Your two "brand new runways" both have yellow crosses along them desginating them as either not runways or runways that are out of service. Also by the scale on google earth they are about 6.5km from the airport so not that close either. Still not sure what they could be though.

Are the runways and the airport in Fort Hauchuca?

Yes, Sierra Vista Municipal is shown as being part of the military reservation. The new strips are 4 miles ENE, just inside the fenceline. I suppose I could just fire off an email to the PA down there if I really get curious.

And some drones...

Of course! That's why they're X'd out: to keep human pilots off. And why they don't have heading numbers painted on: drones don't care. i wonder if it's testing or interdiction? The location is perfect for border patrol (and there's the aerostat, too).

one of those planes is probably airborne

After a more through look, no. Check the shadows, the wihte one is on the ground, too. There's a white and a black; I'm leaning toward mock-ups now, maybe for ground-truthing satellites, maybe for proving small radar/sensor units.

If you haven't guessed, I really don't care whats actually there, but I'm trying hard to improve my photo-interpretation skills.

Thanks, guys, I've got a whole lot better idea what I'm looking at.

Hi there, I'm new here, first post, but I may be able to help you identify some features there. Yes, it's a very large "eye chart" for satellite and aerial imagery. There are 3 stripes in sets that are vertical and horizontal. The smallest group that both directions can be resoved as 3 lines and not just a white blob is the resolution. The Google image is around 9-10 sets in going from large to small. The same kind of resolution charts are used for calibration of technical photography such as microfilm archiving of mapsets.

L(ibby)AAF is a joint use facility, civillian and military. On the south side of the primary active (runway 26)is the military side. The north side is civil aviation, commercial ops, flight training, and Aviation Ground Services. It's probably the easiest military base to fly into, and the controllers are on good terms with the General Aviation crowd.


The two airfield complex to the north of rwy 26 is known as the "black tower" and lots of strange albeit small (and unmanned) aircraft operate off these fields. It's an intersting place to do some skywatching. The expansions at the BT complex are mostly related to training. Try looking up "UAV" in the Sierra Vista Herald

South of the "eye chart" where the aircraft you've found are is a test facility i believe. The triple arc A frame thing in the middle is IIRC is some sort of radar range. You can see it from the highway, looks like a huge piece of modern art in the desert.

The aircraft that appears on the roof of the building just to the east of the radar cage is a shadow of an aircraft possibly downwind/base for 21. There is an AC on the runway about 1000' from the threshold of 26. The old twin behind the building is a dead airframe that probably got dragged out there and left for dead, or parts.


Across 26 on the west side of the tower you'll see some big red marks, try to figure out whatn that is, I'll give you a hint, the marks are about as wide as the span of a P3 orion at the widest point.

The real "secret" is what's supposedly "in" the mountians behind that area. Some have claimed since the 70's that there's a Dulce style base inside the mountians, over the years a few hikers have came up missing for a few days around the backside of the mountians and told stories ranging from alien abduction to entering caves and ending up inside huge facilities. I have no idea what exactly the deal is with the hollowed out mountian is, but there is something there, strange lights way up in the mountains are sometimes seen.

You should also g-earth Marana airfield and Evergreen Aviation.

The balloon, or Aerostat, is surrounded by a pretty substantial fence that i wouldn't try to cross, but the road/trail that runs by the fenceline is the entrance to Tinker, a pretty gnarly high speed white knuckle deathwish downhill when you drop in from Pomona Mine on you MTB.

Legend has it that a lone gunman with a 30-06 sat atop the round hill just to the south, Brown Canyon hill, and turned the balloon into swiss cheese, allowing northbound air traffic from MX to continue to the drop point unimpeded. I don't know if that has much truth to it, most likely urban legend, but i found it amusing.

That's it for now, this should clear up a few of your question. Interesting place it is really.

When you say "behind", would that be N,S,E, or W?
Now I officially have too much to look at.

Actually, I started trying a new tactic last night. It appears that the old Corona satellites took snapshots of every military base in the US, eventually. Among those there may be evidence of "unpublicized" facilities. The trick, as I see it, would be to find a piece of GFW (God Forsaken Wilderness) that the spooks seemed particularly interested in that also seems to fit the infrastructure profile.

Q: If you had the world's most expensive camera, what would you photograph first?
A: Toledo, Ohio. The world's first spy satellite picture. Really. You can't make this stuff up.

[edit on 27-11-2005 by rand]