FL airport evacuated - French air-to-air MISSILE found in shipping container

Shoot! Now I'm going to have to go back on eBay and try to remove the negative feedback I left for the seller. It wasn't his fault, apparently he did ship it.

there is a domb-ass ukraine?

a reply to: TXRabbit

Depends on the country. For the US, no. For Spain, no idea. It might have simply been in storage waiting to be disassembled for shipping, or waiting for their version of EOD to pick it up and destroy it.

originally posted by: cmdrkeenkid
a reply to: RAY1990

They own both Mirage F1 and Atlas Cheetah airframes, among other things. I'm guessing someone just made a big logistical error and live missiles have been going in and out of there for ages, whether with approval or not.

Rumor has it that down in Sarasota County at Sarasota-Bradenton International, it's been used for ordinance transfers for decades. At one point, I DID live not too far from it, and saw some....odd # coming and going in the dead of the night. Once, hubs and I even stopped at the SRQ observation parking spot to watch the red-eyes take off, and one of those hinky flights came in. With no markings or tail numbers visible. And I wasn't the only person that saw those, other neighbors would see those now and then, too and bring it up in conversation. To say folks in the area were suspicious is an understatement.

I also used to live up by TIA, almost "right next door", as it were. Saw similar oddities once in a while, but not to the extent I saw down by SRQ.

I wonder if Zaphod could clarify anything on this one? Maybe it really was just local rumor run amok for years upon years and nothing like the claims ever used that airport for a transfer spot. Zaphod, calling Zaphod, light the Zaph Signal! (edit: oops, Zaph commented right before I did. Any ideas, man?)

Like I said, its rumor, has been for ages, but it makes you seriously wonder. What was coming & going out of Cape Coral further south, for example? Wish I knew. I'd ask the same of Venice Municipal, but we know one of the 911 hijackers actually learned to fly there.

Go Macron GO

a reply to: Nyiah

Eglin is a weapons testing range for just about everything. We've gotten our hands on a few things we really didn't want certain other countries knowing we got. Having the aircraft transporting it land somewhere else, and either transfer to another aircraft, or truck and move it on a truck, if it's small enough is pretty common. Especially if it's going somewhere else that's a classified location further west.

originally posted by: VictorVonDoom
Shoot! Now I'm going to have to go back on eBay and try to remove the negative feedback I left for the seller. It wasn't his fault, apparently he did ship it.

they one he sent me arrived.
I have put the controls from a long range remote small helicopter into it.
it will be hard to fly and fast.

Ooops, sorry, MIS-guided missile was destined for west Africa or maybe it was India. Damn manifests. Or a gift via China or Qatar for October surprise.

Operators of the Super 530 include France, Egypt, India, Jordan, Kuwait and Peru. Former operators are Brazil, Greece, Iraq and Spain.

Still, I find even more intriguing is how Trump still maintains Mar-a-Lago as a second home despite all the ongoing mysterious events and chicanery and I'm sure the only reason why this missile story made the news. It is very possible this 'missile' was misplaced and forgotten to be destroyed and should have never made any headline news even in local Florida news...But, meh Trump and Mar-a-Lago it's instant headline news.

The S-530 missile owner is Draken International, based at that airport. Draken provides airborne adversary support (Red Air), Joint Terminal Attack Controller (JTAC), Close Air Support (CAS), flight training, threat simulation, electronic warfare support, aerial refueling, research, and testing services to the DoD, U.S. defense contractors and aerospace firms, provided by a fleet of former military aircraft. The company CEO is Mr Joe Ford, previously a DynCorp president and Bill "Sweet" Tart, Chief Operating Officer who was also a senior VP at DynCorp, including the Pentagon and NASA!! That company has an all-star A-team.
www.drakenintl.com...

The founder of Draken is Jared Isaacman is an American entrepreneur, pilot and philanthropist. He is the founder and CEO of Shift4 Payments, a payment processing organization based in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

He was a finalist for the Ernst & Young "Entrepreneur of the Year Award" for 2006, 2007 and 2008, and was the youngest person ever named as one of The Green Sheet's "Industry Leaders"

Shift4 Payments was founded as United Bank Card in 1999 by Isaacman in the basement of his family's house when he was 16 years old.

Another one of those basement origin billionaires.🙄

We've had mysterious unsolicited 'seeds' of chaos to recent disposable masks and tens of thousands of fake IDs and prior to that counterfeit bills, all from CCP covert tactics and so far we know NOTHING.

This one flew under the radar... 10,000 Assault Weapons parts from China, destined to a residential address in Melbourne, Florida were seized by CBP.

originally posted by: Drucifer
I’d be willing to bet this is less than nefarious. Somewhere out there is an aircraft tech saying “Oh #!!!! I FORGOT TO MOVE THAT CRATE AFTER I STRIPPED THE JET!”. It was found in a box of spare aircraft parts and Draken has 150 former military planes. I don’t think it’s far off base to assume someone, or a group of people, stripping a plane tossed it in a crate then someone else tossed a bunch of random parts in it not paying attention, crate gets sealed up and shipped out.

Sure, it could be completely nefarious and that same act was done on purpose to get the missile in someone’s hands, but I’d assume they’d find more than just a single air-to-air missile if that were the case.

A real live missile? That just don't happen. The weapons are the first thing taken off an aircraft after landing while in active service with the military who owned it.

a reply to: Nyiah

I used to watch them load the weapons that Reagan was shipping to the Contras on C-123's and C-130's in the 80's.

originally posted by: RAY1990
I imagine you'd have to be a real clever clogs to arm and operate a missile like this. It's not like launching a firework.

Google is your friend..

a reply to: EndtheMadnessNow

Its complete BS that this company even exist in the US. A dam private contractor with an entire air force, just what us Americans need to worry about. I know AF-1 has counter air systems but I would bet the CEO of this company knows how to defeat some or all of it given he is a former Air Force electronic warfare officer.

I have seen F-16s fly so low through the orange groves in central Florida going back and forth to the Avon Park Bombing range that they would pop in and out of the rolling hills and never be spotted on radar, ever!!

Not a nice thought on how these scumbags could get over there, pop off a bunch of missiles and then run down the Alley, ditch in the jets into the Glades and never be seen again.

On another note, sitting in a bass boat on Lake Kissimmee catching fish, watching bombers and fighters fly over to then hear all the bombs impacting was pretty cool.

a reply to: RudeMarine

Those companies with private, almost all unarmed air forces, flying almost all demilitarized aircraft, are saving the Air Force, Navy, and Special Operations, at the low end, tens of millions of dollars a year. They are flying as aggressor aircraft, under full DoD supervision, in exercises to train our pilots. That means fewer aircraft that can be armed are flying that mission. That results in less time on the airframe, and less in maintenance costs.

These companies are not just bringing in aircraft unsupervised, and sticking missiles and bombs on them. A select few will have the capability to use small munitions in training with JTAC units (ATAC will use A-27 turboprops, and L-39s) , but they're limited to gun pods, 2.75" rockets , and BDU-33s, which weigh all of 25 pounds. All ordnance will be stored and loaded on military bases near where the training will take place, and belongs to the military. There's zero chance that they'll be able to "pop off a bunch of missiles and then run down the Alley, ditch in the jets into the Glades and never be seen again", because none of the aircraft involved are capable of that anymore.

a reply to: EndtheMadnessNow

No, Draken doesn't own the missile. They own the aircraft that used to carry said missile, but the missile wasn't part of the purchase, as the aircraft is no longer capable of using it.

originally posted by: RAY1990
I imagine you'd have to be a real clever clogs to arm and operate a missile like this. It's not like launching a firework.

It would appear to me that due to the nature of Draken that this was a serious logistical error. Interesting company though... I'm assuming they own some Mirage French fighter jets.

They have one old F1M. Most of their stuff is Eastern bloc Aero Vodochody stuff. The only suprsonic stuff is an ancient Mig 21 and an Atlas Chtah.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: TXRabbit

Depends on the country. For the US, no. For Spain, no idea. It might have simply been in storage waiting to be disassembled for shipping, or waiting for their version of EOD to pick it up and destroy it.

Thank you for sharing your wisdom, once again

a reply to: F4guy

They have several flying now. They're moving them to Nellis slowly, and start flying them from Luke and Hill soon.