On the Planefinder iPad App, the above aircraft was showing as 'TEST' at 3000'+ and 64kt.
It shows up on BS Reporter but with no aircraft type logged. A check on Airframes produces no return. It seems a bit slow for a helicopter and (possibly) a bit fast for a Microlight, but I'm not familiar with the latter.
Any ideas, Gentlemen?
libhomeradar shows it as "Ground" so it is probably one of the ground stations used by NATS for MLAT. Particularly given the TEST call sign.
There was much discussion in the Kinetic forums a year or more ago about these.
There were two near East Midlands with strange codes - occurs to me that they haven't appeared on BaseStation recently. Maybe once they are tested and working some subtle changes are made.
OK Ian, thanks for that. I'm grateful to you.
It's a bit of an 'oddun' so to speak, isn't it?
I suspect the fact that it was doing 64kts might be a Planefinder problem!
Thanks again,
W-W
I picked this up and it had me confused.
Received on my SBS and it was wandering around the Newbury area as a full plotter.
It could be a vehicle.
Here is the thread on the Kinetic web site:
http://www.kinetic.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=14725&sid=003865e0e0bb1622e8f5eff08d5ccff3
Codes are similar to the one mentioned.
Anything to do with arrivals at Fairford?
I've just been having a dig around in BS Reporter and have noted the first and last Lat & Long of this unknown.
I've plotted these positions to an area SE of Bicester and they are less than a mile apart. This is, I'm sure, a reflection of the generally poor coverage I have. The track was roughly SW and Planefinder lost track of it near the M40. This seems to fit in with apgphoto's observation of it in the Newbury area. First and last speeds were noted as 61.1kts and 58.5kts respectively and the altitude a constant 3225'. The squawk was 7776 which appears to be allocated to SSR Monitors. Not quite sure what that means.
Unfortunately, I suspect that this will only serve to confuse matters rather than shed any light on the puzzle.
Quote from: Watson-Watt on June 03, 2014, 06:23:16 PM
The track was roughly SW and Planefinder lost track of it near the M40.
Planefinder can continue plotting tracks for up to 30 minutes after the data was last received.
The aircraft label will show the last received time.
http://radarspotting.com/forum/index.php/topic,3391.msg15694.html#msg15694
Thanks, Mike.
Yes, Planefinder's shortcoming in this respect is quite noticeable. I've seen a commercial aircraft closing the localiser at East Midlands, apparently fly straight through it and head for Derby and beyond never to be seen again.
However, in this instance, I think we can at least give PF some credence as both my Base Station Reporter log, and apgphoto's observations, fit neatly either side of PF's plot. Of course, the real question is, what was being plotted?
W-W
As I carefully worded it:
"Planefinder can continue plotting tracks for up to 30 minutes after the data was last received."