Caught this guy trying to sneak over the house about a half hour ago. We are 60 miles west from Whiteman so we see them often. He was probably getting ready to do a fly over of the Chiefs game. It always amazes me how quiet they are.

Lots of B1-B traffic here and no, they aren't quiet.

quote:

Originally posted by bald1:
Lots of B1-B traffic here and no, they aren't quiet.

Ain't that the truth! I saw one at an airshow that hit afterburner and I had to look down to see if my shoes were blown off.

Jim

quote:

Originally posted by Jimbo54:

quote:

Originally posted by bald1:
Lots of B1-B traffic here and no, they aren't quiet.

Ain't that the truth! I saw one at an airshow that hit afterburner and I had to look down to see if my shoes were blown off.

The flyboys were admonished several decades ago NOT to go supersonic in populated areas near the base after such "fun" shattered windows all over the place and scared the shit out of folks.

But yes, takes offs with full afterburners as well as some low level passes with the cherry red exhaust nozzles are amazing to watch. Locals here refer to the roar of the "Bones' as "The Sound of Freedom!"

They often fly over my house heading SW from Ellsworth AFB as they set up to enter the 4 State Powder River Training Complex via the Western Gateway.

The Training Complex serves many other types of aircraft home based around the country. We've seen B-2, F-117, and a host of others in the air here.

Tinker AFB is local to me, it's a huge USAF maintenance base as well as home of the E3 AWACS and, of all things, the Navy's E6 planes.

We see B1's, B2's, B52's, etc all the time coming in and out. Just a delight to see.

I was recently over by TAFB on the Interstate when a B1 came in on final. I was at normal interstate highway speed when I saw him on final, maybe 400 feet AGL. Yep, they're incredibly noisy, and I sure heard him overhead. People park just on the North side of I-40 and wait to watch the planes coming and going. B1's, B2's, B52's, and many other planes in inventory come into Tinker for work.
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Cool shot! I've got similar images of the F-117 back when they fly over. I have seen one B-2 years ago, but it was way too high to image. We were driving east through the desert after having left San Franciso when I saw a huge oval contrail in the sky. As we got closer, I could see it was a B-2, but again, it was way up there. I was hoping to go to an airshow where they would had one on static display just like I saw an F-117 up close and personal.

While in the military, I got to check out the SR-71 and U-2 back in '86 - SR-71 in Okinawa and the U-2 in Korea. Neato birds - ALL of them!

[QUOTE]Originally posted by ftttu:
Cool shot! I've got similar images of the F-117 back when they used to fly over my area. I have seen one B-2 years ago, but it was way too high to image. We were driving east through the desert after having left San Franciso when I saw a huge oval contrail in the sky. As we got closer, I could see it was a B-2, but again, it was way up there. I was hoping to go to an airshow where they would had one on static display just like I saw an F-117 up close and personal.

While in the military, I got to check out the SR-71 and U-2 back in '86 - SR-71 in Okinawa and the U-2 in Korea. Neato birds - ALL of them!


***EDIT***Shortly after posting above about my U-2 up-close-and-person-tour, I was looking at flightradar24.com like I do from time to time. Well, I noticed a strange aircraft icon, and when clicked on it to identify it, I found it was a U-2 flying out of Cypress toward Israel/Syria. I left the site for a second, and it didn't show when I tried to find it. Supposedly, this site isn't supposed to track military planes, but I saw a C-5 on there not too long ago. Strange...

quote:

Originally posted by ftttu:I found it was a U-2 flying out of Cypress toward Israel/Syria. .

Cyprus, maybe?

I live on a small lake located apparently on a circle that planes navigate when doing flyovers of Arrowhead Stadium. One fall while racing a small dingy, I'm laid back in a hiking position that allowed a great view of a Stealth bomber flying low overhead. I could see comtrails coming off the wings. What a sight and moment.

I was on the AT back in 2009. I was following the trail that went up a creek in a fold between mountain tops. Two fighters ripped over the mountain, I never saw them but they had to be close. Due to the mountains and creek we never heard them coming until they were right on top of us. They came so sudden and loud that my instinct was to make myself as small as possible by crouching down. My brain didn't process what it was until after I was crouched. I thought for sure I was going to look around and see my hiking partner laughing at me for crouching. Instead I looked around to find him face down in the dirt. Good times.

Several years ago, I was driving into the Mojave desert area west of Edwards AFB on highway-58 going East headed towards Vegas. If you've ever driven that road, its very long, and has long stretches of straight roadway following the contours of the desert floor. As I'm driving I can see off in the distance, probably about 10-miles away a large airplane flying right near the freeway/border line of Edwards. Several minutes pass, I can tell its coming closer but its a black line...and no tail. Several more minutes at it banks to the South and you could make out the jagged rear edge of the wings confirming it's a B-2.

Always neat to drive through that area on that road with the possibility of seeing something that interesting. Found out later that there's at least 1 or, 2 B-2's that are based there, not combat coded but used as test platforms.

Back in the early 50’s my brother and I were fishing in the river next to our farm and we heard a noise above us,we looked up and seen the Flying Wing.It probably was flying out of the Dayton Ohio airport.

Saw a pair overhead while canoeing on the Current river.
Could not get my camera out fast enough.

^^^^ Referring to the U2 posting above, it's not unusual to see a U2 doodling around and around in the Central California area, I think they come out of Beale AFB a little North of Sacramento.

I've noticed them usually 10-14 days apart on ADSB Exchange and they just seem to fly around in circles or similar patterns in the area, usually at 60,000 feet. ADSB color codes the planes altitude by color, so whenever I see a plane in red or a pink or magenta color it means above 40,000 feet I get curious and look. I assume these are just basic training flights for new pilots or a maintenance check out flight.

Since I am now apparently semi-retired I check on ADSB every day just to see what's going on in the sky above.
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I was driving east up the Columbia River gorge one time and saw a speck in the sky ahead and just to the left, over the river. When it got closer I saw it was an A-6, probably just coming off the practice bombing range near Boardman. Just as I started onto a bridge over one of rivers flowing into the Columbia (John Day, probably) the A-6 flipped up on his port wing and turned straight south down the river valley. He was low enough that it was painful to my ears.

A friend of mine, since passed away, was hunting antelope in Montana (or maybe it was Wyoming) once, and started hearing some kind of aircraft noise. Suddenly a pair of Apache helicopters came blasting over the top of the hill at near zero AGL, scared the crap out of him and his hunting partner.

quote:

Originally posted by OKCGene:
^^^^ Referring to the U2 posting above, it's not unusual to see a U2 doodling around and around in the Central California area, I think they come out of Beale AFB a little North of Sacramento.

Yup, Beale is the long time USAF's reconnaissance base where all the U-2's and a good number of RQ-4 operate out of.

This was the main base for SR-71s and prior to that, was a POW camp for German prisoners during WWII.

FWIW a U2 is flying right now above Death Valley. Flight path shows it came out of the Palm Dale area. You can see it on ADSB dot com
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That looks a baterang to me.

Cool, I was unaware of the ADSB site. There is an EC-130H up right now over NM, and I don’t think I was aware we even had a C-130 with that electronics configuration.

^^^ If you will click the little box with a U in it, sort of in the upper right hand corner area, it will filter out the general and commercial planes and show military and government only.

The new V22 Osprey has an odd looking icon symbol. There is one flying now, left San Diego and heading in a NE direction. I've seen a few in person, pretty cool thing to see take off, fly, and land.
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