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Flying Man Buzzes Aircraft (Macclesfield / Manchester; 2014)

GNC

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I'll be darned if I can find a thread for this:
http://metro.co.uk/2014/10/18/passenger ... o=facebook

Passengers on an airline over the north of England were baffled when a man ‘flew’ past their aircraft at 3,500 feet.

The Airbus 320 was over Macclesfield as it came in to land at Manchester Airport when people on board noticed something whiz past the left-hand side of the plane.

Pilots and passengers were mystified to see a ‘flying man’ shoot past the aircraft less than 100m away, with pilots saying nothing appeared on the radar and further checks failing to show any paragliders, parachutists or balloonists in the area.

A relative of Mary Poppins? Peter Pan has finally grown up? A really big bird? Publicity for the next Superman movie? What a curious story.
 
Their plane was quite low so could he have been an unlucky stowaway falling from the undercarriage of a much higher plane?
 
davidplankton said:
They will have been going at quite a rate themselves, maybe they flew past and not him.

I was just musing on that possibility...There he was, minding his own business, just having a quiet float 3,500 feet up when "mneeooww" he narrowly avoids being mown down by an Airbus. :D
 
Might have been a dummy-but where did it come from?

This could turn out to be as mysterious as Spring Heeled Jack, and if it happens again, well, this is how legends begin.

I'm assuming there is a wingsuit invlved?
 
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I'd guess it was not human at all - a large bird. slightly closer than they estimated. A heron perhaps - they look really weird when they are flying.
 
Well, it could have been a man using some modern flying gear - but surely no-one smart and dedicated enough to teach themselves how to fly such kit would be stupid enough to go near an airport landing corridor.

If not a bird, then maybe a dirigible or a drone - plenty of people who fly drones are reckless enough to impinge on civilian airspace.
 
eburacum said:
Well, it could have been a man using some modern flying gear - but surely no-one smart and dedicated enough to teach themselves how to fly such kit would be stupid enough to go near an airport landing corridor.

If not a bird, then maybe a dirigible or a drone - plenty of people who fly drones are reckless enough to impinge on civilian airspace.

How powerful would a small drone need to be to carry the weight of a light dummy. The mini camera drones that seem to be the rage for kids are quite light but surely something a bit might be able to carry a human shaped cut-out?
 
What kind of height could one of those get up to though without being blown all over?
 
The gadget show on channel 5 did a section on this, when they are painted up as normal people they look very convincing.

Gadget%20Show%20Superheroes.jpg


http://gadgetshow.channel5.com/gadget-s ... ro-build-2
 
I was thinking the same thing ... and in a jet stream it wouldn't stand a chance if we're all pretending it could even get that high up at all .... beautiful creations though, they were built and flown as a publicity stunt to promote the 2012 super hero film Chronicle ..
 
Do note the footage(shown in the link)of human shaped flying machines, being flown for pleasure in NYC?

Flying machines sometimes get loose-I remember, years ago, an elaborate kite shaped like a red Fokker Triplane broke it's string in downtown Baltimore, and flew for hours-the police helicopter took a close look at it, then let it go on its way, unmolested.

Could it be that one such was lifted high by the wind? Balloons can achieve great altitudes, and people will invest considerable money and time in hoaxes and pranks.

Done just once, a god hoax can mystify for years.
 
Ah, I missed the 3.500feet bit. :oops:

My next theory is a blow up sex doll inflated with helium.
 
Some accounts (including the excerpt here in post #1) don't make clear the mystery flying man was traveling downward or maintaining a constant altitude. As a result, some folks responding to this story (elsewhere) seem to be under the mistaken impression the figure was moving upward, insinuating powered flight.

The Daily Mail account states:

The Airprox Board, which looks in to near misses, said: 'They first sighted the object a few hundred metres in the 11 o'clock position 200 to 300ft above.

'It passed down the left-hand side of the aircraft at 100 to 200m.

'The crew only saw it fleetingly, there was no time to take avoiding action and they based their assumptions on it being a person under a canopy. But neither can remember seeing a canopy.'

SOURCE: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...past-airbus-passengers-flew-macclesfield.html
 
Do note the footage(shown in the link)of human shaped flying machines, being flown for pleasure in NYC? ...

Could it be that one such was lifted high by the wind? Balloons can achieve great altitudes, and people will invest considerable money and time in hoaxes and pranks. ...

Good point ... The Daily Mail account states:

The official report in to the incident on Friday June 13 admitted it was 'unfortunate' and 'frustrating' there was 'no way of corroborating what they had reported'.

It added that the flight crew 'couldn't be certain that it wasn't a person-shaped balloon.'

SOURCE: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...past-airbus-passengers-flew-macclesfield.html
 
I'm wondering how geographically precise the reports are being when they state that this happened 'over Macclesfield'.

On the Cat and Fiddle Road section of the A537 between Buxton and Macclesfield you pass Shining Tor, which is a magnet for paragliders and the like. I have to say though that I don't think the planes get low enough, or the humans high enough, to then pass each other in the configuration described.

There's a bit of film illustrating the point here:


On a complete tangent. Anyone who likes the writing of Alan Garner might be interested to know that at around 4:38 you are looking more or less directly at Thursbitch. And when the flier turns, the pyramid like peak in the centre of the screen (5:40) is Shutlingsloe (with Macclesfield Forest to the right).

Shutlingsloe plays a part in The Weirdstone of Brisingamen - and Thursbitch in, well, Thursbitch.
 
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