Airspace Use Question

Had an unusual sighting today at high altitude. The sighting would be along a line from SW Carroll County Georgia to SW Heard County Georgia as viewed from east central Carroll County.

I was curious if anyone on board knows of this area being practice or training corridor for high altitude fighter maneuvering.

Above the cirrus layer coming in from a cold front it was noticed by three others and myself that their was a corkscrew contrail at what we guessed was 35,000+ feet. The maneuvering and jinking was observed for nearly 2 minutes until whatever craft was making radical tight climb/dive/turn, jink corkscrew contrail climbed higher and contrail stopped as it headed off to Northeast.

Altitude guess was using a 747 climbing out of Hartsfield/ATL on due west heading approximately 8-10,000 feet a few moments before contrail was noticed.

All about 3pm Eastern time.

I gotcha.... over Carswell at 70000 at just after dark almost but not quite black.....doing aerobatics in an F 18 I figured or such little thing....45 seconds of him and he worked his way west a little, I caught a slght glinting of a sidepanel flash glint.

caught his tail light once I thought, from 22 miles but clearly that pilot was goin ape, hammerheads a bunch....

2 years ago...btw, I'm a bobcat predator caller....fantastic eyesight...i tells yas

a reply to: GBP/JPY

Lived in DFW for twenty years during cold war and bit beyond - saw plenty smoking scrambles by B-52's out of Carswell but not once high altitude fighter maneuvering even though was on north azimuth by 5 miles of Navel Air Station Dallas when they flew Phantoms and then Tomcats. Got woken early every Sunday as commercial pilots got flight time in reserves.

In this area for twenty years now and seen plenty low level stuff but never what saw today.

a reply to: Phoenix

Something either out of Greenville on an FCF with a partner, or out of either Shaw or Seymour-Johnson playing. Should have been paying more attention. I might have been able to see it and I could have gotten my camera out and looked. Marietta- Knoxville- Huntsville is used for a high speed corridor and flight testing.

If it was just a single contrail, I'd guess FCF out of Greenville.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Thanks Zaph, it was really carving some tight turns for the height - pretty extreme actually and yup all I had was my cell and knew no way get an image worth taking at that altitude.

yep, those F 4s turned long final over my house in Irving

a reply to: Phoenix

originally posted by: GBP/JPY
yep, those F 4s turned long final over my house in Irving

a reply to: Phoenix

Lets not forget the Intruders or Vikings. I was South of Rock Island when most still spoke native tongue, my place was turn point for airshow maneuvers.

The F-4's were usually about 1000 feet there and using ever so loud spooling up/down engines for altitude control.

I'd go down Grand Prairie to watch Vikings do crosswind landings as they'd be crabbing a lot.

a reply to: Phoenix

An FCF requires a full systems check, from flight controls to shutting down and restarting engines. It's also possible it was a Block 70 F-16 out of Greenville testing. They were supposed to fly the first actual V model this year, but have been testing upgraded aircraft for a couple years now.

a reply to: Phoenix

Reminds me a bit of an unusual sighting of a high speed (higher than airliner speed for sure) high altitude aircraft performing a number of S turns while I was driving between Minneapolis and Rochester Minnesota on February 4th of this year as if it was trying to slow down. Skies were partly cloudy that day. I was driving on highway 52 which stretches from the northwest to the southeast.

I was just south of Cannon Falls, Minnesota when this happened.

The contrail was pencil thin and very high up - I'd guess closer to 40k feet or higher and at a certain point when he slowed to a point where maneuvering was possible did a HUGE wide sweeping turn from the Northeast to the Southwest - in fact so large was this turn in the sky that the contrail was visible for at least 20-25 minutes afterwards and covered a huge arc in the sky.

Not what I see airliners doing when I'm doing that drive - I almost stopped and tried to get footage or pics but I was on a timetable and couldn't really stop but it kind of stuck out like a sore thumb.

originally posted by: Phoenix
Lets not forget the Intruders or Vikings.

When I was at North Island in the early 80's we were warned not to play the ball, on certain holes on the golf course when the Vikings were landing. Apparently they had the problem of an engine sucking in a ball.

Most likely Eagle FCF even from Warner Robins. Also not a hornet or viper if in the mid thirties and maneuvering. Haha. But seriously.