And we have returned from the desert once again

So Zaph, Fred and I have gotten back from our Palmdale/Edwards/Star Wars canyon trip and below is a pictorial over view of some of the sights and sounds from this years trip.
The flight down wasn't so bad. I had a few things to look at:



I flew into Vegas so naturally I had to swing by Nellis to see who was out and about,

F-15 coming home:


F-22's coming home:


F-35's launching:


After this I met up with Zaph and Fred in Palmdale to take in the sights,

Notice the large scale construction of a RAM aplication building at the Northrop part of the plant:


NASA ER-2 doing touch and go's:


Where's Hawkeye...or there he is:


Lockheed's U-2 PDM facility at night with U-2's:



Sadly this is not a B-21. Just a lowly B-2 sitting outside at night at the Northrop facility:



Plant 42 at night.


Treading lightly is advised:


General Harris's last B-52 retirement flight doing touch and go's at Edwards:


Now onto the famous Jedi transition (Star Wars Canyon) where we learned that week that two RCAF CC-130 were to make a visit:











Some of the other player to get in on the canyon action while we were out there:










Oh, and Virgin Galactic decided to have a powered drop test of their VSS Unity as we happen to drive by on the way to Star Wars canyon:




www.space.com...

So, to pre-emptively head off the inevitable questions, I won't directly comment on anything else seen/photographed at either Plant 42 or Edwards. Sorry.

Very cool vacation guys.

And some great pictures to boot.

Nice shot of the virgin galactic plane.

a reply to: grey580

If I can get on a stable net connection I'll add some of mine. Jedi and Palm were a blast. Had a sneak pass that Sam missed most of because it was so fast and unexpected I jumped out and accidently blocked him in. You could just about reach up and touch the F-18 though.

The only other event that I'll comment on is some VERY interesting radio chatter going on with Joshua (local ATC callsign) that opened a few rabbit holes.

Both the Raptors and the F/A-18's put on quite a show and seeing the Canuckistan CC-130's was a blast.

Thanks guys I had a fantastic time!

Virgin


OT F-22's out of Nellis did some pretty wild maneuvers and one cleared the canyon and went vertical



BUFF


Sam grabbed this pic of me taking a pic of the F/A-18. Somehow his focus ignored the blob that is me and kept on the Hornet


Basically the same pic except from my camera


CC-130's




The CC-130's came pretty close in so when one came behind us I had a hard time slewing around and zooming out


NASA ER-2


Edwards T-38. The backseater is watching us

Amazing sightings, guys.

And lookong forward to hear some serious speculations about these rabbit-holes, Zaph

Great pics!

ATS at its finest!!

Bravo. Had to be a swell of a time

That's awesome. Wish I could have tagged along. In my career I always wanted to get out to Nellis to participate in some of the exercises, never got the chance.

Also note the drop marks on the White Night 2

a reply to: Sammamishman

Not to be a downer but your B-52 pic just reminded me of the one that went down after a hard right bank. Can’t remember if it was at an airshow or whatnot but just unreal...

a reply to: Zaphod58

ummm pretty bad form not extending invites to us here guys...jk

do you have a recording of the radio? if not what was grabbing your attention and were you watching flight viewer at the time and if so did you see what was going on?

id almost find it more interesting if it didnt show up

a reply to: six67seven

It was at Fairchild AFB in 1994. Not during an airshow but the pilot was written up several times for flying reckless.

en.wikipedia.org...

a reply to: FredT

We want more info on the open rabbit hole..
If anything good it's gonna be in that neck if the wood of course !!!

a reply to: penroc3

We didn't at the time. I wish we had. We decided to go to Edwards that night, and I think they went out of Palmdale.

As for invites, it was bad enough with one new guy there.

a reply to: Sammamishman

Rock on!

Great B-52 and Gunship Pix.

Best to You and the Crew!

S&F

Great pictures guys, look forward to seeing and hearing more!

a reply to: Zaphod58

iv been looking at scanners, i was messing around on the jet the other day with the radio and its just fun listing in to various calls, mundane most of the time but there is the occasional diamond in the rough. My family is friends with the people who used to own HARRIS communications and i have seen some pretty neat gear.

its funny you see them testing stuff on the side of the road and the roof of the building looks like if they put one more antenna up it will cave in.


you should bring a mini cassette recorder next time, for your own records and memories of course.


oh and build one of these phased array radar

Great pics guys.Visiting Star Wars canyon is one for my bucket list.

a reply to: Sammamishman

on our way to a JRT, we broke in St. Joe MS. for a day. So when our C-130 crew was flying into Sierra Vista AZ, they had to do the low levels on the way in, and didn't have time to drop us off. So we got to ride along on the best roller coaster ride evah. It felt and looked like what your pictures show. Made me appreciate my air frame that much more. Glad you all had fun and everyone behaved.

a reply to: penroc3

i wonder if you had a low power UV or IR laser(so that it wouldn't hurt anyone's eyes) and a camera that is sensitive to UV and IR and see if you can get it to trigger any counter measures.

that is of course when they are not armed, and on US soil.

i wonder if the various testing sites have some lower order jammers around so the nut like me that would love to build one of these radars and not let them get any data on the aircraft.

and now that i think about it im surprised foreign powers that might not be our best friends aren't setting up shop on this canyon and getting data.



might get you a visit from some NSA DIA types if you started lase and hitting the various platforms with radar, or god forbid they think you are a real threat and something bad happens.

Cool Pics. Cool hat.