No fly zone over Glastonbury site

[shuttlep]

a few years ago , was attacked by a flock of seagulls, (not the band)

 

big white flappy noisy bastards, they went in the tents and everything. they need to put a no fly zone for them.

 

scary fookers, tried to sit there looking all hard and stuff and when you have three of them swooping at you and your ice cream you look like a right knob trying to karate chop them

[Duncan Doughnuts]

9 minutes ago, shuttlep said:

scary fookers, tried to sit there looking all hard and stuff and when you have three of them swooping at you and your ice cream you look like a right knob trying to karate chop them

Up close, they are much bigger than you think they're going to be. Rather you than me trying to karate chop them!!!

[The Nal]

Seagulls are fairly indigenous to Oxlyers. Says a lot about the campsite really when they prefer it to the landfill tip place in Shepton Mallet. 

Jet planes fly over every year though, on the Wednesday I think. A sort of "hello" type thing.

Hopefully this year they'll wait until Coldplay are on the road and rain down a hail of M61 Vulcan bullets at the general direction of the tour bus.

[fightoffyour]

2 hours ago, Stokesy10 said:

Two F16's flew over Glastonbury last year pretty low.

Mystery jets

[stuartbert two hats]

Fairly sure it's standard.  I randomly know a local helicopter pilot who flew me round the site in 2014.  When I was arranging meeting up with his boss and said I was "flying over the site" I got quite a strong reaction that I would not being flying over the site due to the no-fly zone.

[Duncan Doughnuts]

3 minutes ago, The Nal said:

Hopefully this year they'll wait until Coldplay are on the road and rain down a hail of M61 Vulcan bullets at the general direction of the tour bus.

A bit harsh.........on the poor bus driver! 

[Flysheet]

45 minutes ago, GlastoEls said:

Didn't Roger Waters arrange something with planes or was that  my cider hallucinations?

That was just the quad sound system and the helicopter noise. Freaked a few out to be fair!

[NoBallGames]

Yeah I'm still going to fly my kite. A true rebel here. 

[natgds]

although I'd never looked into it, I've always assumed there was a no fly zone over the festival. I'm a private pilot and one of the first things we learn is where we're not allowed to fly, and built up areas or large gatherings of people are pretty high on that list! The rule is we need to be able to glide over the area of the engine gives out and givin the size of the festival low flying would make that difficult.

I did fly over the site in May last year, not a whole lot to see really. Just a very lonely looking pyramid stage 

Edited April 5, 2016 by natgds

[Sawdusty surfer]

About three years ago a Vulcan flew over on the Monday or Tuesday before the festival. When in the middle of the festival site it pointed upwards and hit the gas. Superb.

 Five or so years ago, again before the festival...I think the w/e before, a Lancaster, a Hurricane and a Spitfire did a low pass over the site East to West. 

 

I'm not a warmonger but I love these old machines.

 

[musky]

It's a terrorism thing - they know something we don't!

Best return your tickets now just to be on the safe side, and leave them for us poor saps trying in the resale.

[Starks]

Has been the case there has been a NOTAM (Notice to Airmen) each year for as long as I remember. Some one or other usually gets prosecuted for going in to the airspace each year. Think military are usually exempt but can't say for sure. There are rules against flying over open air assemblies are as follows.

 

Flying over open air assemblies
Except with the written permission of the CAA, an aircraft shall not fly over an organised open-air assembly of more than 1,000 persons below the higher of the following heights:

(i) 1,000 feet; or

(ii) such height as would permit the aircraft to land clear of the assembly in the event of a power unit failure.

(f) Landing and taking off near open air assemblies
An aircraft shall not land or take-off within 1,000 metres of an

organised, open-air assembly of more than 1,000 persons except:

(i) at an aerodrome, in accordance with procedures notified by the CAA; or

(ii) at a landing site which is not an aerodrome, in accordance with procedures notified by the CAA and with the written permission of the organiser of the assembly. 

 

However there are extra rules for Glastonbury due to its size and number of people attending 3,100' and 2.5 miles.

Edited April 5, 2016 by Starks

[timbrass]

7 hours ago, Tranquility of Solitude said:

I do quite a bit of walking in the Scottish hills, and from time to time jets come whizzing through the glens. My user name suggests otherwise, but I secretly quite like when it happens - especially on the odd occasion when they are below you.

There is the, possibly apocryphal, story of the bored Grampian traffic policeman who pointed his radar at a Tornado coming towards him down the glen to see how fast it was going.  About half an hour later Plod got a panicked call from his boss saying that they had just received a call from the local RAF station saying that one of their jets had auto locked its air to surface missile onto an unknown radar source and had nearly launched a missile ....

Edited April 5, 2016 by timbrass
typoe

[glasto-worker]

well military aircraft have been doing it for many Years and some were very low indeed - more on a Sunday for some reason or the other - some blasted past at incredible speed - although there was a loud cheer in 1982 when they came past { Falklands War had just ended that June }

Have no clue if they were meant to all I know is it did happen.

it always struck me if they had a mechanical fault - many would be wiped out .

its normally heading towards the Tor { or in that general direction } - have no clue if they do this every weekend but I suspect they don't.

[ghostdancer1]

helicopters come and go beside the festival, often see them (presumably bringing important staff/performers/VIPs) and there's even a mention of travelling by helicopter on the site:

http://www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk/information/getting-here/by-air/

"Helicopter access to the Festival site is available through www.flyglastonbury.com. This is an enterprise being run by a neighbouring landowner and isn’t part of Glastonbury Festivals Ltd."

 

here's a piece about Wayne Rooney arriving by helicopter:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2352654/Wayne-Coleen-Rooney-escape-madding-Glastonbury-crowd--leave-festival-helicopter.html

 

Edited April 5, 2016 by ghostdancer1

[The Nal]

Is there anything more cringing than watching Iron Maiden?

[eFestivals]

5 minutes ago, The Nal said:

Is there anything more cringing than watching Iron Maiden?

yep.

Still watching Iron Maiden in 2016.

[The Nal]

2 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

yep.

Still watching Iron Maiden in 2016.

Thats what I mean yeah. Its like they're trying to out do Spinal Tap. But forgot the sense of humour.

[eFestivals]

1 minute ago, thatcrazypenguin said:

back on topic though.......im pretty sure ive seen a lot of aerial photographs of the Glastonbury site on various different years. how does this work with the no fly zone? do these photography flights need a special license or?

they don't fly over the site.

They fly round the edges.

[eFestivals]

1 minute ago, thatcrazypenguin said:

fairplay. I take it the zone covers literally just the site then rather then the site and the stretch of airspace `around` it 

it normally allows helicopters to land in fields just about adjacent to the site, so yep I guess it does.

However, things might have been tightened up a little for this year as a result of the crash at Shoreham last year/

 

1 minute ago, thatcrazypenguin said:

I remember last year seeing the bloke paragliding in, wonder if he got a caa fine as well as being kicked off site.

he got nicked and went to court and was fined. It cost him £560.
http://www.efestivals.co.uk/news/16/160129m.shtml

There's details of a prosecution from 2011 here (https://www.caa.co.uk/uploadedFiles/CAA/Content/Standard_Content/Data_and_analysis/Datasets/Prosecutions/CAA%20prosecution%20results%202011-12.pdf) which also confirms that the no-fly zone has been set via act of parliament since at least that year.... and it cost that geezer about £2,000.

[Nice hymer]

I might be talking rubbish here....(just what I've heard over the years...)

My understanding is that the military/govt take a very keen interest in the Festival... planning for disasters / wars / revolutions / end of the world stuff.

gfl are masters of the pop-up city and large scale movements of people (both on and off the site), as well as people/crowd control.

What better place to study our interactions and behaviours than at the Festival ?

Might just be conspiracy nonsense but it doesn't seem that far fetched (few years ago, entrance to the SE Corner felt uncomfortably close to Martial Law !)

Again, might be rubbish, but I suspect Fighters flying low over the Festival is done for a reason....

[eFestivals]

Just now, Nice hymer said:

I might be talking rubbish here....(just what I've heard over the years...)

My understanding is that the military/govt take a very keen interest in the Festival... planning for disasters / wars / revolutions / end of the world stuff.

gfl are masters of the pop-up city and large scale movements of people (both on and off the site), as well as people/crowd control.

What better place to study our interactions and behaviours than at the Festival ?

Might just be conspiracy nonsense but it doesn't seem that far fetched (few years ago, entrance to the SE Corner felt uncomfortably close to Martial Law !)

Again, might be rubbish, but I suspect Fighters flying low over the Festival is done for a reason....

[the wonderwhy]

What day do the jets normally fly past? It'll probably be because they're on their way to/from a display at the Festival of Speed which is the same weekend 

Edited April 6, 2016 by MattDavies__

[Nice hymer]

8 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

[dannygrif]

21 hours ago, shuttlep said:

a few years ago , was attacked by a flock of seagulls, (not the band)

big white flappy noisy bastards, they went in the tents and everything. they need to put a no fly zone for them.

scary fookers, tried to sit there looking all hard and stuff and when you have three of them swooping at you and your ice cream you look like a right knob trying to karate chop them

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