Waddington Reporting (Your opinions on)

[LincsVRS]

Hi folks,

I've noticed a few comments on the lack of reporting from RAF Waddington recently so wanted to gauge what the popular opinion is. Do people want reports more regularly? Before I decide if I can supply more movements there are a few considerations I've been thinking of that may cause problems/annoyance, opinions on them would be appreciated.

Considerations:

1) FC isn't the only forum - is there an alternative source for this information?
2) People get alerts based on new posts, would it annoy you to get a lot more notifications on Waddington movements, particularly if it's reporting traffic that is regular at Waddington not just visiting aircraft?
3) Do you think a dedicated twitter account would be better to pass movements rather than forum posts?
4) Although I am probably able to provide more reporting it will be quite hit and miss, I can't report all the time so would you prefer no reporting rather than intermittent reports?
5) I get alerted on anything using a Waddington Squawk, some of these are just passing through the airspace on Waddington LARS/Radar and may not be landing/departing at Waddington and may not even be visible from the ground would you prefer no reports rather than having no distinction between visitors and those that are just passing through?
6) Some traffic isn't military however this is a military air forum. Is it ok to report these units being its a RAF base or would you prefer no reports or strictly military only?
7) It would be inevitable that new topics would be created under the Waddington section for things that may have been already reported in the "Heads Up/OTT" section outside Waddington Airspace, would this be a problem?
8) I don't have a lot of knowledge that experienced listeners/observers have, I may get things wrong!

I have been looking into setting up a website showing virtual radar of Waddington but can not seem to get it working properly. My alerts come through PlanePlotter (based on squawk) so if anyone knows of a plugin to automate reporting alerts to a twitter account for example then please get in touch. I'm conscious that I could supply more information on movements but I want to know if this is what people want before I start filling the forum with new threads so any opinions on the matter would be appreciated. I appreciate that this could be annoying for other forum users so would rather ask the questions and gauge opinions up front before I decide to post more often.

Let me know what you think!

LincsVRS

[baz1]

it would be nice to have some regular reports like in the old days when rick sleight used to do them daily when I first joined f/c
I can see aircraft going into Waddington on approach to rny 2 zero but unable to tie up c/s to numbers
what is the point of having it listed on f/c if no one reports any movements.

just my opinion
regards
baz

[LincsVRS]

Thanks for your opinion Baz, exactly what I need to know. Haven't seen Rick for years but then I can't get to Waddington much. You must live near me as I'm right under approach to 20. Despite what I decide to do if you ever want any serials mate give me a shout, if you give me time and rough aircraft type I will look it up mate anytime. ZH103 Nato31 around now, typhoons due soon I think.

[LincsVRS]

ZH107 rather (see, I make loads of mistakes lol)

[baz1]

thanks for that lincsVRS i'll send you a private msg

regards
baz

[BP2324]

Living in London, I only get up to Waddington / Coningsby 1 or 2 times a year.
In the past I always used to read movements from Waddington as its always good to know what happening around the whole country.
I look at Milky's Coningsby site 2 or 3 times a week to keep tabs on airframe changes / movements etc, so I would welcome reports from Waddington,

To answer one of your questions, I always look at new posts when I log on to FC. If it interests me then I look at the post if not then I skip over. So no problems by me

Cheers
Brian

[LincsVRS]

Cheers Baz (And the Typhoon was a Tornado! lol) and cheers Brian for your opinion too (I want to encourage every opinion even if its against reports as I will try and provide what ever is the popular option)

A further thought, I could post a log at the end of every day, what do people think as this being one of the options for daily reports?

(Be aware that all my logs are based on squawk codes and although its normally Waddington it can pick up aircraft further away using the same Squawk code range, I will delete emergency squawks unless I know they were Waddington,)

For example yesterdays log will be like this:

AE01B2 JALOP92 84-0109 LJ35 FL300 325° 3620 [sqk] at 13-12-11 08:04:20 UTC
43E8D5 MPOWR M-POWR NA BE9L 4600' 000° 3601 [sqk] at 13-12-11 08:45:14 UTC
43E8D5 MPOWR M-POWR NA BE9L 4600' 000° 3601 [sqk] at 13-12-11 08:45:14 UTC
480873 A301 A-301 ALO3 0' 000° 3601 [sqk] at 13-12-11 11:24:32 UTC
43E730 EZE08A M-OTOR - BE9L 2400' 000° 3601 [sqk] at 13-12-11 12:11:06 UTC
43E730 EZE08A M-OTOR - BE9L 4200' 000° 3601 [sqk] at 13-12-11 12:12:31 UTC
43E730 EZE08A M-OTOR - BE9L FL055 000° 3601 [sqk] at 13-12-11 12:17:08 UTC
48085D REDSK31 Q-14 H64 0' 000° 3601 [sqk] at 13-12-11 12:29:46 UTC
400EC9 GBYUE G-BYUE EMA-LPA G115 FL066 084° 3601 [sqk] at 13-12-11 13:19:10 UTC
406419 GLNCT G-LNCT NA EXPL 200' 000° 0020 [reg] at 13-12-11 13:26:07 UTC
400EC9 GBYUE G-BYUE EMA-LPA G115 FL061 096° 3601 [sqk] at 13-12-11 13:24:51 UTC
400EC9 GBYUE G-BYUE EMA-LPA G115 FL054 000° 3601 [sqk] at 13-12-11 13:30:11 UTC
400F44 LNQ933 G-JIBO VLY-CWL JS31 FL160 000° 3623 [sqk] at 13-12-11 13:29:23 UTC
400EC9 GBYUE G-BYUE EMA-LPA G115 FL057 000° 3601 [sqk] at 13-12-11 13:31:02 UTC
400EC9 GBYUE G-BYUE EMA-LPA G115 4900' 170° 3601 [sqk] at 13-12-11 13:33:17 UTC
406419 GLNCT G-LNCT NA EXPL 0' 000° 0020 [reg] at 13-12-11 13:33:04 UTC
406419 GLNCT G-LNCT NA EXPL 0' 000° 0020 [reg] at 13-12-11 13:33:04 UTC
400EC9 GBYUE G-BYUE EMA-LPA G115 4000' 170° 3601 [sqk] at 13-12-11 13:33:17 UTC
400EC9 GBYUE G-BYUE EMA-LPA G115 3700' 000° 3601 [sqk] at 13-12-11 13:38:27 UTC
400EDF GBYVB G-BYVB LFLS>EGKK G115 400' 000° 3610 [sqk] at 13-12-11 13:41:24 UTC
43E730 M-OTOR BE9L FL065 000° 3601 [sqk] at 13-12-11 14:01:41 UTC
43E730 EZE08B M-OTOR BIZ FLT BE9L FL065 000° 3601 [sqk] at 13-12-11 14:02:51 UTC
43E730 EZE08B M-OTOR BIZ FLT BE9L FL065 000° 3601 [sqk] at 13-12-11 14:06:17 UTC
43E730 M-OTOR BE9L FL065 000° 3601 [sqk] at 13-12-11 14:10:59 UTC
43E730 EZE08B M-OTOR BIZ FLT BE9L FL065 000° 3601 [sqk] at 13-12-11 14:11:12 UTC
43C480 XXX00042 ZJ800 - EUFI FL150 000° 7700 [sqk] at 13-12-11 14:18:28 UTC
43C480 XXX00042 ZJ800 - EUFI FL069 300° 7700 [sqk] at 13-12-11 14:20:09 UTC
43C480 XXX00042 ZJ800 - EUFI 400' 026° 7700 [sqk] at 13-12-11 14:21:43 UTC
43C1A2 VG01 ZA614 LHR-OTP TOR 2700' 000° 3611 [sqk] at 13-12-11 14:25:27 UTC
400EA9 G-BYXL G115 1900' 000° 3611 [sqk] at 13-12-11 14:32:12 UTC
03C094 AO51 ZA600 NA TOR 2400' 000° 3614 [sqk] at 13-12-11 14:35:37 UTC
400EA9 G-BYXL G115 1900' 000° 3611 [sqk] at 13-12-11 14:33:54 UTC
400E97 GBYWU G-BYWU *-* G115 3600' 000° 3614 [sqk] at 13-12-11 14:36:45 UTC
400EA9 GBYXL G-BYXL *-* G115 2000' 000° 3611 [sqk] at 13-12-11 14:36:45 UTC
400EA9 GBYXL G-BYXL *-* G115 2000' 000° 3611 [sqk] at 13-12-11 14:37:38 UTC
400E97 GBYWU G-BYWU *-* G115 3100' 000° 3614 [sqk] at 13-12-11 14:39:51 UTC
400E97 GBYWU G-BYWU *-* G115 FL250 000° 3614 [sqk] at 13-12-11 14:46:27 UTC
406419 G-LNCT EXPL 0' 000° 0000 [reg] at 13-12-11 15:15:55 UTC
406419 GLNCT G-LNCT NA EXPL 1400' 000° 0020 [reg] at 13-12-11 15:16:05 UTC
406419 GLNCT G-LNCT NA EXPL -100' 000° 0020 [reg] at 13-12-11 15:20:32 UTC
400BF8 BRO43 G-BEZL *-* PA31 1100' 000° 3616 [sqk] at 13-12-11 15:34:10 UTC
43C287 SHF397 XW204 LHR-BOS PUMA 1800' 000° 3620 [sqk] at 13-12-11 15:34:04 UTC
400EDF G-BYVB G115 2600' 000° 3610 [sqk] at 13-12-11 15:33:59 UTC
400BF8 BRO43 G-BEZL *-* PA31 1100' 000° 3616 [sqk] at 13-12-11 15:34:10 UTC
400EA9 GBYXL G-BYXL *-* G115 1900' 000° 3611 [sqk] at 13-12-11 15:42:12 UTC
123456 CTM1797 #var NA #var FL160 302° 3613 [sqk] at 13-12-11 15:41:17 UTC
123456 #var #var FL148 000° 3613 [sqk] at 13-12-11 15:46:22 UTC
123456 CTM1797 #var NA #var FL145 000° 3613 [sqk] at 13-12-11 15:46:30 UTC
400EA9 GBYXL G-BYXL *-* G115 1900' 000° 3611 [sqk] at 13-12-11 15:42:12 UTC
43C287 SHF397 XW204 LHR-BOS PUMA 1725' 000° 3620 [sqk] at 13-12-11 15:50:06 UTC
43C287 SHF397 XW204 LHR-BOS PUMA 1725' 000° 3620 [sqk] at 13-12-11 15:50:06 UTC
43C2B5 SNAKE 49 ZZ419 AWACS BE30 FL100 000° 3614 [sqk] at 13-12-11 15:56:55 UTC
400EDF GBYVB G-BYVB LFLS>EGKK G115 1700' 000° 3610 [sqk] at 13-12-11 15:57:44 UTC
400EDF GBYVB G-BYVB LFLS>EGKK G115 1700' 000° 3610 [sqk] at 13-12-11 15:57:44 UTC
43C2B5 SNAKE 49 ZZ419 AWACS BE30 2375' 343° 3614 [sqk] at 13-12-11 16:07:22 UTC
43C613 ZJ992 ZJ992 NA EH10 1775' 000° 3616 [sqk] at 13-12-11 17:52:14 UTC
43C613 ZJ992 ZJ992 NA EH10 1750' 000° 3616 [sqk] at 13-12-11 17:53:01 UTC
43C613 ZJ992 ZJ992 NA EH10 1750' 000° 3616 [sqk] at 13-12-11 17:53:01 UTC
43C613 ZJ992 ZJ992 NA EH10 1750' 000° 3616 [sqk] at 13-12-11 17:53:01 UTC
43C613 ZJ992 ZJ992 NA EH10 1750' 000° 3616 [sqk] at 13-12-11 17:53:01 UTC
400F44 LNQ939 G-JIBO NA JS31 FL310 000° 3626 [sqk] at 13-12-11 18:31:40 UTC
400EDF G-BYVB G115 FL340 000° 3610 [sqk] at 13-12-11 18:32:03 UTC
400EDF G-BYVB G115 FL340 000° 3610 [sqk] at 13-12-11 18:32:03 UTC
400F44 LNQ939 G-JIBO NA JS31 FL230 000° 3626 [sqk] at 13-12-11 18:39:46 UTC
400F44 LNQ939 G-JIBO NA JS31 FL230 000° 3626 [sqk] at 13-12-11 18:39:46 UTC
405B74 GFCSL G-FCSL *-* PA31 FL360 000° 3605 [sqk] at 13-12-11 20:07:32 UTC
400EDF G-BYVB G115 FL350 000° 3610 [sqk] at 13-12-11 20:16:13 UTC
400EDF G-BYVB G115 FL350 000° 3610 [sqk] at 13-12-11 20:16:13 UTC
400EDF G-BYVB G115 FL350 000° 3610 [sqk] at 13-12-11 20:16:13 UTC
400EDF G-BYVB G115 FL258 000° 3610 [sqk] at 13-12-11 20:31:14 UTC

What do people think, would this once a day be too much?

[Grahame W]

Personally, I think the more people who report military movements, the better! I always try to post a log when I visit a base, if someone else hasn't already done one. When I first started on Internet forums (Mil-Spotters and then the early incarnations of FC), logs were posted on a regular basis. Now they seem very sparse.
IMHO I think it's because the emphasis has shifted to photography, away from listing movements. Whether that's a good or bad thing is a matter of opinion. To answer your points:
1. There is a Yahoo Group called Waddo Spotters which I joined for a while. It's quite useful, but I found there were too many civil "dot spotting" reports so I unsubscribed.
2. As I said, the more the better.
3. I'm a big fan of Twitter, so it would suit me - not sure about others.
4. Intermittent is better than nothing.
5.Passing through is OK.
6. Would prefer military only.
7.Not a problem.

Hope this helps...

[LincsVRS]

Thanks for your opinion Lancey, if I go with the daily logs like above I will post a quick guide with how to interpret it. Unfortunately its automatically generated so I have no clue if an aircraft has received a Radar service while travelling through or if it has landed or departed. Someone on the ground would have to supply that information if they could, perhaps they could post this as a comment under a daily log.

Briefly: I have various alert criteria, if anything in the uk meets the criteria it puts a line in the log. Mostly they are based on Squawk Codes but the reason is contained within the square brackets. For example [sqk] is squawk and the actual code is the four digits before the brackets. I will try and take out alerts based on aircraft type, route, etc etc.

A full entry is "Hex (ignore), flight number (often radio callsign for military, flight no for commercial, reg if not), Registration, Aircraft type, altitude (either in feet ' or Flight Level), heading, squawk code, alert type, date, time"

Unfortunately it does log multiple entries over a given time, but this can be helpful as if you look at the typhoon with emergency squawk 7700 you can see its rapidly descended from FL150 (15,000') to FL069 (6,900') to 400' quite quickly in this case because it was in trouble and it actually landed at Waddington. Unless I have been dedicating my time to monitoring I will usually have no other information other than this log. Also depending on the aircraft transponder you may get 0 values as not all transmit their heading and location for example. Some aircraft may visit/fly through without appearing on the log if they are not transponder equipped or have it switched off (or possibly in a covert mode).

Hope that helps, I'm more than happy to answer any questions at any time about the logs, it can be daunting and useless to see all that raw data if you don't know what it means.

LincsVRS

[deerhunter]

I`d like to see a log, I go to Waddington a few times a year, so any info is useful

[LincsVRS]

Thanks Graham, and for taking the time to answer my numbered considerations. Exactly the info/opinions I want to hear. I was a member of the yahoo group at one time, I may re look at it as I can't remember why I stopped checking it. Personally I'm into the photography side but I know a lot of people are into serials more than me so I want to provide this info if a) I have it sat on my computer anyway b) it would help them c) it wouldn't annoy to many people.

On point 8 I'm mildly dyslexic and can't retain letters an numbers well, I put ZH103 earlier because as I was writing ZH107 I saw the callsign NATO31 and because I saw a 3 I wrote it while I was typing. Its blooming annoying especially if I hit send before realising. When I'm monitoring the radio if I don't write down what I hear straight away it goes from my head, so when I'm monitoring 30 waddington frequencies on multiple radios and watching PlanePlotter my head just explodes! I also live life from bed because of my health so don't always have radios, pen, paper, PlanePlotter at hand. I only do this stuff because I can do it from bed, I would rather be sat up at Waddington taking photos but as I'm not able to do that physically much I settle for scanners/PlanePlotter.

LincsVRS

[LincsVRS]

Thank you deerhunter, I will try and acknowledge everyone as I really appreciate the time you have taken to give your opinions at my request :-)

[LincsVRS]

An additional question:

Do people want/prefer logs AFTER or notification of things as they are actually happening (or about to happen) so you can look out or listen in live?

[baz1]

about to happen would be grate then we can all keep an heads up!

[knighthawk]

I agee, would love to know something is arriving, as I live in Cherry and by time something is overhead I havnt got my camera ready, so would appreciate that very much.

[LincsVRS]

Thanks everyone who has contributed their opinions so far. I'm fairly close to deciding what to do, I will see how it goes and what I feel like I can keep up with.

1) I will post a daily PlanePlotter log of alerts based on Waddington Squawk codes with the occasional addition (air ambulance etc) usually near to midnight each night
2) I have created a twitter account for heads up warnings, news and info. You do not have to be on twitter to see it, you can view it anytime at http://www.twitter.com/egxwinfo
3) I will also try and post here for heads up on anything interesting, probably not units based at Waddington

If people think I should do anything different then let me know on this thread. As I say I will see how it goes, if you have any news or info you can tweet @EGXWinfo so people can search of info, when I can I will retweet things I feel appropriate. If anyone has knowledge of how to automate info from PlanePlotter to twitter I would be very very interested to hear as this could really help me be more consistent.

Hopefully this way I can help people tie in serials, be more informed about Waddington, get the heads up to start looking/listening to the skies!

LincsVRS

[Phill]

For me, LincsVRS, Iwould love to see regular reports on Waddington. The whole point of me joining FC many moons ago was for what came in here. I live by South Park in the city and can see many visitors from home, I work where I can also see traffic in the area and as such am pretty spoilt that way.

[Phill]

Continuing from previous post, PC just had a moment!!

I just hope that should you agree to assisting with this information, you are treat with respect by others who have been negative to posts in the past.

Kind Regards

Phill

[jakdaw]

Any body who takes the time to post any information is a star, if people dont want to read your posts they dont have to, the more information posted the better. So share away!!

[LincsVRS]

Thanks Baz, Knighthawk, Phill & Jackdaw for your opinions and kind comments. I posted the first log this morning for yesterday and will continue to do it daily (subject to unforeseen circumstances) It is a shame I can't automate the process to differentiate the stuff flying through from the stuff landing and taking off (or at least I think I can't) that's probably my only concern. I hope that people who can give this information can comment under the daily log with what arrived/departed but at least it will give people a source to tie up serials and callsigns etc.

I've set up the Twitter account @EGXWinfo for the heads up warnings too, for non waddington units or more exciting stuff I will also try to post on here as well but it might not be possible all the time. I'm just going to see how it goes and see if I manage to offer a worthwhile service really. Just in case your not on twitter you can still see the updates as they are public.