Major military exercise under way across Tayside and Fife

Training involves land, air and sea – with some late-night noise

A military training exercise involving chinook and AH64 Apache helicopters is the cause of mysterious late-night aircraft noise being reported across communities in Fife and Tayside this week.

The low-level flights, which have been reported in the early hours across a number of locations including Glenrothes, Kinglassie, Lochgelly and Fife’s East Neuk, are part of Operation Chameleon, a special forces military training exercise taking place across parts of the Fife and Tayside coastline.

The annual operation got under way on Sunday and is scheduled to continue every day and night for the next three weeks.

Two Apache helicopters were reported flying over Fife at around 7.30pm on Monday in the direction of north-east Fife, while numerous sightings of the twin-propeller Chinook helicopters have also been spotted.

Much of the late-night flight noise is the result of RAF support for the exercise, which involves the helicopters operating between RAF Leeming in North Yorkshire and the former RAF base at Leuchars, now controlled by the Army.

Scores of people woken by the low-flying aircraft took to social media to report the loud noises.

The operation is also being supported by SD Victoria, the specialist support ship used to support military exercises and operations and training exercises, which arrived in Largo Bay at the weekend after sailing from Portsmouth.

Special Forces boats and other hardware have also been spotted at Tayport harbour as part of the exercise, as well as in use at St Andrews Bay, Ruby Bay and off the coast of Anstruther.

Military personnel have also been seen exiting chinook helicopters at Barry Buddon training camp in Angus.

RAF Chinook helicopters are taking part in the exercise.