Weird California sighting

a reply to: 1947boomer Well , find out what they like and give it to them for some Information

Sleight of hand..Only way to get her with her knickers down is to have her in flight on a known flightpath...

a reply to: 1947boomer

Of course, but those of us not in the club are allowed to speculate using the resources we have at hand, aren't we? Perhaps not...

Probably not Umm Al Melh, although the runway is fairly long, it's not really wide enough, and there's no arresting/barrier gear, which pretty much pigeonholes the place as a drone facility. Either Djibouti or that nifty new facility in the extreme Southwest corner of UAE are better guesses.

a reply to: Virgil Cain

Absolutely. I'm speculating--making the best guess that I can based on the information available to me.

I certainly could be wrong.

a reply to: EBJet

Could you perhaps give a name or coordinates for that nifty facility in the UAE?

a reply to: 1947boomer

I think I ran across that once.

It's funny to see an airport with no aircraft anywhere.

That doesn't raise a red flag at all. lol

a reply to: 1947boomer

I believe it's Um Al Zumul...
22°46'41.8"N 55°03'46.8"E

a reply to: EBJet

That's a weird place. It looks incomplete. And the large white building in the north side is surrounded by a fence and cut off from the runway, which has only a paved stub.

And then to the northwest of it, there looks like a yard with a whole bunch of somethings in a near grid? Artillery, perhaps? And maybe other places around a dozen personnel carriers/tanks? It looks like a bunch of canopies for smaller fighter jets-sized craft on the south side, and these connect to the runway.

And almost no cars anywhere, as if it's not really in use. Somehow this seems like UAE, not US.

a reply to: mbkennel

OK, seeing as we are all having a go at the guessing game, I am going with Bulgaria

a reply to: nelloh62

But the Bulgarian air fields are next to fairly well populated areas with people who probably have internet & phone cams. Not the best place for deep black craft.

a reply to: mbkennel


I was going to say the same thing for the UAE airfields - whilst the opposite goes population wise, they seem to lack the facilities and infrastructure to hide the 'Lady from prying eyes overhead.

Unless they only use the base for a quick refuel and crew rest before heading back stateside. Although, I'd think that fuelling would be done en route with tankers and that crew rest would come in after touchdown back in the states.

a reply to: mbkennel

They fly her over los angeles and nobody has gotten any pics either.

a reply to: mbkennel

They fly her over los angeles and nobody has gotten any pics either.

a reply to: mbkennel

They fly her over los angeles and nobody has gotten any pics either.

a reply to: mbkennel

They fly her over los angeles and nobody has gotten any pics either.

originally posted by: BASSPLYR
a reply to: mbkennel

They fly her over los angeles and nobody has gotten any pics either.

None that anyone has dared to share anyway

originally posted by: mbkennel
a reply to: EBJet

That's a weird place. It looks incomplete. And the large white building in the north side is surrounded by a fence and cut off from the runway, which has only a paved stub.

And then to the northwest of it, there looks like a yard with a whole bunch of somethings in a near grid? Artillery, perhaps? And maybe other places around a dozen personnel carriers/tanks? It looks like a bunch of canopies for smaller fighter jets-sized craft on the south side, and these connect to the runway.

And almost no cars anywhere, as if it's not really in use. Somehow this seems like UAE, not US.

That imagery is quite dated..It's an interesting place for sure...

originally posted by: 1947boomer
a reply to: Zaphod58

OK, I nominate the Umm Al Melh Border Guards Airport, Saudi Arabia.

Readers may recall an incident a couple of months ago when Donald Trump, on the campaign trail made a speech in Colorado Springs in which he complained about our allies not paying their fair share of military costs. He referred to "a military base in Saudi Arabia" that we're paying for. Since the US doesn't have any admitted bases in Saudi Arabia, his critics assumed that he was either mistaken or referring to a classified base. I have reason to think this is the base that was being referred to.

10,000 ft runway in the middle of the Rub' al Khali with sanitized Google Maps satellite images.

You're on the button for more than just the Green Lady with that location Boomer

All mapping services have active editing for that area, have for many years, site was used by us in the UK off and on for deep sneaky # even before '91 (good bedrock geology so i was told at the time) and I'm aware of a few very nice US toys using it too.
Some very unusual building techniques used there when they added extra power there back in 2003-2004, some form of ablative coating on roofs and windows.

Perfect place for the Lady and other little gems, and there are half a dozen little scattered bases hidden around the Rub' very hostile place but a superb enviroment to hone desert survival skills.

On a side note I know some of the potential base locations were ID'd by a method called "drop-bolting" to verify bedrock density by vertically dropping what looked like mutant Aim 9's in small groups out the back of an old C130 at 5k (only know because we were jumping from the bird on a training op and I chatted to the RAF geeks on the way up)

a reply to: TheBogmonster

If they were dropping bolts down from on high, then those
were probably used as triggers for synthetic seismic surveys,
which means they're digging up to 250 feet and maybe
even up to 2000 feet either DOWN or Horizontally
underground!

And to prevent the typical blast damage from 250 lbs to
2000 lbs bombs used by some peer adversaries (i.e. Russia),
it means they're digging AT AROUND 25 to 50 feet down so you
only need to use the much cheaper 15,000 PSI rebar and concrete
shells for an underground hangar and C4SIR facilities rather
than 60,000 PSI and greater rated rebar and concrete shells.

If a full C4SIR facility, then they're ALSO installing the super-long subsonic
acoustic wave (ELF less than 300 hz) antennaes for submarine communications,
and they're probably digging shallow but still underground trenches. Since the
ground conductivity in such desert regions is probably poor even in salt-laced
sand, the performance would work out quite well for an ELF antenna of
between 30 to 60 km in length.

So it probably means underground hangars for long and pointy craft
that look like X-15's or high flying fast delta wings like Senior Citizen
or it's later derivatives.