Wellington bomber over Edinburgh?

Factual Questions
1

I suppose this can only be answered by people living in the area. For the last two days, my flat’s been buzzed by what looks to be a WW2 Vicker’s Wellington (it’s quite large, with two engines, and an ordinary looking tail that rules out a Lancaster) bomber. The plane is flying extremely low.

Seeing it yesterday, I thought it may be en route to an airshow, but it appears to be flying circuits, and is back again, today. The engine noise is extremely distracting, and my row of flats seems to be especially interesting for whoever is flying it.

Does anybody in the area have an idea what the plane is doing? A quick search online found nothing.

2

It’s unlikely to be a Wellington: there are only two and one’s at Brooklands and the other is in London. Got a picture?

3

Could it be an air tanker fighting wildland fires? They come out of fresno flying very low from the sheer weight of their load.

4

WAG: Could it be for aerial photography/mapping?

5

Especially if they go all the way across the Atlantic and back.

:confused:

6

It’s just flown over again (directly above my flat, in fact), but the batteries in my digital camera are dead and I can’t locate any spares :smack:

If there’s only two Wellington’s left, then I doubt it’s one of those, too. The amount of air time this thing’s getting in two days would probably be too much for such a rare aircraft.

And no, there’s no wildfires in Scotland at the moment :slight_smile:

7

This airshow calendar has nothing for Scotland any time in the past week.

Any other clues, unusual features on the plane? A check on wikipedia confirmed there are only two Wellington’s left and nothing comparable (Blenheims, Armstrong Whitworth Whitley, Handley Page Hampdens) is still flying.

8

Could it be a Lancaster rather than a Wellington? They’ve got uprights at the end of the tailfins.

9

Could it also be an American import in RAF colors (like the B-26 Marauder)? Martin B-26 Marauder - Wikipedia

10

There will be an air show in Scotland on 26 July: http://www.nms.ac.uk/airshow_home.aspx

11

snif Maybe I’m sentimental, but I miss David. He would know.

Capt., do you remember some other characteristic features? Any detail could help narrow suspects. Especially where were turrets (if you seen any)?

12

I saw it, somebody I was with said it was a Dakota. Don’t know why it was flying around so much - I guessed it was doing trips for paying customers, maybe out of East Fortune.

Lancasters have 4 engines.

13

Any chance of it being a Shackleton ?

14

They also have 4 engines. The people I were with are war geeks, and they said it was a Dakota / DC3.

15

Somebody did get a picture.

16

Here’s an explanation as to why it’s flying. Apparently European rules have changed, so from now on it will be too expensive to fly a DC3 with anybody other than the crew. This week marks the last week paying passengers can fly economically.

17

I am so not impressed with blipfoto.com!

18

Ah yes, regulations of some sort say that they have to have all sort of modern equipment (pressurised cabins or some sort of oxygen supply for the passengers) to fly with passengers.

Mum and Dad bought me one of the tickets mentioned in the link, but I wasn’t too fussed to be honest, I’d rather have a crack at the controls myself.

19

If that’s it, I think it rules out my photo/mapping WAG.

20

Why? It works for me. (Firefox 3rc2 with NoScript, Ubuntu Linux, AMD64.)