3am private flight?

antodeco

Hi all, just had a plane fly over the house here in Dublin 10. It sounded like a small engine plane, flew over at 3, and then heard it again at 3:03. Had a look at flightradar and nothing. Definitely wasn't a helicopter. Any ideas what it could be? Seems strange at this hour if the night.

Edit: I can hear it going over again now at 3:06

Free-2-Flow

antodeco wrote:

Hi all, just had a plane fly over the house here in Dublin 10. It sounded like a small engine plane, flew over at 3, and then heard it again at 3:03. Had a look at flightradar and nothing. Definitely wasn't a helicopter. Any ideas what it could be? Seems strange at this hour if the night.

Could it be a Drone?

antodeco

Flying over again!

Be a very loud drone! It sounds like a normal 2 engine recon plane.

Free-2-Flow

antodeco wrote:

Be a very loud drone! It sounds like a normal 2 engine recon plane.

Military base anywhere near you?

antodeco

Baldonnell not too far, probably 15 minutes as the crow flies.

Free-2-Flow

antodeco wrote:

Baldonnell not too far, probably 15 minutes as the crow flies.

Possibly an exercise, and Weston is right beside it, that's a private plane airport

Victor

Possibly the Garda Pilatus Britten Norman Defender: http://www.military.ie/air-corps/fleet/

antodeco

Thanks folks. Just thought it was weird, as it seemed to be making a few runs. I thought it might've been a survey plane, but 3-3:30am just seemed like a weird time!

EchoIndia

It was probably calibrating navigation aids associated with Dublin Airport. http://www.flight-cal.com/our-services.html

faoiarvok

Calibration of navaids is likely, also could be a survey plane, judging by the number of sweeps.

Tabnabs

Heard it too and wondered what it was, definitely sounded small and low for that hour of the night.

G-FCSL it was flight checking BAL VOR and it's approaches to Baldonnel

martinsvi

I heard it too, first thought was that it sounded much like a radial engine, definitely nothing like what Air Corps fly, definitely a larger-than-trainer piston machine, AN-2 came to mind.. lol.. I guess Navajo fits the bill

John_Mc

Free-2-Flow wrote: »

Possibly an exercise, and Weston is right beside it, that's a private plane airport

Weston is closed at night though - no runway lighting at the airport

ned14

This seems to add up with the times you are referring to:

antodeco

Thanks for that. Is that a private database you got that information from?

LXFlyer

That's simply off www.flightradar24.com

Gaoth Laidir

Question: at 20.36 yesterday evening a small jet (not sure what type) came in low over Celbridge on approach to Weston. I checked FR24 at the time but it wasn't on it. I thought that was strange as Weston's hours of op are 07.30-18.00Z Mon-Friday. So this was 1.5 hours after its closure.

Then later I was playing 5-a-side just down the road from Weston and I heard the roar of a jet which sounded on a take-off run on R07 (but my view of any possible climb out was obscured). This was at about 21.30.

Any idea what was going on there?

martinsvi

Gaoth Laidir wrote: »

Question: at 20.36 yesterday evening a small jet (not sure what type) came in low over Celbridge on approach to Weston. I checked FR24 at the time but it wasn't on it. I thought that was strange as Weston's hours of op are 07.30-18.00Z Mon-Friday. So this was 1.5 hours after its closure.

Then later I was playing 5-a-side just down the road from Weston and I heard the roar of a jet which sounded on a take-off run on R07 (but my view of any possible climb out was obscured). This was at about 21.30.

Any idea what was going on there?

You can request Weston to stay open a bit longer as long as it's daylight.. it will cost you though, and generally is open to IFR traffic

listermint

That plane was super low at 3am. I actually woke up from a deep sleep and thought something was coming down .

homerjay2005

John_Mc wrote: »

Weston is closed at night though - no runway lighting at the airport

below is reference to a plane taking off at 21.30, so how can that be possible without lighting on the runway?

martinsvi

homerjay2005 wrote: »

below is reference to a plane taking off at 21.30, so how can that be possible without lighting on the runway?

technically civil twilight for 10th of May was at 21:57 (local), he didn't needed lights at least not for legal reasons.