Message posted by RoadKill on March 01, 2011 at 21:37:59 PST:
This may need a new topic, but It occured to me today that it is odd that the B-2 in question took off from Groom. My experience tells me that one doesn't just land at groom, especially if they want to take off again with any degree of confidence in many of the systems - but especially the RA material. So, they'd have had to plan for this by bringing in tons of maintnenace equipment, tools, parts, materials, etc. And, they have to have a maintenance crew who is proficient in hte airframe. There is no reason for the aircraft to be on the ground at groom . Well, except for these possibiliteis: 1. They now have full maintenance capabilities for the airframe on station at Groom and are flying missions out of there. 2. They have a robust maintenance capability at Groom for B-2s and they get necessary RAM repairs or minor other maintenance - but only to further the tests being performed. 3. There is an airframe at Groom that purports to be a B-2, but is actually an advanced test article of unkown type. It is probably housed in the "new" hangar. It is probably doing proof of concept type work with both manned and unmanned missions. (See GreatGuess discussions on the new airframe he envisions) 4. Maybe times have changed enough that they will actually allow an operational asset to hang out at groom. 5, ???? All I can say is that early-on testing emergency procedures from KEDW for catastrophic failure that required immediate descend and landing instructed the pilots to avoid the Groom runway at all costs short of aircraft distruction. We simply didn't have the maintenance capability there - and we'd rather have had to fly folks to, say Nellis, and work on the plane rather than compromise Groom. Times have changed, but still. It's odd to see a B-2 land/takeoff from Groom. I think the skies should be watched by those who live close (sorry, proximity is key). RoadKill
In Reply to: Re: Nellis AFB Range Scanner Audio File posted by Joerg (Webmaster) on February 15, 2011 at 10:59:46 PST:
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