Any idea what I saw?

[mkjess123]

At about 2pm ish today, over East Devon, I saw at a high altitude, a large passenger type aircraft being very closely escorted by x4 smaller aircraft, possibly Typhoons. Any ideas?

[bobthemonkey]

There was a KC46 tanker (basically a 767) flying racetracks around that area this afternoon, based out of Ostend. Was probably tanking F15s from Lakenheath.

[Boatbuoy]

bobthemonkey said:

There was a KC46 tanker (basically a 767) flying racetracks around that area this afternoon, based out of Ostend...

I saw that on ADS-B Exchange yesterday, and thought to myself "that's an unusual location to operate from".

[aeropilot]

Boatbuoy said:

bobthemonkey said:

There was a KC46 tanker (basically a 767) flying racetracks around that area this afternoon, based out of Ostend...

I saw that on ADS-B Exchange yesterday, and thought to myself "that's an unusual location to operate from".

It's up again right now sharing the racetrack refuelling zone with a Mildenhall KC-135.



I think I saw something the other day about increased USAF deployments to Europe about testing ops from lots of different bases and airports to test forward operating logistics in light of recent events in Ukraine, and the USAF are testing how they can still operate from lots of dispersed and in some cases civilian airfields.

[zasker]

Seems to be up over Devon again run race tracks!

[mkjess123]

Many thanks for the replies!