New old Groom Lake imagery

I noticed Google Earth has imagery dated 5/24/2010. I don't recall seeing this before, even though it is older than some of the other imagery of the base. What is interesting is this imagery shows the western side of the new hangar. It also shows a Beech 1900 parked near the hangar, something I'm sure I wouldn't have missed.

You will need to turn off the 3D model feature to see this side of the hangar. That is, the model obscures the detail. I'm reasonably sure this imagery is new because the 3D model is wrong on that side of the hangar. I sure whomever does the model wouldn't have missed this.

If you don't want to fire up Google Earth, I archived the image here:


Regarding the Beech aircraft, I verified this by putting an outline of the Beech 1900 over the image. Actually there were two Beech aircraft on the base that day. The one near the new hangar is on the right.

It might be the Beech 1900 that Northrop Grumman uses to shuttle people to and from AF Plant 42. That could be the first significant clue as to who is using the new hangar.

You may be on to something here. If it was a Groom Beech 1900, they would be likely just to park it where they park the other Janets then drive to the hangar. But a visiting aircraft doesn't have a place to hang out, so it might park by the hangar.

What doesn't work for that theory is visitors have to go to the badge office, so it would make more sense to leave the plane at a central location, deal with the badge office, then drive to the new hangar.

Now a possibility is the Beech 1900 had some gear in it to off load, so it made sense to park the plane near the new hangar for the delivery rather than transfer the gear to a van or truck.

This may be little added value, but a quick look on FAA N-Number database yields 14 aircraft with the designation Raytheon 1900D:

N27NG
N29NG
* N31557
* N32345
* N44663
N44808
N44824
N44849
** N44868
N50220
N50317
N50321
N50916
* N50919

Some of them are de-registered. Some of them are out of Northrop Grumman in Baltimore, which is the old Westinghouse shop that has developed the Starlight/GMTI Radar. Interesting, but not a likely story as to why it's where it is.

Based on the list above, the only vehicles that are not de-registered, nor exported are N27NG and N29NG. Then you track them on Flight Aware, you get this message: "This aircraft is not available for tracking per request from the owner/operator."

Both aircraft are out of El Segundo where "Basic" is headquarted. Where there's smoke...

reply to post by TAGBOARD


They can only be internet tracked on IFR and these contractors tend to play games when flying to Groom Lake. They file IFR to a nearby airport, then switch to VFR to land at Groom. Perfectly legal in the US, though there are altitude rules to obey to do the switch. [The airport doesn't even have to be all that nearby. Once N105TB, the Hanscom radar plane, flew to PMD IFR then went VFR to Vandenberg.]

I see N29NG did an IFR flight PMD to LAX and N27NG did PMD to MYF, both on 8/2/2011. Now N29NG and N27NG are used nearly every weekday from what I can see based on transponder code logs. Thus both fly most of the time untracked.

Regarding the planes being near Groom Lake, N29NG was spotted in Vegas on 9/8/2009, 9/1/2009, and 8/31/2009. I can't go back any further. I have no records of N27NG being to Vegas. [FYI, both planes have been to Burbank on occasion. N29NG has been to the San Francisco Bay Area a few times.] N29NG does more of the non-routine flights than N27NG.

So N29NG is a possibility, but no smoking gun based on what tracking data I could find.

You may recall that the Beech Janet that crashed near the TTR was ferrying JT3 employees from Groom Lake at the time. So we know the Beech Janets are not used exclusively by Groom "regulars". [There is no evidence either way regarding the 737 flights, but I would guess they are strictly for base "regulars" and not contractors.]

Thanks for the insight on their flight ops. Flying VFR to remain incognito is serendipity of operating out of locations in the western United States, I suppose.

Come to think of it, I've seen similar Beech 1900s operated out of PMD leaving morning and arriving evening in the early 2000s. They'd depart and fly south over the San Gabriels (what appeared to be El Segundo or Rancho Bernardo?) and come back around 5 PM local.

What's so special about this place?

Sorry about the delay to reply to your post. This is the new hangar at Groom Lake, now potentially related to Northop activity.