mjb123 wrote:

DaveF wrote:I'm thinking of flying out to the strip this week. Looks like it's in good shape. Any other interesting strips to try in the area? Can you land on the Racetrack playa?

What's the usual nav and comm procedures for avoiding military a/c in the Saline Valley?

All advice greatly appreciated.


Dave

I used to fly in R-2508 everyday when I was stationed in Lemoore. No Navy guys are monitoring a VHF frequency when flying there, only UHF, and most guys probably do not even know there is an air strip in Saline, only the nudie camp that is very popular to get buzzed daily.

The RAG (training squadron), has a low level syllabus consisting of 3 flights, 1 dualed up low level flight on the VR-1255 at 200' to 500' and 420 knots, a dualed up low altitude tactics flight, then a solo with an instructor chase doing the same. These flights are around the student's 13th or 14th flight in the F/A-18, so you can imagine that many are behind the power curve a bit flying down low and fast.

The typical LATT flight, at least the way I did them, would start over the Owens lake bed at 200' and follow the highway between Owens and Panimint, through Star Wars/Rainbow canyon to warm up. Then you decide to either go south to work Panimint, or north to work Saline with Panimint being preferred since it is a bit larger and require less time repositioning for the maneuvers. The maneuvers consist of jinks where you pull up to 15 to 30 degrees nose high for a period of seconds and then dive back down to recover at 200', a 100' intro, surface to air counter tactics, low level tactical formation flight, and some other maneuvers and low level flying. Once the required maneuvers are complete, most guys will just fly around down low until their fuel state forces them to knock it off and return to base. It is pretty popular to fly over the nudie camp and up the little valley to the Eureka Dunes, then pick your way over to Owens and fly south to around Lone Pine before popping up to RTB. On the dualed up flights, it is single ship, but on the students solo there will be two jets so the instructor can chase and direct and keep the student from hitting the ground.

For the Higher altitude flights, the "deck" is usually 5,000' AGL, so guys are generally higher than that. If I was flying around there in a small plane, I would probably stay below 100' or up around 4,000'. Nowhere is certain to be safe, but the absolute worst place is probably between 5,000 and 15,000, where there tends to be be a lot of vertical maneuvering, with very high vertical airspeeds and not much opportunity to look outside of the fighting engagement, or use the radar to look for other traffic.

Here is a link to the users guide for R-2508:

http://www.edwards.af.mil/shared/media/ ... 03-052.pdf

I hope this helps out someone, but please keep your head on a swivel because the jets are moving fast out there, and many times being piloted by students with very little experience.

Glidergeek wrote:Wind sock is back up strip is a bit rough but landable, Tie downs have been removed, paper log is gone. There was some massive flooding but the strip was spared. Apparently Saturday night somebody landed in the dark people at the springs were not impressed with the landing after dark. Roads in and out are reported to be very challenging.

58Skylane wrote:

Glidergeek wrote:Wind sock is back up strip is a bit rough but landable, Tie downs have been removed, paper log is gone. There was some massive flooding but the strip was spared. Apparently Saturday night somebody landed in the dark people at the springs were not impressed with the landing after dark. Roads in and out are reported to be very challenging.

Aren't the National Parks supposed to be closed during this Guv Shutdown?

macktruckfarm wrote:58Skylane,

The Saline Valley portion of the monument is not gated nor manned(womaned?). Only one car road in from the south, north, frequently not passable to cars(as like today) some other 4WD roads. Only venturesome go there, although a gentleman with a 210 and skinny tires who writes a travelogue landed, wondered why prop erosion turning around! Let's keep it this way, still wonder who would take tie downs, log?

Ed

58Skylane wrote:

macktruckfarm wrote:58Skylane,

The Saline Valley portion of the monument is not gated nor manned(womaned?). Only one car road in from the south, north, frequently not passable to cars(as like today) some other 4WD roads. Only venturesome go there, although a gentleman with a 210 and skinny tires who writes a travelogue landed, wondered why prop erosion turning around! Let's keep it this way, still wonder who would take tie downs, log?

Ed

10-4, Ed. I've been there twice. Drove in the first time from the north (damn that's a long drive!!). Second time there I flew in with Glidergeek.

But many of the other National Parks and monuments aren't manned or womened 24/7 neither. But are barricaded, coned off, and gates locked.

Hammer wrote:Lizard Lee replaced the tie-downs. Still no clue on who removed them, or why. LL says it wasn't the Park Service. Strip is in good shape, though very, very dusty since it's been graded a couple times too many by ambitious volunteers. A new paper flight log needs to be put in the can. Please remember to bring something for the springs when visiting!

cheers

hammer