There is a question that has been bugging me for some time, so I'm hoping someone out there with military/aviation knowledge knows the answer.

About one evening a week a Chinook helicopter passes to the north of our house, literally just skimming the trees. It flies due east-west along approximately 51° 02' latitude. Mrs Papyrus loves Chinooks, and she jumps up to watch every time we hear the distinctive 'thwocka-thwocka-thwocka'. The mystery is we never see them going the other way. Where do they come from, where do they go, and what are they doing? The most plausible explanation I can come up with is that they spring spontaneously into being from another dimension over in Kent somewhere, and there is a large field in Hampshire now containing several hundred parked Chinooks. Anybody got a more boring answer?

  

Cheers,

Chris

There are plenty at Odiham in Hampshire and at Benson in Oxfordshire.

They're always out and about.  Sometimes at high level and sometimes skimming the treetops.  We call it Chinookery.

A while back one came over very low.  I waved and a person looking out of the open side door waved back.

If you can come up with a date and time when you next see one then I might be able to tell you what it's up to.

Quote from: Papyrus on May 13, 2025, 04:17:04 PMand there is a large field in Hampshire now containing several hundred parked Chinooks.

There is. It's called RAF Odiham, although there won't be hundreds there since the RAF only has about 70 or so of them.

Most RAF training flights appear on Flight Radar 24:
https://www.flightradar24.com/

hi       i  deliver  to   raf   benson   oxfordshire   and   they  take off /  land  quite  often   

   paul

We had one on Monday night, I recall I'm about 15 miles east of you down the A272! They do tend to appear on Flightradar24, and yes, they're operating a rotation out of Odiham.

luckily I'm on the south of burgess hill, and they fly over the fields to the south at very low altitudes.
https://globe.adsbexchange.com/ and flight radar 24 are good for tracking them, though often at low level they turn off their transponders, so do not show up.
off topic,
a few weeks ago we had an A400 fly over the fields at about 500ft, that was awsome, and noisy.
other visitors are AH-64s, but unfortunately no longer the Hercs.

We've started seeing Chinooks flying both a N-S and a S-N route low level over farmland just a few hundred yards east of us. The route if extended would take them between Retford and Gainsborough in the north, and just west of Melton Mowbray in the south. No idea about destinations, as it avoids Waddington, which is our nearest airfield.

Most I've seen is three in tight formation. As you say. Awesome.

BTW Waddington is where I wrote off a Chipmunk trainer in 1977, fracturing the main spar doing aerobatics, when I was a 17 yo air cadet. Probably lucky to walk away from that one.

Bob
 

Quote from: Bob G on May 14, 2025, 11:43:13 AMProbably lucky to walk away from that one.

Bob

Still technically a good landing then

Quote from: zwilnik on May 14, 2025, 02:15:37 PM

Quote from: Bob G on May 14, 2025, 11:43:13 AMProbably lucky to walk away from that one.

Bob

Still technically a good landing then

Well we avoided the concrete runway because the Vulcans needed a functioning runway. We landed on the adjacent grass and once we had stopped we abandoned the aircraft. We didn't even try to taxi it to the hard standing.
That's how fraught it was. We had parachutes but if the wings had come off I doubt we would have got the canopy back and been able to jump from a spinning fuselage.

TBH everything from then on has been a bonus

Bob

They don't fly back on the same route in case they bump into each other.

Most aircraft have defined circuits.

When I lived in the City of London a chinook would come in from the East several times a week and land in Artillery Fields in Finsbury's and depart West and then circle round south before heading back East.

Quote from: zwilnik on May 14, 2025, 02:15:37 PM

Quote from: Bob G on May 14, 2025, 11:43:13 AMProbably lucky to walk away from that one.

Bob

Still technically a good landing then

As David Gunson said - a good  landing is one you can walk away from, an excellent landing is one where the aircraft can be used again 

Quote from: Browning 9mm on May 14, 2025, 09:47:55 AMluckily I'm on the south of burgess hill, and they fly over the fields to the south at very low altitudes.
https://globe.adsbexchange.com/ and flight radar 24 are good for tracking them, though often at low level they turn off their transponders, so do not show up.
off topic,
a few weeks ago we had an A400 fly over the fields at about 500ft, that was awsome, and noisy.
other visitors are AH-64s, but unfortunately no longer the Hercs.

If you click the U at the top right of the screen on ADSB then it will only show military aircraft, which makes it a lot easier to find something interesting.

Thanks for all the replies, chaps. Mrs P and I found them very interesting. I assumed they would probably be flying in a pre-determined circuit, and RAF Odiham makes sense. It's disappointing they don't just spontaneously appear - it would save a fortune on the MoD budget.

Cheers,

Chris

quite often I have noticed that they orbit Crowborough, not sure if the army training area is still active there, or been flogged off for development.