Watching Us

You can expect to see a variety of fixed wing and rotary aircraft at RAF Valley.

The two residential Hawk squadrons contribute to most of our airfield activity but you can also expect to see the Griffin and Seaking helicopters arriving and departing throughout the day. Military aircraft en route to Northern Ireland or military aircraft requiring refuelling after a low level flying sortie in the mountains often call in for a 'top up' at RAF Valley. Typically, you might see Tornado's from Lossiemouth and Marham, American F-15's from Lakenheath, Merlins from Benson and Chinooks from Odiham. Once or twice a year at least, Valley is visited by the Red Arrows - and they sometimes put on a practice show. The most interesting regular visitor is the Eurofighter Typhoon. Occasional graduation ceremonies are held that involve flypasts or displays from visiting types.

If you haven't been spotting at RAF Valley before, there are a few things you may need to know:

• If you arrive at 08:00 and nothing's happened by 11:00, chances are nothing will!
• There is no fast jet flying during weekends and bank holidays.
• Flying is normally into wind - to find out which runway is in use, look at the nearest windsock. Also, we have a red/white chequered mobile control tower which will sit near the end of the active runway.
• You will often see a yellow jeep driving around with flashing lights on the roof. This is the bird scarer van, which is civilian operated, and many of the drivers are good blokes who'll stop at the crash gates to chat to spotters. Handy source of info about what's likely to be flying!
• Jet aircraft can be quite noisy so take appropriate precautions for those with sensitive hearing, particularly children.
• Keep control of your animals so that they do not enter the airfield.
• Bird strikes can kill - don't feed birds, and if you see a load of them in a field near the approach, avoid that field! Scaring a bunch of birds into flapping up into the path of an approaching aircraft is going to make you a seriously unpopular person. We take many precautions to ensure that we do not mix birds with aircraft so please do not either feed birds directly or leave food scraps lying around.
• Don't block access gates of any kind, but particularly never, ever, ever, block a crash gate. If there is an accident outside the airfield boundary and you've blocked the appropriate crash gate through which emergency vehicles will go, you can expect to be arrested and the state of your vehicle may undergo a violent transformation!
• Don't go through red lights at runway ends. They're not advisory, they're instructions - you may cause a pilot to abort a landing, or worse, you may cause an accident.

Aircraft routinely practise aerobatic and emergency procedures (we are primarily a training base), and will occasionally approach the runway at a very steep angle; this is a normal training practice.

In the unlikely event of an emergency, please remain well clear of the area, professional rescue services employed at Valley will be responding to the incident. If you are a trained medical practitioner, please volunteer your services at the Main Guardroom at the Station entrance - do not proceed directly to the site. If you have any film (photos or video) of the incident, please either inform the staff in the main guardroom or send them in to us as soon as possible to Station Flight Safety Officer, RAF Valley, Holyhead, LL65 3NY.