A huge RAF plane which was spotted circling low over Glasgow was completing a training exercise making approaches to the local airport.
At around 10:35pm on Tuesday night bemused locals heard the sound of the aircraft and watched as it flew low over the city on an eliptical path.
Online flight tracking service Flightradar24 showed an Airbus A400M Atlas transport aircraft enter the city's airspace, reaching a low altitude of around 600 feet at the airport and before taking to the skies again.
After only 35 minutes the Airbus began to fly back towards its base at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire at around 11:10 pm.
The loud noise caused by the aircraft quickly became a hot topic for discussion on social media as people began to question its route.
RAF plane circling Glasgow, keeps dropping to just above the airport then climbs and does another loop. Weird! #ascot432 pic.twitter.com/KpowmRVlr4
— chlo. (@hello_its_chlo) April 5, 2022
One Twitter user said: "Anyone got an idea why this RAF flight from Brize Norton is circling Glasgow Airport, dropping down to a few hundred feet but not landing?"
A third said: "Going by the noise it was one hell of a big aircraft."
The Atlas A400M is a transport aircraft which has been in service around the globe for around nine years. Capable of carrying a maximum payload of 37 metric tons, it can be used to deploy troops as well as humanitarian aid and has the capacity to airdrop supplies.
A spokesman for the RAF said: “A Royal Air Force Atlas A400M aircraft from RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire was completing routine and pre-authorised night-flying training around Glasgow yesterday evening.
"The RAF use a variety of locations around the UK for training as they provide complex airspace and differing challenges for our pilots to ensure we remain ready and able to deploy on global operations.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here