What are the chances

Decided to take the MP up yesterday evening during the ‘golden hour’ just for a bit of practice.
I looked at the NATs air data and it was good to go… so far so good.
I put my strobon strobe lights on, I must say they really give me confidence, and boy are they bright!! And up I go…to 400 feet.within 2 minutes I heard aeroplanes approaching, looking up I spotted 12 fighter aircraft approaching, very very low and very slowly, in two echelons of 6.
They were never in danger of hitting the MP but it looked close. So dropped her down to 200 feet and moved out the way, relaxing a bit…then the swallows/swifts, birdy things with wings started buzzing her, so shot up out of their way and they departed, so far so good, can now relax a little, hah, fat chance…a ‘obstacle detected’ warning flashed up, looking up I saw the biggest birdy I’ve ever seen circling my MP very close, I’m not a bird spotter,but it was huge, like something from Jurassic Park, so up I went again out of its way till it realised it wasn’t a threat.
Relaxing again, I heard a faint buzzing, like a chainsaw, looked up and there’s a paraglider mooching along with his propeller strapped to his back, straight for the MP, luckily he saw the strobons flashing away and turned away at the same time I did…briought her down for a change of battery and up we go again, not a birdy or anything else in sight…so I thought, then over the fields, floating serenely came 2 hot air balloons. Crowded these skies aren’t they? The oddest thing is that I hardly saw a soul on the ground. I still had a great time tho, burnt through 3 batteries and the strobons really gave me confidence.

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As they say sh*t happens
But it’s all about the enjoyment incidence included

Sounds like you would have had more peace flying around Heathrow 09R.

Sounds like you had an eventful, but enjoyable flight & you got some good practice in spatial awareness.

Big birds in the area can be distracting. I had a couple of red kites flying about while I was trying to photograph one of the white horses in Wiltshire. When I left I saw some roadkill which was probably what attracted them, but it was a bit unnerving. Those things could have plucked my drone out of the sky in a heartbeat.

Bloody hell @Brian!!

Fair play for swapping out a battery and going again, most people would have said “sod that I give up” :smiley:

Lol. I was having too much fun to give up easily. My bit of sky seemed to be crowded, I only needed superman to fly past

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