This is why you may have seen a giant aircraft flying over Edinburgh today

The Royal Air Force has announced that one of its Airbus aircraft will be conducting “essential training” near Edinburgh this afternoon. 

Officials said that the training comprised “necessary, routine, flights”, which were not connected with efforts to supply regions of the UK with PPE to fight coronavirus. 

Further details of the training are not clear, but the A400 Atlas is specially designed as a military transport plane that can be adapted for medical evacuation and aerial refuelling. 

In 2015 the RAF paid £2.6 billion for a fleet of 20 A400 Atlases which can carry up to 35 tonnes of cargo and have a maximum range of 2,000 nautical miles. 

The A400 involved in today’s training is based at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, the largest station in the UK - and one that specialises in transport planes. 

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