Clayton Bigsby

Exactly. Yeah the picture in the BBC article is clearly a Flanker, but as pointed out, Syria never has operated Flankers before. They do have Fulcrums and Fencers, but that's not in the pic (obviously). This is the image I'd seen screen captured from video... Seems anybody posts whatever photos to their news articles, if you google "Turkey shoots down Syrian" you see pics of MiG-21s, Su-27s, MiG-29s, L-39s, Su-22s, Mi-8s...go figure. Seems the Syrian Fulcrum fleet has gotten more involved...videos have lots of 'Allahu Akhbar' going on as normal, but still impressive imagery. First link is a strafing run pointed right at the camera... https://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b36_1395944414 https://www.liveleak.com/view?i=15e_1396010090

After listening this part was accurate. That wasn't, and I'd been told what I shared. I didn't hear anybody say or do anything. Unless there was some part of the tape that got redacted but it sounds like it's all there. Wonder if there was any question over the approach freq prior to the handoff to tower. Not sure how it could be a deev. Not that it's the transitioning helicopter's fault in any way, but kinda wish he'd said 'why is SWA landing here instead of at Branson?' over the radio. I'm guessing he was focused on his flying. Also wonder why tower didn't visually identify and monitor his incoming aircraft. Kind of hard to believe it's a known area of poor approach control radar service that's also non-radar for the field. Bad combo.

Read it was a MiG-23 that was downed. Curious that a media crew was there to report and show the explosion live.

Spoke to someone in the know about this today - the incident occurred in a known area of poor service/'dead zone' in Springfield Approach's coverage. Apparently the Branson contract tower at the correct intended airport was in fact manned, but had no DBRITE (radar display) in the cab, a non-radar tower-only facility. However the controller on position noticed SWA's going to the wrong airport, was on the tower freq trying to do something about it, and I guess SWA landed where they did anyway...so supposedly the blame went onto the pilot as a pilot deviation. With it being a poor service area maybe it's not so smart to have the tower be non-radar, there are small pattern-only type radars that can be installed to solve thpse issues, but those cost money and at this point I imagine the issue will be fixed with ADS-B or some other NexGen shit.

Wg/CC made GO too.

Went to college with Jason. Awesome.

You mean the ones about to be getting filled with gravel? Those are the efficient ones, and they chose to keep the shitty ones? One thing I've wondered...what went into the decision process to put a missile where. Obviously there were certain parameters/criteria that had to be satisfied, it's just you drive by sites from time to time and wonder "why there?" Example...the one in Monarch, coming back down the hills from Showdown...up in the Little Belts and completely away from much of anything else, next missile (and obvious cluster) is miles away near the Sluice Boxes State Park. Just an odd location. Kind of wonder how the process went too...farmer gets a knock on their door, dudes in suits saying "hey we've surveyed, and we'd like to put this instrument of nuclear death in your field, is that cool?" Just interesting all around.

Huh, well no idea then. Without the tapes I got nothin.

Answer is, it depends. Any controller speaking to an aircraft has a responsibility to make sure it goes where it's supposed to, as I mentioned in the other thread, whether it's a Tower controller or an Approach guy. From what I can tell, Branson's tower is a contract tower, which means any Approach control services are conducted off-site in Springfield, or by Kansas City Center. Center approach services are usually only done late at night, taking over for approach facilities that close for the night (if they're not 24 hour ops) and generally are one at a time operations, as depending on terrain and type and location of the emitter center radars are optimized for higher altitudes and don't do so well for lower altitudes. Additionally they have a much slower refresh rate, about 10 seconds per full 360ª sweep. Anyway. If whichever facility the pilots were talking to was still open, then yeah this is very bad for whomever was working the aircraft. But from what I can see on airfield info for https://airnav.com/airport/KBBG, Tower hours are 0700-2100, which were the same as my previous tower. If the tower was closed, then most likely the frequency becomes a CTAF/UNICOM and there'd be no one on-frequency to observe the wrong track and issue any warnings or guidance. Usually at night Approach or Center frequency changes (ships) the aircraft to Tower 15 miles out or so, sometimes more esp if it's slow...and other facilities don't have ready access to neighboring facilities' frequencies, so if Approach or Center shipped the aircraft they wouldn't have a ready way of issuing correction, short of transmitting on Guard. I did see a media report yesterday that someone in ATC did attempt to warn SWA, but there was no detail (typical). Air carriers are supposed to monitor Guard, but if some guys are having full fucking conversations over Guard (happens all the time!) then it's effectively com-jammed and useless. All it takes is one or two guys to monopolize the frequency. Finally facilities do have portable, tunable radios however they're limited in range. It all depends on what time SWA landed, I'm too lazy to look it up, but I'd say there's a decent chance BBG's tower might have been closed, and if so there's nobody to warn them. Maybe Springfield or Kansas City were trying to warn them on Guard, but obviously they didn't hear either from low altitude/poor reception, other people dominating Guard, the radios turned off, distractions in the cockpit, etc. Finally...for places open, yes there's phraseology for an aircraft inbound that's not in sight: CTRD means Certified Tower Radar Display.

Fortunately it's a BRAC'd field (Malmstrom) so the only aircraft in the pattern there are Breckey and his crew in their Hueys, at least until the MANG starts flying there with their Hercs. Still, an aircraft landing there would be bad...the runway is closed, there's stuff out there periodically and the Security Forces guys would flip out.

Phew, dispatcher. I'm glad it wasn't a controller on our Flight Deck Training, although even with that I wonder if our program is in jeopardy, it's pretty useful to see the other side.

It's our job. Pretty fucking embarassing when a plane on your frequency, on your watch that you've cleared to land on a specific runway at your airport, goes somewhere else it wasn't supposed to. Presumably you have a radar display somewhere in your tower cab where you can follow your aircraft's descent, as well as a couple giant fucking windows to look outside and look for your airplane. Not a whole lot of excuses to offer if you're not using those. A plane lands gear-up, it's somewhat on the tower controller for not noticing and alerting the pilot. Likewise for wrong-airport, wrong-runway landings. I work in a city with an AFB at the opposite side of the city, a nice long SAC runway even. All summer long, with good weather when most inbound aircraft are on a visual approach, aircraft call the first field they see in sight and it's pretty commonly the wrong one - I'd say at least once or twice a week there's somebody going to the wrong field and I have to break them off, climb back above the MVA and turn towards the right airport. In this case about the only thing potentially saving the IAB controllers is that the Atlas aircraft was lined up for the correct runway on heading, and rapidly dumped altitude to go to Jabara. Most radar displays don't update that quickly, and I'm guessing the controller didn't see the rapid drop in altitude readout with little relative change in aircraft path. However, that didn't stop the controller from sounding like a retard on the tapes, esp in the ensuing lat/long debate with the crew post-landing. Ugh.

So if the -10 gets nixed and the -46 replaces all the -135s, what are they going to do if there's another fleetwide grounding for something catastrophic? It happened with the C-141 back in the day, and that's one of the big reasons the C-5 is still around and the C-5M even got funded instead of relying solely on the C-17. Look I know shit's expensive but the loss of redundancy or excess capacity is going to bite the US in the ass eventually

https://alert5.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/141102q3io03rbdvrq2yrq.jpg Not stealth (yet), but Chinese Blackhawk ripoff flew. Wonder if they'll incorporate the stealth tech they got from the Pakis.

Lynndie England getting knocked up downrange is proof of Army weiner lack of discretion.

Hey, if you want to retire to a foreign tropical country, retire to the big island in Hawaii. You can find cheap shit on the Kohala and Hamakua coastlines. You can even have some guns...

Recently on the no fun list. They were all illegal features, then were made legal by the 10-rd fixed magazine and 'bullet button' tool-required mag release, then recently made illegal again. So glad to be out of CA and not have to worry about the knee-jerk effect. So...how long until FrankenFeinstein starts back at it again?

It might have more to do with long-term orders and dual billeting. There's a provision for those on long-term orders to help out people who don't live in the immediate commuting area (whatever that definition is), where BAH is paid for the home of record, and billeting is paid for around the base/activation area. Since base billeting usually kicks people off-base with a non-A letter, and off-base hotels get expensive after more than a week or two, it is considerably cheaper for the AF for the individual to rent out a furnished apartment or house or something like that. Since you're technically TDY the entire time, you get per diem as mentioned...at even $30 a day it adds up over the months. You could see how people would want to jump onboard and how it could be abused.

Well Great Falls or Helena would be a lot closer and a lot less shitty choice of towns driving from Calgary than Butte. And all along I-15. But I hear ya. Hey, you could join the legions of Albertans buying all their shit here in Great Falls!

Why? It used to happen all the time, with -135s out of Incirlik. We (C-17)'d be heavy going in or out and needed the support, or a pit stop somewhere.

I'm just curious why the fuck you'd want to go to Butte?

I imagine it also has to do with less ass-pain/red tape for cargo movements. Ref Turkey and how they were. I'd also guess A/R support for airlift between Afgh. and Ramstein/Spang.

Yeah I think it used to be different, that number definitely sounds familiar. I believe the classes were revised recently when the 'Super' category was created, previously A380 and An-225 aircraft were considered Larges. But it's plain as day in the 7110.65 aircraft specifications index at 300,000 lbs.

ATC guy here. Any aircraft with a possible max gross takeoff weight of 300,000 lbs or more is considered a heavy regardless of payload. It's a wake turbulence thing, more separation has to be provided for smaller aircraft behind a heavy. For wake turbulence aircraft are broken into a couple categories, Small, Small Plus, Large, Heavy and Super (A380 and the An-225 are the only two in this category for now). It all depends on possible MGTW.

I talked at length to a MT ANG Mx guy this last weekend, and apparently there is an influx of money coming along with the mission change that will buy new facilities like hangar space to house C-130s, additions to their ops building, etc. Supposedly there should be an aircraft or two arriving from LRF soon to help orient personnel, but most people should be at the schoolhouse this fall and winter and hopefully there will be enough back and aircraft on hand to start some flying in the late winter/spring timeframe. It's gonna be a ghost town around the airport for awhile. We have some of the transition schedules up in the tower and it's been a bit of a kick in the balls. The slowdown in flying from the F-15s (used to push twice a day, now just one go) has affected our training a fair bit since it was one of the few things we could reliably plan for. As for the Super Es...field elevation at GTF is 3680, and I've seen it as high as I think 97 this summer. Launched an MD-88 today and watched him eat easily 9000 to 9500 ft of a 10,502 ft long runway...so temperature and weight can be an issue. Is the heat comment an air conditioning thing, or an aircraft performance thing?