B17 South Lincs

The Shackletons that flew on 8 Squadron had a special role in NATO Tacevals. A supply of adhesive red stars of good size was kept in store until needed. With the addition of several Russian speaking bi lingual extra crew the Shack would trundle off to another nATO airbase which was being Taceval tested. They played the role of a defecting Soviet aircraft,calling only in Russian and landing ,often without any clearance.Add a sprinkling of Soviet flight kit and the recipe was complete. On at least one occasion no one at the USAFE airbase recognised the Shack and real panic set in, the crew stayed in role, forcing the summoning of an interpreter which was part of the standard plan as well as isolating the aircraft and crew.

At my first tour RAF Valley, local called me on switchboard to say the Basset had landed, a few mins later a Pembroke taxied past the tower. Recognition skills were not common ground side…

You’re absolutely righ there Meddle.

A few recent examples I’ve noticed. Last night the BBMF Dak did a Flypast at my local base RAF Henlow. According to the local village drums (Facebook) it flew over at 100ft…. Planefinder shows it never got below 750ft…. a recent work visit to Madrid and whilst waiting in the BA/IB lounge I watched an A400M taxy, according to my colleague it was a bomber (grey, large and 4 engines), and best of all, in New York last year and on the ferry to Liberty when the PdF flew over on their US tour start, they were being photographed behind an A400 and I overheard (and had to correct) a veteran telling somebody how it was USAF F5’s behind a C17….

I think I wrote about a podcast I once listened to, over in the ‘Haunted airfields’ thread. People spot ghost aircraft, typically cited as WW2 bombers according to the podcast, quite often!

An An-12 could be confused with a B-17 at an absolute push, in that both have a glass nose (hence the glint), and both have a tail gun turret. The latter is usually all but removed on the An-12s used for cargo duties. However the An-12 is high-wing, and the wings themselves are much thinner than a B-17. An-12s typically create a lot of smoke, so they look like they fell out of a different era. They also have a fairly unique timbre that makes you look up in the first place!

From my own experience I can see traffic approaching Edinburgh airport from the East, from the comfort of my office window. I was watching a C130 approaching, and my colleague asked “is that a bomber?”, which is fair enough! Olive drab, four props and a visible trail of smoke drifting behind the aircraft. This clearly wasn’t our usual 737 and Dash-8 traffic. In all fairness, there is 13 years between the first flights of the C130 and the Lancaster, and if you aren’t clued up then aircraft probably fall neatly into “bomber”, “jumbo jet”, “Spitfire” buckets. A C130 ticks enough ‘bomber’ boxes for most.

For all that I joke, another colleague watched the Pilatus PC-7 team’s practice run (from the same office window) a couple of years back, and commented on ‘all the Spitfires’ outside.

People also seem to generally under estimate the altitude of aircraft, quite often by a factor of ten! The Police helicopter circling their neighbourhood the night before at ‘a hundred feet’ was doing nothing of the sort. This gets even worse when they claim said helicopter was “hovering right over the house”. I also read (maybe on PPRUNE) of American airmen in the UK in the ’80s coming upon Shackletons and asking, incredulously, if we were still operating Liberators! All this makes a perfect storm of mis-identification.

I think most buses look largely the same; I leave it up to the bus spotting fraternity to dwell on the details. 😀

Hi all,
I’m led to believe that it possibly was a P-3, but i can be sure it wasnt an A400M or C130 as it would’ve been obvious.
Thanks for all the replies

Have noted the odd Antonov going over the Chesterfield area, sometimes going in to Doncaster/ Finningley according to FR24. They make a tremendous racket from their propellors so assume could be confused with a piston engined jobbie ?
One of my neighbours was cycling around the dams a day or so after the cancelled dambusters May celebration flypast and said he saw the Lancaster fly over. Picture on his phone was of a C130 however !

Just out of interest, I know it would probably be a lot, but just how much work would it take to return The Pink Lady to an airworthy state? I know she was taxiing on two engines in 2016. I still can’t believe that it’s so long since she was grounded due to insurance costs.

Do any visit the UK? They were popular with various allies, I believe they may still fly some.

Noted a US Navy P-3 on ADSB Exchange fairly recently, think it looked like it was out of Mildenhall. Certainly a few European air arms still operate P-3s.

The B-24 story was in the March 1990 (I think) issue of Flypast. It was seen by a pilot named Jeet Mahal. I can remember this because it was the first Flypast that I ever bought and was fascinated by the story! is there anything more to it?

A couple of possibilities…
DC-6? At least one flies in Europe.
Electra or P-3? USN Orions frequently fly nearby and at certain angles the straight wing and 4 engines can make it look like a Boeing or Douglas DC-4,6 or 7. Do any visit the UK? They were popular with various allies, I believe they may still fly some.

With only 2 Liberators flying, both in the U.S., I think we can discount that.
As previously noted,a B–25 has two engines and is quite a bit smaller…but none fly in the UK.

I recall years ago someone saying they’d seen a twin finned four engined aircraft while flying across Iran and reckoned it was a B-24 – I always thought it was a AN-22… Think it was after a couple of ex-Indian AF B-24s flew to the UK.

It’s the B-24 that has four engines. I’m sure if one was in uk at the moment we would have heard about it. There is a lot of this now on forums and Facebook. Just today, as well as a B-17, there were claims the Lancaster was out and about, it wasn’t. It’s like the “ghostly” four engined “WW2 bombers” that keep being seen. They turn out to be low flying C-130s or A400s. When I lived in Spain a regularly reported “WW2 Bomber” turned out to be an AN-12 out of Malaga…..

Isn’t there another 4 engined American.bomber over here at the minute? I can never get the b24 and b25 right so won’t commit to model. I may also have dreamt it!

There was a Hercules at low-level over NAM at 14.58 – recorded in here http://www.newarkairmuseum.org/NAM-Low-Fly-Log

I was working near Bottesford Airfield today and saw i believe an A400 flying more or less south-west. I’m fairly sure of the aircraft type as it appeared to have a ‘T’ tail and the engines had an unusual sound (turbprop).

No other B-17’s airworthy in Europe at the moment so it’s either Sally B or something other than a B-17

Nothing untoward on the Flying Legends participation list! Maybe Sally B has had a polish?