More Fallon

They got so many aircraft in here to drool over. One of my favorites--an oldie but a true classic, the North American F-86 Sabre Jet:

If I could have one to fly out of here, it'd be the F-86. Chuck Yeager described it as the last jet that handled like a high performance piston-engine fighter.

Then there's my other favorite, the Northrop F-5 Freedom Fighter, built mainly for export but used at Fallon in a training role to simulate aggressor aircraft. It was said that a capable pilot in one of these could still take on an F-15 or F-16 pilot and win.

And here's something you don't see every day...an F-16 in NAVY colors.

And here's a Lockheed S-3 Viking, aka "the War Hoover".

And a Northrop Grumman E-2 Hawkeye.

And of course there is an F-18 here too.

Several F-18's, in fact. And not all of the static displays.

It was a great day to be alive out there.

Up, up and away!

So this morning, I turned the Lair and it's canine denizens over to the house/dog sitter, gathered up Proud Hillbilly, and flew off to the northwest. We both have family up in the Detroit area so it made sense to travel up together to visit them.

The flight usually goes as smooth as pie, but this time, the gremlins came out right after take-off. First I lost my airspeed indicator, and then, despite talking to my departure airport on both radios without difficulty, I noticed after a bit that it was suspiciously quiet out over the mountains, even for a week-day. The intercom between us was working, but I couldn't hear any other traffic, not even AWOS or ASOS broadcasts. So I set down at the closest airport that looked like it had a shop--the Joseph A. Hardy Airport in Connellsville, PA--and enlisted the help of the field mechanic to troubleshoot the problems. Fortunately he was willing to help me out despite having a plane up on jacks in his hangar already, and it took us about ten minutes to trace down a loose plug on the radio where the headset jacks linked in. I was broadcasting just fine, but I couldn't hear anything until we found and fixed that. The airspeed indicator came back right and proper after a bit of pitot tube probing with a length of wire; something probably got lodged in there on take-off because it's never been the least bit troublesome before. So we were back on course, albeit running even later than we had been.

A windmill ridge, west of Cumberland, MD.

Somewhere in Pennsylvania: Cool quarry with a massive portal to what is probably a fascinating underground space.

Here's a towboat on the Monongahela River.

Interesting old building complex in Fremont, OH.

Bridges across the Maumee River, south of Toledo.

Maumee River in Toledo, looking out onto Lake Erie.

Back in 1835-36, the State of Ohio and Michigan Territory staged a nearly bloodless war over the strip of land between this river and the present-day Michigan border. Ohio was granted the land by President Andrew Jackson (likely because Ohio was a state and had voting delegates and Michigan, a territory, did not) and Michigan was given the Upper Peninsula as a "consolation prize". My take is that Michigan actually won, both because Ohio had to keep that worthless chunk of Toledo and because the Upper Peninsula was soon discovered to be rich in timber, iron and copper. Suck on that, Ohio!

Here's downtown Toledo, and the stadium where their famous minor-league team plays. Anyone care to guess the team?

That's right, M*A*S*H fans--the Toledo Mudhens!

I shot landings at both Toledo Express Airport and Suburban Toledo Airport (actually in Michigan, just across the border) and then it was north towards our destination airport, with just a quick flight over Willow Run Airport, location for an airshow this week-end. (Coincidence? NOT!!!)

Look--A C-17 is already there.

And here's a B-24 Liberator and a Beechcraft AT-11 bomber.

Let's zoom in a bit on that B-24, "Diamond Lil", of the Commemorative Air Force.

Look, Ma--no top turret!

And last but not least, a lone two-seat F-16 belonging to the Thunderbirds is already there.

The rest of the team will be in this week-end.

A few minutes later, we were on the ground and the day's fun was done. It wasn't my quickest flight, at almost 4.5 hours, but it beats driving or waiting around at the commercial airports for TSA to feel you up while anything valuable gets swiped out of your luggage. Plus, PH and I both flew armed so muslim terrorists with bombs in their underwear were no threat to this aircraft.

It was a good day.

Boneyard tour, Pt. 2--now with more spraylat!

AMARG's got it all, from the big to the small! Look, they got C-5 Galaxys just like the ones that fly out of my home field. In fact, this is where that squadron gets many of it's repair parts.

They got B-1 Bombers, too. Quite a few. And for some reason, every one of them is missing it's nose.

They have F-18s in storage, too, mostly older F-18A models since those have been replaced by the later F-18E and F-18F Super Hornets.

But you know who still flies A models? The Blue Angels. And this is where they get their replacement planes, and where their planes are returned to when they put too much time on them.

Look--lawn darts! Oh, wait--those are General Dynamic F-16s.

And there's even a 747 with something on it's nose.

Hey--they even have a two-seater!

Yep--that's the YAL-1, the Boeing 747 modified to carry and fire an airborne laser system capable of intercepting missiles in flight.

It actually worked, but it's range was too short to be of much actual use. Stil, the technology continues to develop now that YAL-1 has proven that it can be done.

And what's that I see behind the YAL-1? O-2As!!!

Sorry for the crummy long-distance shots. The bus driver would not go back there even when I begged, and for some reason, they won't let us off the bus. It's like they're afraid that we're going to steal a plane or something.

Of course if I was going to steal a plane from here, it'd probably be an O-2. Not that I would or anything...just saying.

Supposedly there are contractors who can and will come into this yard and bid on certain aircraft like this that the Air Force no longer needs. I must find one. An O-2 fresh out of the boneyard would be just too cool.

These days, much talk is heard in Washington DC about a need for airborne tankers. I have to point out that there are quite a few KC-135 tankers in here.

As my dad used to say: "You don't need new toys. You've got plenty of perfectly good ones already."

Of course if Putin doesn't mind himself, we might want to pull old 63-052 out of mothballs.

The tour guide forgot to mention this gem, but I recognized it off in the distance as an EC-135 early-warning aircraft, code-name: "Looking Glass". These served as emergency airborne command-and-control centers capable of controlling our nuclear forces during wartime and during the Cold War, one was in the air constantly, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, just in case the White House got knocked out by a surprise attack. They don't fly around the clock any more, but apparently there's still a few of them in our nation's hall closet.

Gotta run out for a bit now but check back later--still more preserved goodness to come!