Mystery airbase in Sierra Nevada mts?

While I was reading Zaphods neat story about the wayward F106, I was reminded that an old friends father was the Flightline Crew chief at the local ANG base for many years.
After he retired, in the 80's, we were chatting one day and he related a very interesting tale.
I would guess the events he related happendd in the 70's.
So here's what I remember of the story,

Mr. S. was crew chief at the ang base, one day he got a call from the commander of a base that he was unfamiliar with, telling him they needed his assistance with some system he was very familiar with, and he was the closest expert. They were going to send a plane to pick him up here and fly him to this base, that he'd never heard of.
He got suited up and when the plane arrived he was surprised it was a navy jet, I'm thinking it was an intruder, because it was a side by side two seater.
The pilot taxied up to the hangar, and to his surprise the pilot didn't get out. When he boarded the aircraft , the pilot handed him a helmet with a blacked out visor.
Shortly after take off the pilot asked him if he'd ever done a carrier landing/ takeoff, and he replied he hadn't, the pilot sort of chuckled and said"well your in for a treat."
He thought that he must have misunderstood the conversation with the base commander and that they were flying him to a carrier off the coast and not an airbase.
It was a short flight, less than 2hrs, but he was certain that they had flown in circles for about an hr , so wherever they were it was close.
After a period of time the pilot called in for landing clearance, and told him to hang on, and they did a very rapid descent , then procceded to fly a fairly level but somewhat twisty flight path for several minutes.
The pilot told him not to raise the visor until told to do so, and they made an arresting hook landing. But he was sure they were not on a ship because it just didn't feel like it. After a few minutes the pilot told him it was ok to raise the visor, and they were in a huge cavern, and he was able to see the blast doors just closing. He said the place was about as big as a small carrier and was carved out of rock with the walls being concrete. but the celing was bare rock. There were several aircraft in the rear of the facility but they were all covered with tarps.
All of the airmen working the Flightline were navy , but there were also airforce personel and marines about.
He was greeted by his counter part and escorted to where he was going to do his thing, and told he would have access to the mess if needed, and would have a berth if needed as well, but he would have to be escorted, as the rest of the facility was off limits.
The entire time he worked an armed marine stood guard at the door.
When he finished his thing he was escorted back to the plane he came in on, put on the blacked out helmet and they did a catapult take off. They repeated the flying around in circles for a period of time before landing back at the ang base.

As most lifelong career soldiers Mr. S. was pretty grounded and not prone to confabulations, so I will have to say it is anbsolute true story. If I didn't know that the swiss have built facilities like that, in the alps, and if it had come from anyone else is call BS.
From the flight times I'd say this place is was likely in the Mountain warfare training center.
Also on several occasions while in the backcountry I have seen black military aircraft with no markings flying low in the canyons.
Once it was what looked like an f18, and another time while on mtb ride, we were riding a ridge top trail, some 30 miles from the nearest road, when an unmarked black F5 came along the canyon. It was flying just below us about 400 yards away, so close we could see the pilots visor, we waved as he passed and he gave us a wing waggle and dropped deeper into the canyon and out of site.

reply to post by punkinworks10


There is the Sierra Army Depot not far from there and seems it would fit the time frame. Although they have a landing strip, which wouldn't make sense as far as hook landing/giant cavern goes... Interesting story, however. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the military was utilizing some prime real estate in the mountains!

reply to post by Vilhelm


I've tried to come up with reason such a facility to exist, and the only one I could come up with was cold war thinking.
I did a paper in collage on soviet icbm targeting practices, and I found that central cal was on all three target lists.
On a military only list, there are several major bases here, on an infrastructure list the agricultural base was at the top, and on an end of the world list the targets were spread around, and the central valley would have gotten up 60 warheads.

In light of that I could see the facility having started as a last refuge for some assets when the s hit the fan.

Text Purplereply to post by punkinworks10


Would you please change your title?
It is very misleading to me as the phone & internet/cable company I deal with is called mts which is affiliated to Canada's/US biggest phone,internet/cable service company.

So I thought it was our communications which obviously has billions, was conspiring with Sierra through the telecommunications systems because they could most likely afford to lol!

reply to post by punkinworks10


That's a very cool story.

I guess it's certainly possible, but can you imagine a missed tailhook inside a cavern?

You never said where he started out from so trying to figure out what would be within a 1 hr flight time for that aircraft is difficult.

Why are you sure it's in the Sierra Nevada's?

If we had some idea of what systems your friend's father worked on, that would maybe be helpful. Did he work with conventional a/c? Evidently, he did, NG people are not usually working with or have specific training in state-of-the-air a/c. I assume that the job had something to do with an ordinary a/c such as the NG typically serviced, one of the secret lair's conventional a/c evidently could not fly out for outside service and a conventional tech had to be brought in.

But a/c's under tarps in a secret cave tell us that they had some exotic equipment there also.

Mountain caves would be a perfect place for a secret triangle base since they don't need runways, arresting hooks or catapults. Triangles started appearing in the mid-1970s. I wonder when this incident happened?

punkinworks10
The pilot told him not to raise the visor until told to do so, and they made an arresting hook landing. But he was sure they were not on a ship because it just didn't feel like it. After a few minutes the pilot told him it was ok to raise the visor, and they were in a huge cavern, and he was able to see the blast doors just closing. He said the place was about as big as a small carrier and was carved out of rock with the walls being concrete. but the celing was bare rock. There were several aircraft in the rear of the facility but they were all covered with tarps.
All of the airmen working the Flightline were navy , but there were also airforce personel and marines about.
He was greeted by his counter part and escorted to where he was going to do his thing, and told he would have access to the mess if needed, and would have a berth if needed as well, but he would have to be escorted, as the rest of the facility was off limits.

edit on 25-10-2013 by punkinworks10 because: (no reason given)

Sounds like n120by60w.....

- Watcher

Aliensun
If we had some idea of what systems your friend's father worked on, that would maybe be helpful. Did he work with conventional a/c? Evidently, he did, NG people are not usually working with or have specific training in state-of-the-air a/c. I assume that the job had something to do with an ordinary a/c such as the NG typically serviced, one of the secret lair's conventional a/c evidently could not fly out for outside service and a conventional tech had to be brought in.

But a/c's under tarps in a secret cave tell us that they had some exotic equipment there also.

Mountain caves would be a perfect place for a secret triangle base since they don't need runways, arresting hooks or catapults. Triangles started appearing in the mid-1970s. I wonder when this incident happened?

First it was saucer shaped aircraft and they turned out to be U2's and SR-71's then after that people started to see triangles which given current concept designs is probably the shape of new exotic aircraft. Probably NG's new bomber.

reply to post by Aliensun


He went into the ANG after retireing from the airforce,
I got the impression that he was called to service an outdated piece of equipment.
And I'm thinking his "thing" was radars.
I would say this happend in late seventies.

Riffrafter
reply to post by punkinworks10

 

That's a very cool story.

I guess it's certainly possible, but can you imagine a missed tailhook inside a cavern?

You never said where he started out from so trying to figure out what would be within a 1 hr flight time for that aircraft is difficult.

Why are you sure it's in the Sierra Nevada's?

He thought it was in the mountains by the way they flew in and out. Since we live at the foot of the sierra,iit's the most logical first choice. And it wouldn't be hard to hide something like that in the Sierra, there are dozens of huge tunnels carved in the rock, for hydro projects.
But you know now that I think about it,, the description does sound very area 51ish.

Sierra Nevada's no way as there is no large amount of property that is restricted to all entry.

Since the person never saw the surface area of the base i would think the base is somewhere on the Nevada test site.

I have always suspected a Continuity of government/last resort base some where on the test site.

All the known Continuity of government sites are on the east coast and i never believed there was not one out in the west someplace.

The area 51 airfield would be perfect for Air-force One and other large aircraft then a short helicopter flight to the hidden Continuity of government site.
With a back up field at the old WW2 Tonopah Army Air Field
en.wikipedia.org...

I would also believe the person was mislead into believing that it was in the sierras to mislead anyone he told later.

I still believe there is a cold war Continuity of government base/site in the west and since none have ever been identified unlike the sites in the east there is a major reason to believe there is one out west that is still top secret.

reply to post by punkinworks10

He thought it was in the mountains by the way they flew in and out. Since we live at the foot of the sierra,iit's the most logical first choice. And it wouldn't be hard to hide something like that in the Sierra, there are dozens of huge tunnels carved in the rock, for hydro projects.
But you know now that I think about it,, the description does sound very area 51ish.

The Sierra Nevada's are beautiful. I used to live in Palo Alto and drove through them often on my way to Tahoe or Reno or just to visit some areas/towns in the mtns. Although it's possible, I'd think finding a jet landing approach to a cavern that was sufficiently "hidden" in the mtns (i.e. not near the boundaries) would be extremely difficult.

On the other hand, a 1 hour flight time by a navy jet to the Groom Lake area is certainly more than do-able. And we already know how well the gov't is able to hide all kinds of stuff out there...

I still really like the idea of building a tail hook landing area in a cavern. Great story, and knowing our gov't it just might have legs...

reply to post by ANNED


The only place in the sierra I could place it would be the 46k acre mountain warfare center, operated by the marine corp, but I don't know how restricted that facility is.
The terrain is certainly self restricting, and there are no major population centers anywhere near it.
It seems to me that to go through the effort to put in a catapult and have the runway behind blast doors means that the terrain was unsuited for a airstrip.
When Mr. S. was relating the story , he commented on how odd it was that a navy plane was sent to pick him up, as they coulndt refuel the aircraft, as they used a different fuel hose connection, so logically the facility had to be within range of the aircraft.
I would bet the place started a place to squirrel away a squadron or two, away from the known bases , in case things went badly.
But, from what he describes the of base procedures,it sounds like a research facility, with it being somewhat compartmentalised.

reply to post by punkinworks10


Ok, that part I know is BS. There is no reason an air force base can't refuel a naval aircraft. Both use a Single Point Refueling (SPR), connection. The navy didn't like using fuel from the air force, because they use JP-5, and the air force used JP-4, so before the aircraft could go below deck on a carrier they had to run a couple of tanks of-5 through.

We used to refuel navy aircraft all the time. All yours of them. In fact the S-3 was a pain because if you pump over about 12-14 psi, it vented overboard onto the ramp.

punkinworks10

When he boarded the aircraft , the pilot handed him a helmet with a blacked out visor.

It was a short flight, less than 2hrs, but he was certain that they had flown in circles for about an hr , so wherever they were it was close.

Interesting story but I have a problem with the above statement. How could he have known that they were flying in circles? He was not a military pilot, therefore he had no flight experience above normal persons. He had a blacked out visor. And (to me the most important) a highly trained pilot was flying the craft, if he would have been instructed to make circle flights or any other maneuvers to keep the position of the base secret, I would say he would have made a much better job than to let some average Joe know he was flying in circles ...

Remember we are talking about a pilot that if flying covert ops for a highly classified military secret base ..