Re: McChord AFB Open House


Message posted by gary on June 18, 2001 at 1:04:36 PST:

I was at the Travis AFB open house. It seems the TBirds were booked elsewhere this year, so we had no headliner act. ;-)

The F117 displays are always guarded. Same with the F22. I recall they even guard a U2, but I could be wrong on that one. Todays show had a F117 solo flight, as well as a B1B. The B2 was scheduled to fly, but I never saw it. [heh heh heh]

The announcer at the show (for what it's worth) mentioned that the exhaust gases flow over the F117 body (on top) as a way of reducing it's visibility to IR. I'm not sure if that negates the idea of cool storage being needed or not.

This years Travis Air Expo had a Tacamo on display, which is a bit unusual. Travis usually has at least 3 Tacamo's on the ground, but always puts them well away from the air show crowd. [The Tacamo is really a Navy plane, but there is no Navy presence around San Francisco anymore due to base closures.]

There was a B1B on display (don't really know if it was the one that flew). The bomb bay doors were open (two bays). You really don't realize how much volume of bombs a B52 can carry compared to the B1B until you look at them side by side. However, the B1B carries bombs with a bit more punch.

Another interesting point from the anouncer was that the F117 has all its weapons internal so that they don't effect the radar image. Generally at airshows, there are no weapons on the planes (excluding the A10s, which have that "ventilator" built into them). At the flag exercises, you will notice that the planes have weapons on the wings. It would be interesting to get a photo of a F117 at a flag exercise, and see if anything is attached to the wings. [I don't know if the F117 has ever been at a flag event.]

New to the show was the private citizen military vehicle exhibit. Quite a few locals own WWII jeeps, humvees, tanks (yes tanks), and communications trucks.


In Reply to: McChord AFB Open House posted by Cyberspacejojo on June 18, 2001 at 0:32:00 PST:

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