7 Rotary aircraft 26/2 3/3.17 in close formation Irish Sea.

[AndrewBarclay]

According to a Notam 7 Helicopters will be operating without lights in the Irish Sea 53000 N 003000 W from 27/2.17 to 3/3/17 schedule noon to 02.00 is this one of those Ops use to be named Lobster Pot. Will the Helos be operating out of Altcar anybody got any further info. TIA.

There is another Notam for the 22nd, February 2017 one Fast Jet without lights area 543000 N 0030000W 18.00.20.00 hrs contact 129.525.for info.
https://fighterjetsworld.com/air/listen ... ada/19176/

[sschofield]

Wildcat ZZ414 (callsign "Rascal") and Merlin ZJ118 ("Renegade") apparently Northbound at this time!

[TB1]

Chinook ZK557 also plotting Northbound, showing as Lifter 1

Trevor

[Andy T]

Merlin ZH857 seems to have dropped into Altcar, not sure if this is where they are all based though.

Merlin ZJ132 is heading West towards Altcar now.

[CaLi]

noted
ZK557 / LIFTER01 Chinook HC.6 H47
ZK558/ RENGADE6 Chinook HC.6 H47
ZH857 / EXCAL 86 EH.101 Merlin HM.2
ZJ135 / RENEGADE03 EH.101 Merlin HC.3i.
ZJ118 / RENEGADE4 EH.101 Merlin HC.3i
ZZ414 / RENGDE1 Wildcat HMA.2 LYNX

[David Thompson]

ZH857 Excal 86 and ZZ414 Rascal 2 both showing this afternoon .

[Sierra166]

There's been quite a bit of Chinook activity around Barton as of recently, just got in and heard the familiar sounds of them. As I thought it was quite late I flicked on planeplotter to show the airframe below was heading south in the Low Level route. It's a fairly clear sky tonight and I can see part of the low level route out of window. True to form there's two Chinook's in formation, the rear and higher one with nav lights on, the lower and lead without. It appears they are on a night nav exercise? They were working Manchester RADAR on >118.575< but sadly as my VHF/UHF antenna is down at the minute and I was unprepared, I didn't snag a A2A freq (I really wish I would have). I did have my HF rig on at the time and set it loose on the low-VHF but didn't get anything, so one can presume they aren't chatty or are using a UHF freq. Here's the info from Plane plotter below. Time seen was 22:40z.
Callsign: LIFTER01
Registration: ZK557
Hex: 43C7D4
Alt: 1400'
Heading: 173°
Speed: 97kts
Squawk: 7350
H47 Chinook