Dreamliner being escorted

[storminnorman]

Just went out to work on the car and saw a passenger jet unusually low. Looked closer and it was being escorted. Checked flightradar and it's currently doing circles around my area - no real reason to be doing so - it's very unusual for me to see a passenger craft this low around here.
http://www.flightradar24.com/BAW787



It's still circling around as I type.

the escorts don't look military. any info?

[Eric Mc]

Photo sortie for publicity material?

Small aircraft acting as "Chase 'Planes" for external observation during the BA acceptance process?

[CoolC]

Heading north west now. Possibly East Midlands, or Manchester?

ETA there seems to be no activity around East Midlands this morning.

[NormalWisdom]

Looks like it left Manston (Kent International!!) and is going to East Midlands and in the Middle did some sightseeing over Peterborough (odd choice!)

[NormalWisdom]

Decided to give East Mid a miss and is peeking at Derby (not the best sightseing tour!!)

[IforB]

It's a BA publicity flight. They're doing a tour or the UK and doing fly pasts of places such as theRR works in Derby where the engines were made.

[Burrow01]

Just flew over my house in Rutland as well

[Pkh72]

They did 4 fly overs of the RR works here in Derby, one of the planes with it was the RR Spitfire and the other was a tracking plane shooting a video/taking photo's.

I took some pictures on my phone as it went over quite low, i'll try and upload them tonight.

[tvrolet]

British Airways promotional jaunt for the benefit of us in the North, for whom they offer a wide choice of direct destinations such as Heathrow, and London City, and Gatwick, and... Oh, did I mention Heathrow?

Meant to visit Newcastle and Edinburgh. Edinburgh at 2:00 or so to pick up the great and the good (and local councilors) for a jaunt round Scotland and return - a freebee I guess. I presume they'll have taken the tram to and from the airport .

[ecsrobin]

The chase plane is a Jet Provost according to the NOTAM

[Friggerpants]

Went outside to watch it, at Royces in Derby.

Spitfire was awesome, sounds amazing!

Dreamliner, meh.....Spitfire is cooler.

[mcdjl]

It was amusing how much louder the spitfire sounded! I was watching from East Mids Airport trying to work out what the Provost was- it didn't come over on all passes.

[Barry38]

Only god that the battery did not burn on this one.

[TimJMS]

Its just BA doing what it, and it's antecedents have always done best : waving the Stars and Stripes.

[tog]

Pkh72 said:

one of the planes with it was the RR Spitfire

Wasn't that the one which suffered a landing gear collapse / accidental raise a few months ago? All fixed now?

[Eric Mc]

It is.

[PedroB]

There was a BA Dreamliner flying in circuits around my area, taking off and landing at Manston a week or so back. I had assumed they were doing testing of some sort.

[JW911]

PedroB said:

There was a BA Dreamliner flying in circuits around my area, taking off and landing at Manston a week or so back. I had assumed they were doing testing of some sort.

Base training. The instructors are getting take-off and landing practice in the real aeroplane before it goes into service. Once they've gained the required experience, all further training will be on the simulators at Heathrow.

[V8LM]

mcdjl said:

It was amusing how much louder the spitfire sounded! I was watching from East Mids Airport trying to work out what the Provost was- it didn't come over on all passes.

I remember watching and listening to the A340-600 and Spitfire fly along with centre line of East Midlands and thought the exact same.

[CharlieCrocodile]