Pictures requested by popular demand of planes in Groom and the NTS, page 13

reply to post by Zaphod58

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They had that B-52 at their open house. Lots of mission markings on it. I don't have them scanned unfortunately.

It is certainly possible the plane did a mission at Groom Lake, but doubtful it was used to deliver anything.

The B-52 is commonly seen on the range for Red Flag. Maybe FWS as well.

As far as cargo goes, planes can always land at Desert Rock if need be. They have a relatively private road route from there to Groom. I caught a McChord C-17 landing at Desert Rock.

reply to post by GroomLakePolishFAN

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www.dreamlandresort.com...

I do have one point though. He says that there since they weren't flying overseas there is no reason for them to have externals, but the B-52 always flies with externals. It's harder to drop them than it is to leave them on. I have never seen a picture of a BUFF without them, and never seen any of them that I worked on without them.

reply to post by GroomLakePolishFAN

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I'm assuming you mean this report.
www.dreamlandresort.com...

Hey, at least Joerg took photos. Kudos.

Now when you climb TIkaboo, you can see some areas on that hill that look "nude" for lack of a better description. I've checked out the spots with both telescope and binocs. There is nothing there that sparkles, which is really common for crash sites. Now I suppose the base could have dumped some dirt on the area to hide the shards of glass and metal from a crash. But it has been my experience that debris gets caught in the shrubs, and that would have to be removed by hand. It is substantially harder to clean up a crash site than you think.

You can also look at that hill on google earth. There are two "community" markers there, though they don't match the locations given in the website.
37°23'0.77"N 115°41'42.97"W
37°21'51.56"N 115°42'22.97"W

The trouble is you can find weird looking patches of dirt in Nevada without anything crashing there. Just the fact that the bedrock is a little higher in one spot can make the top soil look different.

I can testify first hand that they often don't bother to put out fires on the range. The fires generally burn themselves out. I drove right up to a Mt. Irish fire and not a soul around.

If I posted some crash site coordinates, you could tell on Google Earth that something did happen there. Some of the crashes have bright spots due to reflections off of metal shards.

While I doubt they had two B-52s at Groom, you can't rule that out as a cover story. But if they did have B-52s there, you can't rule out they had external fuel tanks. Perhaps they wanted to see how a certain fuel mixture looked on radar. A lot of testing is done with boring old aircraft just because they are so available.

Then again, the event happened in August, which is peak lightning season.

reply to post by gariac

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I don't think they can drop the externals on a BUFF. I've never heard of them doing it, except maybe to repair a fuel leak or replace the tank.

reply to post by _Del_

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Now see, I thought that they were there because without them the aerodynamics were all messed up and the airplane flew straight.

reply to post by Zaphod58

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It looks like the old B model that NASA flew had them removed permanently from when they flew the X-15. That's the only one that I've ever seen with the externals removed. There wouldn't be much reason to remove them for a local flight, as they wouldn't affect the RCS by removing them, and the weight savings would be negligible.

Well unless they used a B-52 at Groom to do an air launch.

Note that the range has an excellent lightning detection system, but I don't know when it could first be read on the internet. Until the magnetometer showed up at the back gate, none of the "tourists" even knew the network existed.





In theory, the NTS could provide data if lightning hit in that area. I'm not so sure I'd want to pay the FOIA cost.
NTS SORD

reply to post by gariac

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The H model that they used for the more recent launches did them all with the externals on the wings. The B model did the later drops without them, probably because they didn't have any usable B model externals left. I think the X-15 was the last X plane that they needed to do the drops without them because it was the last manned aircraft.

Originally posted by boomer135
reply to post by amongus

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Thanks man I appreciate it. Like I said that's just the tip of the iceberg!

So show us the rest of the berg then....i'm seriously interested...and you offered....cheers for the pics though, awesome stuff..

Originally posted by Soloprotocol

Originally posted by boomer135
reply to post by amongus

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Thanks man I appreciate it. Like I said that's just the tip of the iceberg!

So show us the rest of the berg then....i'm seriously interested...and you offered....cheers for the pics though, awesome stuff..

The really good ones will have to wait. Signed my life away too many times to reveal too much. However there are a selected few that I trust thats seen them. Well some of them maybe even a member of ats has had the privledge...

Originally posted by boomer135

Originally posted by Soloprotocol

Originally posted by boomer135
reply to post by amongus

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Thanks man I appreciate it. Like I said that's just the tip of the iceberg!

So show us the rest of the berg then....i'm seriously interested...and you offered....cheers for the pics though, awesome stuff..

The really good ones will have to wait. Signed my life away too many times to reveal too much. However there are a selected few that I trust thats seen them. Well some of them maybe even a member of ats has had the privledge...

I'm a good guy and wont tell anyone...you can bet your life on it...Pics now Boomer...

reply to post by Soloprotocol

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But we just met! Let me get to know you first. Lmao! do you like walks on the beach?

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