titan said:

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Stat Monitor Repairman said:

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Just tell me which way to look so I can stare directly into the blast.

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Never understood that staring bit. Why would you want to be brain burned? What if you survived?

Now wanting to be as close as to where the missile hits, that can make sense!

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Save some for the rest of us dude

Rapier108 said:

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CanyonAg77 said:

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No heavy bombers flying, at least from what the site shows.

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I don't think I've ever seen a bomber on ADS-B

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I saw a B-52 earlier tonight. It was flying back to Barksdale.

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Cool. As I said above, I'm not surprised that you can occasionally see them, but it seem to be rare. ADS-B is on when the want to be seen, mainly for traffic avoidance. If they are practicing tactics, probably off.

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How is your daughter? Kicking ass still I'd assume.

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Yes, thanks for asking. She recently got roped into a non-flying (computer sim) exercise TDY at Kirtland. Sucked for her, but gave us and her grandmother a chance to see her.

So, there have been a couple of questions about landing at places other than military airfields. Not a military guy, only a private pilot, the father of a military pilot, and an aviation buff, but here are my insights/experiences.

You've been given some good answers in previous posts. As mentioned, fighters generally have pretty short legs, so they aren't going very far. A 'tanker' drag is pretty common, and they pass over the Amarillo area pretty regularly. A flight of fighters will follow a tanker cross country, refueling as they go. MFP did this going to Red Flag at Nellis, and her squadron did it over the Atlantic on a TDY to Europe.

I've related the apocryphal story of the squadron on a tanker drag overseas, where the wives were riding in the passenger section of the KC-135. (Pre-female fighter pilots) Wives decided to give their hubbys a thrill, and as their man slotted up to refuel, they would go to the boomer station, and flash their boobs. Nothing said on the radio, just a nice surprise. Then they felt sorry for the lone bachelor in the squadron, and the CO's wife decided she would take one for the team, and she would flash him. Said pilot apparently took several tries to hook up to the boom, and really couldn't say on the radio what was distracting him.

Some airfields (Kirtland AFB/Albuquerque, Killen/Robert Grey AAF) are joint military/commercial. Lots of others (Amarillo) are former military bases with attractive facilities, such as long runways and/or good locations.

We get a LOT of military traffic at Amarillo, especially Army and Navy. The local aviation spotters love it. Long runway, halfway between the coasts, FBO with a lot of experience with military aircraft. I believe that proper fueling is important, but the availability of 'start carts' is a plus, so that aircraft don't have to depend on internal batteries to start.

Funny thing is that we don't get a lot of Air Force fighter traffic stopping, though we get lots of touch and goes, and instrument approaches from trainers, as we are close to training bases at Vance, Altus, and Sheppard AFBs. When MFP stopped by while ferrying an F-16 from Hill AFB to Shaw AFB, she got a lot of attention, as F-16s are rare at Amarillo. Female pilot also got people's curiosity up.

However, when she left, she had a pressurization failure. She was going to have to park the plane overnight, and could not leave it at Amarillo. She diverted to Wichita Falls (Sheppard AFB), parked it, and some poor Air Police guy had to guard it until maintenance could fly some folks over to fix it. I've seen trainers and even cargo planes overnight at Amarillo, but they don't leave fighters on civilian airfields without security, if at all possible.

Along those lines, when she did a FAIP tour, they generally did not do extremely long XC flights. I think the guidance was to land at an airport or base no more than 4-6 hours away by car, so you could return easily if the plane broke.

Finally, I've seen a few news releases where they have taken fighters and fuel trucks to remote airfields as part of a SHTF exercise. Basically teaching pilots how to help refuel and rearm their aircraft if their main base was disabled in wartime.


If you do the Facebook thing, here is the Amarillo Plane Spotter page. They catch some really unusual aircraft coming by, as well as the Ospreys and Cobra helicopter upgrade (stupidly called Viper) that are produced in Amarillo.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/128291860579641

Just wanted to chime in that since moving near the Air Force Base in Abilene I have rarely found planes takeoff from this base show up on ADS. Occasionally a C-130 will show up but I don't believe I've ever seen the bombers that are coming and going all the time show up on ADS. Fighter jets takeoff once in a while I suppose from other bases and I never see them on ADS but I do see trainer Jets and I have seen an AWAC that was circling between here and San Angelo that had came from Wichita Falls that was doing touch and go's show up on ADS. As I stated I've never seen any of the B-1's ever show up that I remember . Just watched two fighter jets get up and out of here in a hurry and they also did not show up.

CanyonAg77 said:

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So, there have been a couple of questions about landing at places other than military airfields. Not a military guy, only a private pilot, the father of a military pilot, and an aviation buff, but here are my insights/experiences.

You've been given some good answers in previous posts. As mentioned, fighters generally have pretty short legs, so they aren't going very far. A 'tanker' drag is pretty common, and they pass over the Amarillo area pretty regularly. A flight of fighters will follow a tanker cross country, refueling as they go. MFP did this going to Red Flag at Nellis, and her squadron did it over the Atlantic on a TDY to Europe.

I've related the apocryphal story of the squadron on a tanker drag overseas, where the wives were riding in the passenger section of the KC-135. (Pre-female fighter pilots) Wives decided to give their hubbys a thrill, and as their man slotted up to refuel, they would go to the boomer station, and flash their boobs. Nothing said on the radio, just a nice surprise. Then they felt sorry for the lone bachelor in the squadron, and the CO's wife decided she would take one for the team, and she would flash him. Said pilot apparently took several tries to hook up to the boom, and really couldn't say on the radio what was distracting him.

Some airfields (Kirtland AFB/Albuquerque, Killen/Robert Grey AAF) are joint military/commercial. Lots of others (Amarillo) are former military bases with attractive facilities, such as long runways and/or good locations.

We get a LOT of military traffic at Amarillo, especially Army and Navy. The local aviation spotters love it. Long runway, halfway between the coasts, FBO with a lot of experience with military aircraft. I believe that proper fueling is important, but the availability of 'start carts' is a plus, so that aircraft don't have to depend on internal batteries to start.

Funny thing is that we don't get a lot of Air Force fighter traffic stopping, though we get lots of touch and goes, and instrument approaches from trainers, as we are close to training bases at Vance, Altus, and Sheppard AFBs. When MFP stopped by while ferrying an F-16 from Hill AFB to Shaw AFB, she got a lot of attention, as F-16s are rare at Amarillo. Female pilot also got people's curiosity up.

However, when she left, she had a pressurization failure. She was going to have to park the plane overnight, and could not leave it at Amarillo. She diverted to Wichita Falls (Sheppard AFB), parked it, and some poor Air Police guy had to guard it until maintenance could fly some folks over to fix it. I've seen trainers and even cargo planes overnight at Amarillo, but they don't leave fighters on civilian airfields without security, if at all possible.

Along those lines, when she did a FAIP tour, they generally did not do extremely long XC flights. I think the guidance was to land at an airport or base no more than 4-6 hours away by car, so you could return easily if the plane broke.

Finally, I've seen a few news releases where they have taken fighters and fuel trucks to remote airfields as part of a SHTF exercise. Basically teaching pilots how to help refuel and rearm their aircraft if their main base was disabled in wartime.


If you do the Facebook thing, here is the Amarillo Plane Spotter page. They catch some really unusual aircraft coming by, as well as the Ospreys and Cobra helicopter upgrade (stupidly called Viper) that are produced in Amarillo.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/128291860579641

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Everyone I know calls them Zulus...(I worked on the program) Yes - there is the stupid name, but no one used it...

Zulu is a great name. Easy to say, fits the model designation, and Zulus were pretty kick ass warriors.

I just can't believe no one on the naming committee spoke up and mentioned that "Viper" was already (unofficially) taken by the F-16 community

CanyonAg77 said:

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Zulu is a great name. Easy to say, fits the model designation, and Zulus were pretty kick ass warriors.

I just can't believe no one on the naming committee spoke up and mentioned that "Viper" was already (unofficially) taken by the F-16 community

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That's why we all called it Zulu...like the predecessors the Whiskey and November...

Stat Monitor Repairman said:

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Just tell me which way to look so I can stare directly into the blast.

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CanyonAg77 said:

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Zulu is a great name. Easy to say, fits the model designation, and Zulus were pretty kick ass warriors.

I just can't believe no one on the naming committee spoke up and mentioned that "Viper" was already (unofficially) taken by the F-16 community

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I severely doubt any Marine chopper pilots care what fighting falcon pilots call their plane. But a "naming committee" does sound very Air Force.

So making fun of Air Force seems pretty easy since moving here lol. We live right off runway and tell everyone that ask about our new place that the planes are overwhelming some days. Folks come for visit on weekends to see new place hoping to see some planes and most weekends it's like a ghost town…. Like not a plane all weekend sometimes and we are scratching our head asking "what kinda military we running here?!? On the other end of the spectrum we just moved from the TEMPLE area and I worked near the airport and there was a company they're located at the airport that, from the way I understood would take apaches that were in theater and do full maintenance on, test flights and send back overseas….. they since moved operation back to fort hood but still have the test pattern around temple airport. Those guys were flying all day every day weekends included and all through the night! And in addition to that all those Apaches would show up on the ADS as I would watch them periodically.

For the most part military airfields are active M-F and non-holidays. There are obviously exceptions for exercises and the role of the aircraft at each base.

And on another funny sidenote with staring into the blast comment when we were looking at this place my wife a notice that an article recently said they would be getting nuclear aircraft hear it dyass and she says "I don't know if I wanna live that close if that's gonna be happening she would be at target for sure" and I said we've lived next to Fort Hood for over 20 years so we are just going from one hot spot to another…..so on a positive note we don't need to worry about fallout! Lol

Well I guess it's all good as long as Sam Houston doesn't attack during weekend siesta

GAC06 said:

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CanyonAg77 said:

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Zulu is a great name. Easy to say, fits the model designation, and Zulus were pretty kick ass warriors.

I just can't believe no one on the naming committee spoke up and mentioned that "Viper" was already (unofficially) taken by the F-16 community

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I severely doubt any Marine chopper pilots care what fighting falcon pilots call their plane. But a "naming committee" does sound very Air Force.

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I assumed it got named by Bell Helicopter, before it ever got to anybody in Uniform. They call their new tilt rotor "Valor", and it's just a prototype

I didn't remember Apaches at Temple, but I know there used to be a group working on Hueys.

Bell is rebuilding those, too. Four blade rotor, shrouded exhaust, different chin

The more you strut and say "Marines don't care about Air Force", the more I believe they do.

So I think when AMCON first started it may have been only for hueys. They had a lot of old ones lined up on far side of airstrip. City of temple built them two nice very large hangers and the apaches had one and hueys the other. As time went on The Hueys kind of faded away probably cause they had pieced and parted as many back together as they could. Probably just wasn't enough business and the apaches basically took over the whole operation from what I understood. Then the city of Temple built a brand new guard shack with a huge fenced and paved parking lot and about the time that all got done they moved back to fort hood lol. Last I saw hangers being used for was Covid testing and city of temple take your kid to work day. I'm sure nobody at city of temple ever got fired over this debacle.

I should proof read

CanyonAg77 said:

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The more you strut and say "Marines don't care about Air Force", the more I believe they do.

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Maybe some day I'll tell you about the F-15 dudes trying to puff up to some cobra dudes at the Kadena oclub. Good for a laugh.

Sorry the fighting falcon pilots couldn't stop the "naming committee" in time.

Also I didn't say Marines don't care about Air Force although that's largely true. I said I doubt cobra pilots care that F-16 pilots feel triggered about appropriating their made up try-hard name.

No one said the AF tried to do anything about the name, nor did I say that any were triggered. Only one that seems triggered is you.

You said it was stupidly called viper and you couldn't believe it made it past the naming committee. Sorry their made up name got appropriated. It'll be ok, calm down.

You are correct, I called it stupid. Me, personally, no one else

You are the one who assumed that some old farmer in the Panhandle spoke for the Air Force, and that the naming committee was a real thing, not a rhetorical device

Who needs to calm down?

So it's 3-days later.

Is there unusual activity?

Stat Monitor Repairman said:

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So it's 3-days later.

Is there unusual activity?

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Nope.

CanyonAg77 said:

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You are correct, I called it stupid. Me, personally, no one else

You are the one who assumed that some old farmer in the Panhandle spoke for the Air Force, and that the naming committee was a real thing, not a rhetorical device

Who needs to calm down?

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You do. Take it easy with the assumptions. I teased you about the name and naming committee and I guess you're all riled up. Done here

Congrats on being able to asses the tone of a post and the poster's state of mind online. Literally the only person in the world capable of doing that. You crack me up