On Wed, 5 May 2021 13:02:55 +0100, Roger Mills
wrote:

Several times a week there are flights in and out of Birmingham Airport
by elderly Antonov An-12 cargo aircraft - all over 50 years old, and
looking like a Russian version of a Hercules. Not always the same
individual aircraft - they belong to various carriers and are usually
registered in Belarus or Ukraine. According to FlightRadar, they are
mainly plying between Birmingham and various destinations in Slovakia.

Anyone got any idea what they might be carrying?

Dunno. But there is a lot of allied military aviation going on in and
around Ukraine at the moment, all viewable in flightradar24 and often
findable from the Most Tracked Flights box. Refuelling tankers are
regularly flying down there from the UK and there is a more or less
continuous patrol of US high altitude drones coming out of Sicily.

I presume that it is so easily findable to blatantly advertise it to
the Ruskies (who I'm sure can track it without flightradar24)

Nick