N8300T odd NV65 flgiht

This is a strange one. N8300T, one of the Dynamic Aviation Dash-8 leases that frequents the NTTR, or at least Desert Rock, had odd tracking today. Here it is from flightaware:
flightaware.com...
The flight plan was to BTY (presumed Beatty airport, though it could be the BTY VOR, which is not at the airport). However, it does a loop over the highway, flies near NV65 (Desert Rock, the old KDRA), and just disappears. No data is shown when you click on "tracking".

Here is the flight by NV65 as shown on flightaware:


When you look at it on flightwise, it says the plane is presently flying VFR and no tracking will be provided. But clicking on the Google Earth link, most of the flight is tracked, and the plane heads back to BLD.

Here is a closeup by NV65, with a track similar to what flightaware shows:


There are photos of N8300T, but often these planes have modifications, and the photos could be old. For instance N8300G has what looks like a side facing radar on it.

I'm sorry but I don't understand what your trying to say. Did it vanish or land?

Based on the google earth tracking, it flew a round robbin from Boulder City Nevada. [Depart and land at the same airport.] This gets confusing since they used BLD as the origin of the flight rather than KBVU. BLD referes to the VOR. I believe for Boulder City, the VOR is at the airport.

In mountainous regions of the US, the VOR is often not right at the airport. That is, the VOR needs a bit of room to breath, so they place it away from the airport if it will have poor coverage. Edwards is kind of funny since they place the VOR away from the base, even though it would work well there based on terrain. I suspect they want the VOR to be close to the dry lake, i.e. be useful for the paved and unpaved runways.

reply to post by gariac


Hi,
I took a googlemap tour of the area to see what the plane might have circled around.

All I found that looked out of place was an electrical power grid sub-station that at first I only noticed one set of lines heading into it--->thinking bunker with own grid tie-in. On closer examination, it has a set of lines going into a different direction.

There's always that 'shady' area that pops into view during positive zoom.
Even real-time maps when zoomed prove that it's not really real-time tracking, the geography is wrong and out-dated, the maps guys like me have access to anyway...

reply to post by loveguy


I think they just added some imagery to the NTTR, which is why things are popping. If you see something odd, coordinates are always appreciated.

The spot near NV65 by the road with a fence around it contains fuel tanks. It looks like they fill them with access via route 95 rather than deal with security. Just a guess. I've pulled off the road there.
36.591619° -116.038130°

The spot across the highway is the "Peace Camp."
peacecampnts.blogspot.com...

This could be a substation under construction:
36.582274° -115.947583°

Originally posted by gariac
reply to post by loveguy

 

I think they just added some imagery to the NTTR, which is why things are popping. If you see something odd, coordinates are always appreciated.

The spot near NV65 by the road with a fence around it contains fuel tanks. It looks like they fill them with access via route 95 rather than deal with security. Just a guess. I've pulled off the road there.
36.591619° -116.038130°

The spot across the highway is the "Peace Camp."
peacecampnts.blogspot.com...

This could be a substation under construction:
36.582274° -115.947583°

Shady area in loopy flight-path. 36.35'31.92" N 116.16'12.20" W elevation=2730 ft
check a little south of 36°51'21.56" N 115°57'18.86" W

The pilots must've forgot to grab their lunches before heading out again?

It made another flight over the range, but deeper this time. The flight was files from HND to HND, i.e. another round robin. However Henderson makes much more sense since that is where the other Dynamic Aviation plane was staging. What is confusing here is the plane didn't really appear to fly in a loop at all.

I took the track log and converted it to a kmz. Do a save_as on this file.
n8300t 09042012 kmz track
Then open it up in google earth. On some systems, just clicking on the file will open up good earth.

I took the waypoints from flightwise, but here it is on flightaware
n8300t 090420212 hnd to hnd

But now it is shown as flying again, this time to DRA. Now DRA no longer exists. It is now NV65.

Shady area in loopy flight-path. 36.35'31.92" N 116.16'12.20" W elevation=2730 ft
check a little south of 36°51'21.56" N 115°57'18.86" W

n36 51 21.56 w115 57 18.86 is the low level nuclear waste disposal site. You get to see it on the NTS tour. Now a dump isn't all that cool, but one that glows is. [OK, it doesn't glow.] When you take the tour, the bus is inspected to insure the tires didn't pick up any nuclear material. They won't point this out, but you need to be observant.

The other spot is just some green area on the free side of the highway. I'd have to be there in person to really comment on it with any authority. I've been around those hills west of the NTS, but nothing particular other than the Peace Camp stands out.

This link has the return flight in kmz format.
n8300t 09042012 dra to hnd

As far as I know, there are no navigation aids beyond the MCY NDB at NV65. So I assume this plane is GPS equipped. I can't see this being an eas flight using visual flight rules.

There is the old PYD NDB, but it has been off for ages.

What is this about...? A plane went off flight path and what?

reply to post by dayve


The is restricted airspace. It contains Groom Lake (Area 51), the Tonopah Test Range (TTR), the Nevada Test Site (lately called N2S2), the TPECR (Tolicha Peak Electronic Combat Range), and who knows what. It is a black hole of sorts, with varying bits of clarity depending on what they want to reveal.

Dynamic Aviation is a government contractor of sorts. They had a commercial venture, but it is now gone. Their fleet consists of spray aircraft (think bugs), ISR (surveillance), and then the oddball stuff. N91s for instance is a surveillance plane for developing the ARGUS system. N8300G is suspected to be a plane that can located IEDs. Nobody has even taken a guess at what the function of N8300T is.

So the interest is:
1) We can actually see the air traffic sitting at a computer screen. The vast majority of traffic is never tracked on internet tracking websites since the FAA feed filters out the military flights.
2) Hey, its a spooky aircraft vendor. If Devon Holding was flying out in the range again, I'd be yacking about them too.

The link for their ISR division shows one of their birds with the tail number photoshopped out. ;-)
www.dynamicaviation.com...

The bug spraying planes they don't mind showing. N27J was in the news doing the Dallas spraying. N45N is a bit more secretive. It makes routine trips from Moffett Federal Airfield (KNUQ) to points south. The plane was a sprayer of the type used in spewing chemicals over oil spills. What is does today isn't known.

So you have a military contractor and restricted airspace. Sounds interesting to me.

I really laugh at all the people wringing their hands over being spied on by drones. The vast majority of domestic surveillance is done by manned aircraft. All those MC-12s coming back from Afghanistan are going to go to the air force reserve. I'd like to think all the spy gear will be removed, but I doubt it.

Then there are the chemtrail fanatics. Hey, there are real aircraft that can spray real chemicals. Why worry about chemtrails that are really just plain old contrails. In fact, I think the chemtrails are just a coverup so that nobody tracks the real chemical spraying aircraft.
chemical sprayer

N8300T has been orbiting Lake Mohave for about an hour. It is being tracked on flightaware.
flightaware.com...
The routing looks messed up on flgihtaware because the trip was actually from Henderson to Desert Rock (Nevada Test Site), but it never landed at Desert Rock. It just orbited Desert Rock a bit then headed for Laughlin. Now flightaware is acting as if the plane departed Laughlin, but it never landed there. Rather it just orbited around Lake Mohave.

This is the first leg where it left Henderson and orbited Desert Rock, only to not land there but head south:
www.lazygranch.com...
This is the orbit over Desert Rock:
www.lazygranch.com...
The initial loop over Lake Mohave:
www.lazygranch.com...
Orbits over lake:
www.lazygranch.com...
Complete flight:
www.lazygranch.com...

Note that Laughlin Bullhead City is where the mysterious civilian C-130 with fake tail number was photographed. This is the same plane at Base Camp:
www.lazygranch.com...

Unfortunately the airliners.net link isn't working.