Cat & Mouse

This last week I have spent much too much of my time catching up with school friends from the 1962-72 time but specifically 1968-72 when I was aged 13-17.

The contact is for the most part via Facebook although our school now has at least one new fully paid up Bliper. cbimages, who went on from school to a career in the RAF flying Jaguar, Tornado, F16 fighters and finishing up as an instructor on the Grob Tutor training planes which are built 20km from here. The UK Armed Services have about 100 of these. (Follows on from remark made yesterday)

Was having a Facebook chat with ex-school pals and finding out at last which pupil burnt down the carpentry workshop, where I had my first sailing instruction (amongst the Lions of Longleat), who illegally had a motor vehicle hidden near the school and which Cider Farm and pubs were on the "Recommended" list, when a weird noise was heard. And then 5 minutes later the same thing, as if Angie pulling a sledge over the half snow covered brick path. When it happened for the third time, I looked out and just caught the tail section of a plane banking away.

Clearly another session of training flights at nearby Memmingen airport. It happens from time to time but probably less than once a month and tends to be larger private jets or smaller turboprop passenger planes. Dashed out as it made its fourth turn, seemingly using our house as a marker point. Very difficult to photograph as I have just seconds as it appears from behind the forest and then banks away at 90°.

Went indoors and then tried tracking it on an App. Located it but there was no Registration data. Looking at the photos I couldn't see any markings but only had "bottom" photos. Took me ages to get to the bottom of it. And yes the Brits to blame.

The plane is owned by Execujet, HQ'd in Cambridge UK but this particular plane based in Zurich, Switzerland and has the Reg. HB-JRI. A 2015 built Bombardier Global 5000, 14 seat executive jet. Only having the free version of the Radar App, can only see limited info on its flight history and seemingly several flights are not recorded. What I could find out was:

On Friday morning at 5:00 am it flew from Zurich to Ibiza.
Left Ibiza at 12:05 landed at Zurich at 14:03

This morning at  9:15 CET it left Zurich and landed at Farnborough UK at 9:48 GMT after 848 miles.
Then it disappeared until this afternoon when I picked it up.
It left the small Engadin airport at St. Moritz in Switzerland and headed to us where it did about 10 approach loops at Memmingen before landing for a few minutes and going off the radar.
It then restarted, did five more approach loops before flying off across to Salzburg for the night.

In the Extra photo, my poor attempt at getting a shot of the plane as it came out from behind the forest and started its bank. The Reg.No. is seemingly deliberately written in very pale blue on one wing tip and in the snow, cloud filled skies, difficult to see.

You wonder what such executive jets get to see and what the guests have tucked in their baggage. Different world and best one doesn't know. Simply tracking the names of the owners is difficult and in fact, one gets different results from different sites. This afternoons session was though clearly a training session.

Oh well, a spot of fun even if non-productive. We do often criticise "social media" for the evil it transmits but as we know from Blip, it can be a positive. I suspect our teachers back in the 60s would have prefered us sitting in front of PC screens and perhaps at least learning some geography while tracking planes, rather than being alcoholic, pyromaniac drivers.

In the main photo:
Top left the flight from St Moritz to Memmingen + 10 loops
Top right the second lot of 5 loops, our house bottom right just off screen
Bottom the second 5 loops and flight to Salzburg