WWW278 Janet flight between Groom Lake and the TTR..but only on a Monday

flightaware.com...

I've noticed for a while that Groom Lake added a flight to the Tonopah Test Range on Mondays. To be clear here, this is not a flight from McCarran to Groom Lake or Tonopah, but a 737 flight between the two bases (Groom and the TTR).

Normally flights from McCarran to Groom Lake lie when they file the flight plan. That is, all the planes leaving McCarran file to fly to the Tonopah Test Range (KTNX), even if most actually go to Groom Lake. They use the Tonopah Test Range as a cover story (cut out, plausible deniability, etc.).

WWW278 is filed as a flight from KTNX to KTX (AKA a round robin). However the routing is
KTNX BTY060030 CENIT Q13 LEAHI KICHI TPH KTNX.
Airnav doesn't include the origin and destination in the routing, so I added it.

Flights to the Tonopah Test Range generally have TPH (the civilian Tonopah Airport) in the routing, so that is how I know the flights are from Groom Lake to the TTR.

Sorry to be so wordy, but if I didn't explain this, somebody would ask.

So now to the business at hand. For the month of December 2011 through today, they have been flying between the bases. At this point, you can make your guess as to why.

Some possibilities:
1) They fly a Janet from Palmdale (PMD) to Groom , but not to the TTR. So perhaps some California workers are taking a flight from PMD to Groom Lake, then a flight from Groom Lake to the TTR instead of flying direct. This is likely because the PMD flight to Groom is also only on Monday. The problem with that theory is there is no corresponding flight from the TTR to Groom so that the California employees can catch the Groom to Palmdale flight to return home.
2) They are transferring a black program from Groom Lake to a gray program at the Tonopah Test Range. Assuming this is done by the Nevada employees, then there is no issue with them getting back from Tonopah to McCarran since there are regular flights. Of course, why wouldn't the Nevada employees just fly directly to the TTR in the first place? Well perhaps they use the 737 to move some gear.

As a side issue, one of the Beech Janets had to fly IFR today, so it showed up in the tracking.
flightaware.com...
This was a flight from the TTR to Groom. Ah yes, time again for a lengthy explanation. Sometimes they declare the code for Groom Lake to be TKM when the do the flights between bases. There is no official TKM code for Groom Lake, though TKM is listed in FAA literature.
www.lazygranch.com...
[In the Honneywell database, Goom Lake is known at XTA.] I'm assuming the IFR flight was due to poor weather.

But this brings up another possibility. We know there are Beech flights between Groom Lake and the TTR, and vice versa. So why the 737 flight between the bases. One possibility is the 737 can carry more cargo, so they can't use the Beech for that leg of the trip. Since they are not taking cargo from The TTR to Groom, hopping on a Beech flight to get back to Groom is fine.

The calculus isn't quite right here, so feel free to make your own guess.

reply to post by gariac


Your "flightaware" link shows a flight between KTNX and KTNX (as you stated, a round-trip; which would fall in-line with a "Janet" flight). I am not sure what you are getting at here.

reply to post by ownbestenemy


Fair enough, I forgot to post the "baseline" flights, which are LAS to TNX. You can't understand the abnormal until you know what is normal.
flightaware.com...

If you enter KTNX as the airport and select "view activity", you will get the same display as the link I provided. Now you will see most flights listed are to/from LAS. Those are the normal flights. If you entered KLAS rather than TNX, would see the same flights from Groom, but there would be all the other Vegas traffic there as well.

The TNX to TNX or TNX to TKM flights are the odd flights.

reply to post by gariac


Speculation can only fuel the unknown. Possibly contractors? Possibly personnel from another part of the range? But good catch nonetheless.

The fatal Beech crash of a flight between Groom Lake and the TTR were with JT3 contractors. If you google "jt3 beech crash" without the quotes, the first hit will be an article from the newspaper that nobody quotes due to lawsuits.

Salutations Gentlemen,

Interestingly, I just happened to catch a Beech King Air flying laps south of Tonopah on flightaware around 11:00 pm PST last night whose origin was listed as KTNX (Tonopah), however the destination was listed as KTKM which I thought might be Groom?

My interest was further piqued when I got a blank on the N numbers on the FAA database and I couldn't find a match in the Janet Beachcraft database over at the Dreamland Resort website either.

It looked to have the potential to be something interesting so I took a couple of screenshots to post on here in the hope that somebody might be able to use the information. (I am not including a screen capture from the Dreamland website out of respect for their request to not re-post content without permission, however the link above will take anyone interested to the appropriate page)









Any thoughts?

I have all the Janet registration right here:
www.lazygranch.com...

That was the same plane I mentioned in my post, sort of in the middle. I assume it is a typo. That is, the registration should be N662BA.

The Groom pilots are famous for their typos, and the FAA flight filing website is famous for not seeing if the plane actually exists. [In all fairness to the FAA, they have had their funding dicked with for years. I'm amazed anyone can stand to work there.] Occasionally N20RA gets filed as N2ORA.

Many of the Janet FAA documents are here:
www.inplanesight.org...

Besides the Janet fleet, the LMCO (Lockheed Martin Company) shuttles have been to Groom Lake. This is covered here:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Potentially the Northop Grumman shuttle has been to Groom Lake.
www.abovetopsecret.com...