Message posted by Homersonic on May 13, 2005 at 19:04:08 PST:

FYI: The day after that Cessna buzzed federally restricted airspace in DC, a few A-10 Thunderbolts (grey, unarmed) flew over Ann Arbor, MI heading west-southwest (I think they were actually following I-94) in formation.

We have a rather large air corridor over Lake Erie and Lake Ontario as the Air Force finds the open water rather convenient for cross-country transit of "sensitive" aircraft from Wright-Patterson going transatlantic...

But around here, we see F-16's from the ANG base at Selfridge, near Mount Clemens, MI (just northeast of Detroit), and Detroit Metro is the 11th-busiest airport in the world, so the airspace is very crowded over Metropolitan Detroit, both with traffic for Metro, City Airport, Flint, and our little dinky airport in Ann Arbor but...Seeing two aircraft that are NOT based around here, in crowded airspace--over the Ann Arbor airport, I believe--flying low and slow (I'd say they were only 1,500 feet up, and as I grew up 7 miles north of Metro, I can vouch for my accuracy) and in formation, struck me as odd, especially given the timing of the "incident" in DC.

That being said, our F-16s tend to fly armed (2 sidewinders on the wing stations) and fueled (three drop tanks), and these guys were bare. But the fact that two unfamiliar military aircraft were flying rather...obviously...over a busy Metropolitan area on an international border a day after the DC incident struck me as somewhat unusual.

It's possible that the A-10's were either in transit from overseas or going home after taking part in the exercises our F-16's take part in exercises over Lake Superior (they draw beads on lake freighters, which annoys the freighter captains to no end!), but these boys seemed to be there for a show of force--and to that end, I suppose I should note that there are no major sporting events going on in Ann Arbor that require a fly-by, unless the NCAA Water Polo championships get fly-bys, or they really think that Pistons fans are *that* unruly.

Did anybody else notice an increase in military traffic over their area over the last few days, or see aircraft that aren't generally stationed in your geographic region?

Just curious.

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