked at the flight history and It was obviously a USAF aircraft. It had been on a flight across Japan a week ago, flew from Cheyene eastwards a week earlier. Another flight showed it leave new York, fly approx. 250 miles out into the Atlantic and then go off radar.

The flight history showed that it only appeared on radar every so often during its flights (shown by a broken dotted line on the map and then a blue line when it was on radar) It rarely made point to point flights but left a destination and could fly in several different directions in a short space of time. I continued to watch it on the radar map and it dropped down to 9600 ft just north or Belfast and then disappeared off the map as suddenly as it appeared at approx. 1:05am.

I was fascinated by its flight history as in the last month or so it has flown over Europe several times and not just east to west or vice verse but north south also. It was also over Bulgaria, Lithuania, Norway, Japan and the US plus many others.

I'm so curious to know what kind of aircraft it was and what the hell it was doing descending while over Ireland yet not landing? Also when I run playback for that time, it doesn't show on the map...

There appears to have been a CNV callsign(US Navy) arrive into Aldergrove around that time, suspect it was a C130 Hercules coming from St. Johns making its way somewhere. If it sounded like a jet, they also operate a few 737 types in whatever the military designator is (C40 perhaps). The C130s are generally poor at showing on tracking sites.

Cee-Jay-Cee

PinOnTheRight wrote: »

There appears to have been a CNV callsign(US Navy) arrive into Aldergrove around that time, suspect it was a C130 Hercules coming from St. Johns making its way somewhere. If it sounded like a jet, they also operate a few 737 types in whatever the military designator is (C40 perhaps). The C130s are generally poor at showing on tracking sites.

Thanks for that info.

Its hard to say if it was a jet or prop but it was a low heavy engine sound so most likely a Hercules. I guess the landing at aldergrove explains the drop in altitude on approach to Belfast.

Are they poor at showing on tracking sites for military/intelligence reasons or because of some other reason?

EchoIndia

Belfast Aldergrove report from another source:

0057 - CNV3601 - 165379 - C-130T - from St John's (CYYT)
1529 - CNV3601 - to Souda Bay (LGSA).

PinOnTheRight

Cee-Jay-Cee wrote: »

Thanks for that info.

Its hard to say if it was a jet or prop but it was a low heavy engine sound so most likely a Hercules. I guess the landing at aldergrove explains the drop in altitude on approach to Belfast.

Are they poor at showing on tracking sites for military/intelligence reasons or because of some other reason?

I think it's poor tracking because of other reasons like older equipment rather than an intentional thing.

They are fairly common through Aldergrove and Prestwick, after a 12 hr stop the one you heard continued on to Souda Bay as EchoIndia says. There was also another CNV C130 routing Sigonella Naval Base (Italy) -Prestwick-Keflavik yesterday.

EchoIndia

Flight tracking websites are entirely dependent on the number and locations of individuals providing data to the site. References to flights "going off radar" are incorrect. The tracker site has nothing to do with actual ATC radar services or capability.

Cee-Jay-Cee

EchoIndia wrote: »

Flight tracking websites are entirely dependent on the number and locations of individuals providing data to the site. References to flights "going off radar" are incorrect. The tracker site has nothing to do with actual ATC radar services or capability.

Ok, I didnt realise that. I simply meant it disappeared off the tracking site/ap.

RadioRetro

Flightradar24 screen out most military aircraft and also restrict info on bizjets.

Popoutman

http://tar1090.adsbexchange.com is where you need to go to see an aircraft, if it is transmitting ADSB information at all. No filtering on the client or server on that site - if an aircraft sends some form of ADSB signal at all that's picked up by a client, it'll be shown on that page.

No payment from dictators or CEOs will hide an aircraft's tag there.

(Apologies if this appears twice, the first time nothing showed up for some time...)

Psychlops

Cee-Jay-Cee wrote: »

I was lying in bed last night at 12:55am when I heard a large plane overhead, the engines were slowing down and it appeared to be descending. I Opened 'Plane Finder' app on my phone but nothing was showing anywhere over the North of Ireland. I looked out the window but couldn't see anything due to low cloud cover but I could still hear the aircraft. I went back to bed and was looking at the app when the plane suddenly appeared. It was approx. 20 miles away from me at that stage and was flying at approx. 16k ft and descending slowly at approx. 330knts/h.
There was no flight data regarding destination or departure point or aircraft type etc. I cant remember the flight number but it was something like cvn....

I looked at the flight history and It was obviously a USAF aircraft. It had been on a flight across Japan a week ago, flew from Cheyene eastwards a week earlier. Another flight showed it leave new York, fly approx. 250 miles out into the Atlantic and then go off radar.

The flight history showed that it only appeared on radar every so often during its flights (shown by a broken dotted line on the map and then a blue line when it was on radar) It rarely made point to point flights but left a destination and could fly in several different directions in a short space of time. I continued to watch it on the radar map and it dropped down to 9600 ft just north or Belfast and then disappeared off the map as suddenly as it appeared at approx. 1:05am.

I was fascinated by its flight history as in the last month or so it has flown over Europe several times and not just east to west or vice verse but north south also. It was also over Bulgaria, Lithuania, Norway, Japan and the US plus many others.

I'm so curious to know what kind of aircraft it was and what the hell it was doing descending while over Ireland yet not landing? Also when I run playback for that time, it doesn't show on the map...

Plenty of aircraft descend over Ireland be it civil or military on a daily if not hourly basis & dont land in Ireland, why are you suprised by this? CONVOY is not a USAF callsign its a US Navy callsign, normally heard using CONVOY is the likes of their C130T Hercules fleet & their C40 Clippers.


Also apps like FR24 & Plane Finder dont show Military flights & often at the request of the owner/operator will block or hide these aircraft from your view on the app, if you want to see pretty much everything I suggest using this:


https://tar1090.adsbexchange.com/


If you only want to see Military in the above simply press the "U" button on the screen & it will clear the map of all aircraft except Military.