Message posted by lone wolf on May 31, 2005 at 0:01:00 PST:

The trail up the hill is getting quite bad thanks to more ATV use. I really wish you ATV users would stay off the hiking paths.

Other than a late night visit by the security helicopter (a bit before midnight), nothing exciting happened at the base. The chopper flew behind Tikaboo, perhaps to count the cars using its FLIR.

Friday morning, a pilot flying a F117a using a "cinco" callsign did SFO training at Groom Lake. The radio traffic mirrored the procedure explained in the Edwards manual, i.e. using the term "high key" and "low key". [Seek page 12 in the link) Thanks to Aeroframe for figuring this out and Peter for the use of those image stabilized binoculars which made a visual ID of the plane quite easy.

At this point, I suspect this F117a is based at Groom Lake, else the simulated flame out training would have probably been done at a more conventional base. Previously, I photographed a F117a on the runway and noted that it is hangared at the base.

The trip down from Tikaboo was done using what may become a new olympic sport which I will call Camping Pad Luge. I think the ultimate solution regarding the poor condition of the trail is to make a new one to the left of the old trail for the portion of the trail where the loose shale dominates.

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