Message posted by lone wolf on August 16, 2004 at 0:51:21 PST:
Most of these bases has museums at one time, but after 9/11 they were shut down for security reasons. [Not that somebody would sign in at the gate claiming to want to go to the museum, but then take a SGT (self guided tour) of the base. No, that would be wrong!] Prior to 9/11, all you had to do was show a DL and proof of insurance, and you were in. Of course, it helped to do this during the hours when the museum was open. The Bay Area didn't exactly do well during the BRAC, which may have something to do with Bush 41 not carrying a single county in the area. Alameda was shut down. Mare Island history. Thus, there is nothing to watch other than Moffett, which isn't exactly much of a base anymore since the P-3s left. It's now a federal air field. Should you want to watch the occasional F/A-18 make a pit stop at Moffet, take shoreline north until you hit the "dog park". Park at the dog park, and head east until you reach the border of Moffet. You can see planes take off, but bring a portable seat and a water bottle or two. I don't have a waypont recorded, but I think the fenceline is at N37 25 35.3 W122 04 04.7, less that 8/10th of a mile from the runway. Travis is still active. There is a spot on the north side of the base that gets pretty close to the runway. It is near where the Tacamos are parked. Travis has some activity, assuming you like to see C-17s and C-5s. I've watched them from Mt. Diablo with binoculars. Beale really isn't in the bay area. There are quite a few hills nearby, so I suspect you could watch from about 7 miles away no problem. [I've only checked the topo, i.e. I haven't done this in person.] That sounds like a long distance, but it's nearly twice as good as snooping on the TTR and nearly 4 times closer than Area 51 to Tikaboo. Regarding spook stuff, there is Lawrence Livermore Labs Site 300, a very remote testing facility for high explosives used in nukes. There are also other places to get in trouble, such as the foreign consulates on Green Street in San Francisco, the Bohemian Grove, and others. Name your poison. ;-)
In Reply to: Beale AFB posted by Andrew Howe on August 15, 2004 at 19:38:33 PST:
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