Mayday
I thought that was the recline!
A random post on another thread reminded me of something I've mulled over in the past.
Over the last ten years I've occasionally gone on expeditions - solo and accompanied - into one of my favorite retreats, the Sierra Nevadas. I've almost exclusively stuck to the King's Canyon and Sequoia National Parks (Yosemite is like Disneyland these days, soon it'll be like San Fransisco). During these blissful forays, I'm inevitably treated to a private airshow or three or five by what's become over the years quite a variety of jets. Upwards of ten times a day I hear the sharp reports of the sonic booms, and several times I've seen them subsonic flyng ridiculously low through canyons such as the Kern or even King's Canyon itself. The best are some brief but dramatic and thrilling dogfights at medium altitudes (maybe 15,000 MSL). What I'm wondering is where they hail from. Originally I thought maybe Nellis, since the first I saw were what I thought were F-22's (back in '96, I think, which was rather exciting at the time). Later I assumed I was mistaken about the previous ID'ing since all I saw were baby Hornets. Last year, I saw what were distinctly Supers, and started assuming it was mostly training sorties from Lemoore. Then towards the end of my last trip I watched an F-16 going obviously much faster than Mach 1 pass maybe 2,000 ft or so above me (I was at about 14,500 MSL) and slightly maneuvering. One of the low level canyon flights was made I think by an F-15 in '96, though I wasn't sure since I was hastily wiping water from my eyes from the river I was swimming in.
Are there any out there that are in Lemoore right now that can throw in a few cents? Anybody else with some random insight?
Over the last ten years I've occasionally gone on expeditions - solo and accompanied - into one of my favorite retreats, the Sierra Nevadas. I've almost exclusively stuck to the King's Canyon and Sequoia National Parks (Yosemite is like Disneyland these days, soon it'll be like San Fransisco). During these blissful forays, I'm inevitably treated to a private airshow or three or five by what's become over the years quite a variety of jets. Upwards of ten times a day I hear the sharp reports of the sonic booms, and several times I've seen them subsonic flyng ridiculously low through canyons such as the Kern or even King's Canyon itself. The best are some brief but dramatic and thrilling dogfights at medium altitudes (maybe 15,000 MSL). What I'm wondering is where they hail from. Originally I thought maybe Nellis, since the first I saw were what I thought were F-22's (back in '96, I think, which was rather exciting at the time). Later I assumed I was mistaken about the previous ID'ing since all I saw were baby Hornets. Last year, I saw what were distinctly Supers, and started assuming it was mostly training sorties from Lemoore. Then towards the end of my last trip I watched an F-16 going obviously much faster than Mach 1 pass maybe 2,000 ft or so above me (I was at about 14,500 MSL) and slightly maneuvering. One of the low level canyon flights was made I think by an F-15 in '96, though I wasn't sure since I was hastily wiping water from my eyes from the river I was swimming in.
Are there any out there that are in Lemoore right now that can throw in a few cents? Anybody else with some random insight?
Yeah...that's definately one of the few times I've looked down at an airplane...