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In the Sky; Just Slightly Odd (Jet & Helicopter Sighting)

A

Anonymous

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Just a slightly odd event from earlier this evening.

Driving home, when I notice a weird looking plane in the sky. Very sharp, 'pointy', looking rather like a firework with very small wings in general shape. We see a lot of planes overhead in our neighbourhood, but this one was reflecting the light in a very strange way; almost as though it had some kind of white reflective ceramic coating is the inadequate description I came up with.

MrsHyde saw it too. MrsHyde shares none of my spooky interests (being more into cryptofeminism than cryptozoology) but she immediately said 'what's that weird looking plane?".

And then, out of the low clouds, I kid you not, a black helicopter (of the type you see in MASH) zooms over, changes course and starts to follow the plane. Couldn't tell you what their comparative heights were, but that's certainly what it looked like!

Now, I reckon there's a rational explanation, but there was just a faintly odd feel to it all. So I thought I'd record it for future generations to laugh at.
 
a Starfighter?...in a time slip from the 70's...i think all of them have crashed by now(?) "a shineing needle to sew up the sky"
 
What time was it? if the sun is low it can cause some strange reflective effects.
 
..and the chopper was a Bell type, right? Sort of pylon affair at the back to which the tail rotor is fitted, rather than a solid fuselage?

How fast was the 'plane going?
 
sidecar_jon said:
a Starfighter?...in a time slip from the 70's...i think all of them have crashed by now(?) "a shineing needle to sew up the sky"
A yes! A jet powered, supersonic, rocket tube, with just a hint of wing! The epitome of the Sixties! ;)

Lot's, mostly German Airforce, started falling out of the sky in the Eighties!

Jeremy Clarkson's got one in his garden. :p
 
AndroMan said:
Lot's, mostly German Airforce, started falling out of the sky in the Eighties!

I once had the unsettling experience of seeing one crash in flames at an airshow :(
 
Couldn't tell you how fast the plane was going. It was fairly low; lower than the passenger jets that regularly pass by. It looked to be the size of something like a Lear jet, but I'm not very clued up on this type of thing.

The helicopter did indeed have a 'pylon' type tail section. I thought it seemed a bit out of date. We do see a lot of police helicopters in the area; it definitely wasn't one of those, as I'm intimately familiar with them (one once hovered over my house for an hour, looking for a joyrider).

As for time, it was about six last night. I suppose the whole thing has a normal explanation, but it just had a very odd feel to it. As I said, the fact that MrsHyde (she isn't pleased with that name, but still) regarded it as strange when she's normally uber-rational was odd in itself.

Need I add at this point that it's the second vaguely Fortean incident in a week? The other one will have to wait for its own thread for the time being...
 
Probably just the military up to testing stuff. Maybe it was an unmanned spy-plane and the helicopter was there to fetch it when it finally landed.
 
taras said:
Probably just the military up to testing stuff. Maybe it was an unmanned spy-plane and the helicopter was there to fetch it when it finally landed.

I'd hope they'd use something more up to date than an old Bell helicopter from the 50s.

Regarding Starfighters, I think the Italian Air Force may still fly them (well they did a couple of years ago anyway). Any RAF bases nearby which could be holding an exercise?
 
I'm sure I've seen something like that,shiney silver,hardly any wings to see. That was a couple of years ago.
 
AndroMan said:
A yes! A jet powered, supersonic, rocket tube, with just a hint of wing! The epitome of the Sixties! ;)

Lot's, mostly German Airforce, started falling out of the sky in the Eighties!

Jeremy Clarkson's got one in his garden. :p


i think that was a BAE Lightening.... yes they suffered for metal fetigue...dubed the Flying coffin by the german airforce...

Bob Calvert (of Hawkwind)did a whole album on it called "Captian lockheed and the Starfigters" wel worth trackign down it is too....

'lat minet cockpit test, flaps to zero, fuel to go...our father which art in heaven..etc..."
 
sidecar_jon said:
i think that was a BAE Lightening.... yes they suffered for metal fetigue...dubed the Flying coffin by the german airforce...
Not sure if I've misread this reply, but the Lightning was a quite different aircraft to the Lockheed F104 Starfighter. ;)

Has anyone looked into the possibility that these suspiciously old aircraft were returning from an airshow? The "Black helicopter" could just be an old military helicopter in a dark paint scheme showing up black against the lighter sky background.
 
Fortis said:
Not sure if I've misread this reply, but the Lightning was a quite different aircraft to the Lockheed F104 Starfighter. ;)

Has anyone looked into the possibility that these suspiciously old aircraft were returning from an airshow? The "Black helicopter" could just be an old military helicopter in a dark paint scheme showing up black against the lighter sky background.

tiz my bad gramma.. Clerkson had/has a British electric Lightening in his garden, not a star fighter. The star fighter suffered form metal fetigue which made its already stubby wings fall off...with perdictable results.


G-for germany! (little cpt lockheed and the star fighters joke there)
 
Fortis said:
Has anyone looked into the possibility that these suspiciously old aircraft were returning from an airshow?

I had a 'moment' once when I was driving along the highway, thinking about WWII, and here came a B-17 thundering along over the treetops on its way to land at a nearby air museum.
 
I've had a look at some photos of the Starfighter and it does look very like the plane I saw, albeit with very slightly different wings. I'm not aware of any airshows around here recently, but there was a ballooning festival on, so maybe it was connected (not mentioned on any of the promo stuff though). Then again, judging from the above comments, it strikes me that a Starfighter would be the last thing you'd want around a sky full of hot air balloons.
 
As far as I know the Italian Starfighters ( or widowmakers as their pilots liked to call them ) have been withdrawn from service and replaced with F16's leased from the Americans.

However they are very popular gate guards ( on account of them lookin so cool ) you may have seen one been ferried to it's new home. Did the RAF ever have them in service?

As for the Bell, these little work horses from the 50's are still in use today for high altutide work mainy ( they are very light and don't need the air to be as dence as other helo's to stay aloft ).
But there is no way on earth that one would be able to keep up with a starfighter......

so eh, I don't know either.....
 
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