MIT aircraft flies to....

This plane is N20NY. It is based at Hanscom Field and operated by MIT.
Flightaware tracking
The last tracking point (as opposed to estimated flight) is:

TIme LAT LON Heading KTS MPH FEET
07:30PM 37.7361 -115.8819 272° West 302 348 19,900

The flight plan is a round robin (depart and arrive from the same airport). However it left Nellis, headed north, took a left turn to the west over free territory and then the tracking stopped.

The plane designation should be FA20 for Falcon 20. The flight plan use HU25, which is a military version of the Falcon 20. Military ATC often use military designations for civilian aircraft, probably out of habit.

I'm assuming it went to the TTR. The FA20 needs about 2000ft to land, but of course you do want it to take off again, so that leaves a requirement of about 5000ft. [This depends on a lot of variables.] So it could have landed at any airport in the area that is at least 5000ft, or it could have actually returned to Nellis.

I'm going to try to find audio on liveatc.

reply to post by gariac


By transposing the flight path over a Google maps image of Southern NV, I believe the GPS coordinates of for the end of the listed flight path are here:

37.5241927399, -115.789590843

North of Groom.

reply to post by gariac


Possibly transporting someone or something quickly to or from Groom?

reply to post by Sammamishman


I don't follow what you are doing. Why not use the last good way point from the track log?

reply to post by gariac


Sorry, please forgive my ignorance in how to navigate/find info on the Flight Aware site and map function.
I also see it now in your original post.
Working long hours with little sleep is taking its toll.

Sammamishman
reply to post by gariac

 

Sorry, please forgive my ignorance in how to navigate/find info on the Flight Aware site and map function.
I also see it now in your original post.
Working long hours with little sleep is taking its toll.

edit on 19-11-2013 by Sammamishman because: (no reason given)

edit on 19-11-2013 by Sammamishman because: (no reason given)

edit on 19-11-2013 by Sammamishman because: (no reason given)

No problem. I was just wondering if you saw something I didn't see.

You need to look at the flightaware track data because you need to separate fact (or near fact) from estimation. The FAA feed is a low resolution representation of the actual flight. If you have a mode-s receiver and the plane is putting out ADS-B, you can see that the FAA feed is often not totally accurate.

Flightradar24 is slowly setting up MLAT, a means to track aircraft without the plane needing ADS-B. Unfortunately fr24 also obeys US law and censors when asked. Even planeplotter (crap software, trust me) censors. You need to see the direct ADS-B reception, if it exists. The feds can't stop you from seeing your own data.

Fr24 MLAT is good. They use a GPS in each system to set the timing, which is critical for accurate positioning. Planeplotter MLAT, when it works, isn't all that shabby. Maybe 5 mile accuracy. The problem is they get their data from a hack in the Kinetics receiver. The hardware wasn't designed for MLAT from the ground up.

reply to post by gariac


Thanks for the info. Is that a normal thing for flight info to be omitted like that?
From the time it went "off grid" to the time it landed back at KLSV was about 53 minutes, so if it did land somewhere, it wasn't on the ground very long.

reply to post by Sammamishman


Oh, we don't really know if it landed back at Nellis. ;-)

The "D" in the flight plan route indicates a delay. You would have to dig up the NOTAM rules, but I think they asked for a 15 minute delay. Names that are similar to gasoline like ARCOE usually signify refueling, though I would be surprised if it was for the Falcon.

I have seen planes "land" on flightaware that are in reality still flyinf.

There is a really nice dry lakebed near the Chicken Ranch in Pahrump. Not saying they landed there for a drink or two! That would be really nice having the ability to go "stealth" into Pahrump. Just saying!!!