Message posted by BoomerFrom47 on June 12, 2011 at 13:00:47 PST:
I almost landed there with an emergency once myself. F-106's used to play aggressor for Red Flag at times. I was just north of Dreamland westbound and had one chasing me at about 100' and 700 kts. He lined up for a gun shot. Just then, I got a Main Airline Overheat light plus several other caution lights. My first thought was that he really fired! The main airline on a Thud carries high pressure, high temp bleed air from the last compressor stage to a turbine just in front of the pilot's right foot that powers the utility hydraulic pump and AC generator. A leak in it is a serious emergency, because it can do major damage inside the fuselage and start a fire within a few seconds. I shut it down immediately and turned towards the closest runway, Groom Lake. Before I entered their restricted area, I determined that I had shut the line down in time and could go back to George AFB. Here's something I mentioned a while back: Two planes from my squadron just barely cut the corner by accident one day at about 100' and Mach 1.1 running away from two F-106's. They immediately received a radio call ordering them to abort the mission and land at Nellis AFB immediately. They then spent two days at Nellis being "debriefed." This was even though there was a mountain between them and Groom Lake, and they saw nothing but the ground they were busy avoiding!
In Reply to: Re: Who Here actually Works or Worked at Area 51? posted by RickB on June 11, 2011 at 16:36:11 PST:
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