Message posted by gordy on February 02, 2010 at 8:48:31 PST:
What is fun to hypothesize is this: Traditionally civilian aircraft, when going to an uncontrolled airport, will file an IFR clearance to the nearest airport with an instrument approach, then cancel IFR and hope for visual conditions to their ultimate destination. If conditions are IMC, they declair a missed approach and go back to approach control for a resolution. But what if the conditions at TKM are IMC? I'm sure this happenes often, considering all the flight operations there. We must theorize that TKM has several instrument approaches that aren't published to the public. If this is the case, they would use outlying airports and published fixes like an outer marker or approach fix on an ILS, for example. I would suspect they are using GPS quite a bit. But considering GPS is vulnerable to things like Chinese missles, etc. they probably have several ground base systems that mimic GPS. Thus all the odd antennas and towers we see on the hillsides around the range. This puts a twist on the purpose of the cammo dudes, if you think about it. Rather than just trying to keep us from seeing something skunky, perhaps they are more worried about protecting a life saving approach and departure system that is used daily. Hmmm. While we're at it, does anyone remember hearing missed approaches to Groom on the scanner? They would most likely return to Nellis Approach (sic) for instructions.
In Reply to: Re: Janet b1900 going to KTKM???? posted by gordy on February 02, 2010 at 8:33:40 PST:
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