Re: Nellis F15C crash

Message posted by lone wolf on March 25, 2005 at 19:31:38 PST:

Generally they give the location in one manner, usually a magnetic vector and nautical mile distance from the nearest VOR. If you have a program on your PC, you need to set the bearing to automatic magnetic and the miles to nautical. If you want to nit-pick, you use the magnetic variation on the FAA sectional, which will be just slightly different than the computer generated value. Get the location of the VOR from a resource such as www.airnav.com. Doing all this, I converted 276 degrees and a distance of 18 nautical miles from the MMM vortac to be
N36 52 10.7 W114 37 49.7

This particular notam gave the location in both methods, i.e. also a simple lat/lon of
365300N/1143800W which is really
N36 53 00 W114 38 00

The MMM vor is at N36.7692789 W114.2774700.

Last years F15 looked like a nasty hike but an easy drive. This one looks like a nasty drive but an easy hike. Your best bet is if you are local, drive the road this weekend and you can eyeball the military security at the plane. Then you don't have to wonder about the location.

Note that the two locations I gave are about a mile apart. I suspect they round off the seconds in reporting the location.

Last years crash also had two locations not matching identically. They are
N36 58 16.0 W114 39 42.0
N36 46 09.4 W114 16 38.9
Also about a mile apart. I do the conversion with a mapping software, but I bet there is some utility where you can just plug in the numbers and do the conversion. However, once the military pulls out, you should be able to see the road they created to get to the crash site.

I tried to reach at F18 crash on the other side of the highway. It crashed towards the end of 2004. The road deteriorated pretty badly within two miles of the site, so I didn't pursue it any further. Driving off-road on the Moapa Indian reservation is quite different from driving those well used roads around Area 51. And even some of those road are no longer passible due to the erosion from the heavy rains.

In Reply to: Re: Nellis F15C crash posted by Lex Ramirez on March 25, 2005 at 18:49:23 PST:

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