C-130 fly-by over my house

Yesterday, as I'm hooking my boat to the truck, I hear a plane approaching. It sounded big and low... All of a sudden a C-130 emerges over the tree tops and it was low. I have NEVER seen a plane that low here. While I do see lots of planes( I'm close to an airport and military base) this was a first... It did two circles around me before I realized "pics or it didn't happen"..... I ran inside, grabbed my camera and started taking pictures.. Out of the 14,762 pics I took, only four were decent. It's not very easy to take pics when your out of breath and amazed at what you're seeing...

When the plane was damn near over my head, it flashed its spot light right on me. I couldn't believe it, but I had witnesses.

Anyhoo, here's the pics. Keep in mind I forgot to zoom in, in the first two pics.

I heard on the news this morning that four of them were ready to head to the Colorado fire.
Cool pics.

Cool. We just had an air show here and world war 2 reenactment. Had a c47 and a b17 and a couple of fighters fly over my house at that altitude! Went down to the airport to find out wtf was going on. Funny thing is i just decided a few days before to pursue my pilots license.

reply to post by phroziac


I wish it was fighter planes here. That would have been waaaaaaay cooler! Why didn't you get pics?

Do you by chance live in the western US?
Can you walk outside and see smoke everywhere?
Do you live by a military base?

If you answered yes to any...or all of the above questions, then there is nothing sinister, newsworthy, or even hypothetically paranoid about this. They are being used in decent numbers to fight the large wildfires in the west at the moment.

We've had several come really close to where I live while air dropping retardant or water onto the large fires. Yes...they were grounded the other day from firefighting after a crash last week, then allowed to resume their duties.

With all of that said though...they are cool pics.

And you also might want to check your FUJIFILM digital camera you used to make these pics...especially if you made them yesterday. The date from the EXIF data shows they were made on June 27, 2011 at 6:15 AM.

reply to post by webpirate


EXIF date can be off...

reply to post by webpirate


I live in the mid-west. Look under my user-name. East Peoria Illinois.
No, I don't see smoke. Might as well though, as it's 105.7 degrees at ten in the morning!

We have a couple military bases near here(did you read my original post?) but like I said, I've NEVER seen any planes at that low of an altitude.

I never said there was anything sinister about this ordeal. That's why I put it in the grey forum, a personal story from me that I thought I'd share with the ATS community. Sorry if I posted in the wrong area. If you want a conspiracy, I could make one up for ya though... Let me know your favorite subject and I'll make up a good one!

I'm just learning this stupid camera out. Trust me, it will take awhile to figure out how to get the dates right. As I can't seem to even get decent pics out of this damn thing. I seriously wish I wouldn't have dropped my old camera!

reply to post by KawRider9
Just a quick Well done Sir. It maybe all or nothing but it is still viable news Imo
Just think if the rear ramp opened and a load of parachutists bailed out, That would really have "Put your wheels off"

So a star an flag for effort my good sir and keep us updated if possible,

reply to post by foxhoundone


Could you imagine that? A great "what if" to ponder.

What would ya do? Get in the car and bail? Grab a gun and wait to see what happens? Poop your pants and pray?

A star for you my friend.

reply to post by KawRider9



What I consider dunderhead is seeing something like this and just going "oh" and going on about your
business..you never know !! pays to pay attention. If a plane is in trouble I'm sure you'd like to know to run
or call for help. Those planes always amazed me..so big and chunky looking yet they fly. If I could afford
one I think I'd buy one of those digital cameras made to take bumps and lumps as it were. Maybe the big
screen viewing area is nice but it would seem to make it more vulnurable to breakage.
www.twice.com...
If I can't say something useful I'd rather be quiet but you know how that goes.
Conspiracies are likea gift box inside a box inside a box and so forth..the prize is the last package to
be opened..so frustrating..ah just forget it. LOL

Originally posted by njl51
reply to post by KawRider9

 

so big and chunky looking yet they fly.

I was thinking the same thing. It wasn't going very fast at all and all I could think of was "how does that damn thing even take off"? Guess I need to head to a base and watch. It's pretty amazing watching those big ole planes just glide!

Originally posted by njl51
Those planes always amazed me..so big and chunky looking yet they fly.

Psssstt! Those are the little ones.

Originally posted by KawRider9
reply to post by phroziac

 

I wish it was fighter planes here. That would have been waaaaaaay cooler! Why didn't you get pics?

Thanks for reminding me, i did but theyre still on my camera and my power cord is screwed up on my computer. I will get them posted! I also went inside the c47 and b17 and have pics of the cockpit

reply to post by phroziac


Would you kindly PM me a few of your pics? I would love to see them!

Never mind, I just re-read your post and you can't get them to your pc... Sorry, I'm an idiot!

Amazing aircraft. Carries a huge amount and takes off and lands on a football field sized runway. Why all the excitement, this plane has been around for decades? Nice pics, but normal for US skies.

Originally posted by KawRider9
Yesterday, as I'm hooking my boat to the truck, I hear a plane approaching. It sounded big and low... All of a sudden a C-130 emerges over the tree tops and it was low. I have NEVER seen a plane that low here. While I do see lots of planes( I'm close to an airport and military base) this was a first... It did two circles around me before I realized "pics or it didn't happen"..... I ran inside, grabbed my camera and started taking pictures.. Out of the 14,762 pics I took, only four were decent. It's not very easy to take pics when your out of breath and amazed at what you're seeing...

When the plane was damn near over my head, it flashed its spot light right on me. I couldn't believe it, but I had witnesses.

Anyhoo, here's the pics. Keep in mind I forgot to zoom in, in the first two pics.

when did you say you took the pictures? can you explain why these pictures show they were taken last year.....can you take a picture of something right now - like your screen and upload w/out changing file names....this will show if your camera is fubard and allow you to fix it....

Date Time = 2011-06-27 06:13:49
Date Time = 2011-06-27 06:13:54
Date Time = 2011-06-27 06:15:07
Date Time = 2011-06-27 06:15:23

and you are saying that a C130 in the daytime put a spotlight directly on YOU? can you explain this further and why a C130 would put a spotlight on you and where exactly did this spotlight originate from (part of plane)...

I see no reason a C130 would spotlight a civilian located amongst trees.....

further....why it was so low? probably doing touch and goes...no need to get high altitude....

also lots of C130s flying around for the states that are on fire.....im seeing them daily....

Most C-130s don't carry spotlights. I can't think of any off the top of my head that do.

However, they could have been doing training for MAFFS duty to help fight the fires. A North Carolina C-130 equipped with MAFFS crashed on Sunday, and the others from NC returned home, leaving a gap in the MAFFS fleet. There are only three bases that have MAFFS equipped C-130s, but they may be adding more crews to replace the C-130s that were removed from firefighting. They only have 7 MAFFS units left now, but there were only something like 10 or 12 crews trained on them.

Originally posted by greeneyedleo

Originally posted by KawRider9
Yesterday, as I'm hooking my boat to the truck, I hear a plane approaching. It sounded big and low... All of a sudden a C-130 emerges over the tree tops and it was low. I have NEVER seen a plane that low here. While I do see lots of planes( I'm close to an airport and military base) this was a first... It did two circles around me before I realized "pics or it didn't happen"..... I ran inside, grabbed my camera and started taking pictures.. Out of the 14,762 pics I took, only four were decent. It's not very easy to take pics when your out of breath and amazed at what you're seeing...

When the plane was damn near over my head, it flashed its spot light right on me. I couldn't believe it, but I had witnesses.

Anyhoo, here's the pics. Keep in mind I forgot to zoom in, in the first two pics.

when did you say you took the pictures? can you explain why these pictures show they were taken last year.....can you take a picture of something right now - like your screen and upload w/out changing file names....this will show if your camera is fubard and allow you to fix it....

Date Time = 2011-06-27 06:13:49
Date Time = 2011-06-27 06:13:54
Date Time = 2011-06-27 06:15:07
Date Time = 2011-06-27 06:15:23

and you are saying that a C130 in the daytime put a spotlight directly on YOU? can you explain this further and why a C130 would put a spotlight on you and where exactly did this spotlight originate from (part of plane)...

I see no reason a C130 would spotlight a civilian located amongst trees.....

further....why it was so low? probably doing touch and goes...no need to get high altitude....

also lots of C130s flying around for the states that are on fire.....im seeing them daily....

edit on July 4th 2012 by greeneyedleo because: (no reason given)

I'm very sorry to re-quote your whole post, but I haven't figured out this whole interweb thingy yet...

Yes, I'll take a picture of the screen, to prove I'm not lying.(I have no clue why someone would make up a story like this).. Just give me a couple minutes, I have to walk next door and get my camera.( My business is next door to my house) Yes, I'll snap a couple pics to prove that too.

I was told it was a C-130, I have no clue if it is or not. My Dad, Uncle, two good friends and my ole lady were standing there with me. They all have knowledge of aircraft's and told me what it was... I was in awe of the thing and thought to share what I was seeing on ATS.

As for the light, I don't know. We watched the plane do two circles around us and I remembered how everyone says "pics or it didn't happen".... I ran inside, grabbed my camera and started taking pics. They did two more figure eights right over us with me taking pics, maybe they saw me? For those that say they don't have spot lights, maybe it wasn't a C-130? All I know is a big ole spot light was pointed directly at me, didn't seem like anything malicious and I just assumed that they saw me taking pics of them and that was their way of saying high.. Don't know...

Why was it so low, you ask??? How in the heck would I know? I don't even know what kind of plane it is now...

I guess I should have titled thread, "Hey, a really cool military plane just flew over my house at a VERY low altitude and it was pretty cool to watch, so I snapped a few pics for y'all"......

Oh yeah, Give me aprox. five minutes to go get my camera, take pics, put them on photo bucket and post them here...

Not sure why your seeing them so low in your area, but up here in a small town i used to live in i would see this a lot. Usually it was soldiers doing practice jumps and sometime they would drop large cargo boxes from the planes. never saw a spotlight coming from them though.