Seen something I wasn't sure of

nthclare wrote: »

I was in West Care last night finishing up planting out an orchard.

And I wasn't far from Doonbeg Co Clare.
Usually I see plane's overhead going North West, but these three plane's were flying Westwards maybe slightly south west.

My usual observation is plane's going over the Atlantic Ocean go up towards the north west of the globe and go down along the east coast of America when flying Westwards to the state's.

But these were way too high and their trajectory definitely didn't look like they're heading to North America.

Have any of you access to apps for following flights ?

I'm not usually a plane watcher but they looked like they were following each other...

It didn't look right.

The North Atlantic Track System is like a set of lanes that air traffic uses to cross the ocean. The latitude of the tracks changes every day to avoid or take advantage of winds and weather. Have a look at this link, today's Westbound track (normally there are multiple tracks, a sure indication of how little traffic exists at the moment is that there is but one track) is actually south of Ireland.

If you remember what time you observed the aircraft you may be able to find out what they were by using the playback feature on a website like fr24.com

Also, they may appear at a higher altitude than they usually do because they probably are. Loads are very low at the moment. Planes are often unable to climb to their optimum altitude before entering the ocean because they are too heavy. In the current climate they are probably light enough to get to those higher altitudes before they reach the West coast of Ireland.