Lightning sighting

I got a picture of my 2 year old grandson sitting in the cockpit of an A-10 and holding an inert 30mm yellow tipped shell. The pilot gave my grandson the demo shell and his picture is mounted on a plaque with the shell. Last month I took my grandson and 12 year old grandaughter on a 4 hour train ride. My grandaughter had never seen a train. I have been trying to find a phone booth to show her, but no luck finding one.

Today I saw an F-35 DEMO flight. It is by far the most manuverable airplane I have ever seen. It did things that I would think that no airplane could do let alone a jet fighter. After the F-35 vfinished its DEMO it did a heritage flight with a P-51 and an A-10. WOW. 

Yesterday, westbound on Interstate 10 between Phoenix and Quartzsite, near where I saw the F-35s last month, saw two aircraft, low on the deck and moving fast. Flying maybe at most 150’ AGL, about a half mile of separation horizontally, and the farther one flying lead. I’ve seen plenty of choppers flying like this, but never quite so fast. What were they? Ospreys! Probably heading to Yuma... sweet!!

Yup, thats an Osprey. I've encounter those in the foothills before while hunting and they are quite loud. They make a very distinctive heavy chop sound. Pretty cool stuff.

BK

BrandonK

Yup, thats an Osprey. I've encounter those in the foothills before while hunting and they are quite loud. They make a very distinctive heavy chop sound. Pretty cool stuff.

BK

 

Ive seen them a few times before flying into Los Alamitos, or other local areas. And yeah, they do have a distinct sound. But this is the first time that Ive seen them flying tactically. And the sure do move quickly. Faster than what I’ve seen Chinooks, Blackhawks, Cobras, or Little Birds do.

When I was a kid living in the Dallas/Ft Worth area in the 80's, Carswell AFB was the home for SAC. We lived in the flight path of one of the main runways.  There was always a B-52, F-16, F-15, etc... flying high overhead.  And when the annual airshow came through, you'd see Blue Angels, Migs, an F-117 and all manner of vintage birds fly over coming in for the weekend.  Man those were some fun days! 

We get Osprey's from Mildenhall often flying low and your not wrong about them being loud. Thats a nice photo there Carlos.

Still have not seen any F-35's around here yet though.

Boise is on the short list for the F35's and I really hope we get it. There are a bunch of nay sayers that don't want it around. Apparently they forgot what it was like with the F4's and they got used to the A-10. You get used to them pretty fast and then you don't even notice them. If I can not even hear F111's when I lived on base then they can get used F35's easy, they are no where near as loud at takeoff.

BK