This is a flight over the Eastern Washington Cascades. Get your Seattle sectional out and follow along on Visual Route 1355. How many of the lakes can you identify?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4-VHMkHEUQ

Are they on a low level rte? Are they in a MOA?

I had 2 F-18' almost T-Bone me while I was landing on a lake in Maine, scared the hell out of us! No, they were not on a low level rte nor any where near an MOA and I seriously doubt they were below 250kts, they were screaming. It was VERY close, within feet, I was PISSED, still am just thinking about it!

Keep an eye out for this low level flying on IR/VR routes as well as not on the ir routes.

[quote="G44"]Are they on a low level rte? Are they in a MOA?

VR 1355 is not in a MOA but the 4 digits indicate the entire segment is under 1500 feet AGL.

More about military training routes http://www.cfinotebook.net/notebook/nat ... ing-routes

I was 800’ AGL over Rimrock Lake going into tieton state park and one passed underneath me at a high rate of speed. Startled me pretty good to say the least. I was on frequency for Tieton, but heard no radio transmissions from them.

Rod

The slower we go, the faster (rate of turn) we turn. Even at 90 degrees of bank, he wasn't turning at a very fast rate. Minimum maneuverability available unless he zoomed up to increase altitude (vertical space available) and then turned at a slower speed and faster rate.

The only maneuverability advantage he has missing us slow movers is that we don't have time to turn into him, or away! If he sees us he can miss us. If we see him first, we can out maneuver him.

Army helicopter vs jet fighter training was to continuously maneuver toward him to make him increase his dive angle. When he realizes he needs standoff, we try to hide in the terrain.

Maybe a review of the "Backcountry Etiquette" thread should be added to their "mission briefing". I had a very close call in my sailplane many years ago with an F4, the dude went straight thru a gaggle of 6 of us thermalling and as a result this style of flying lost my respect.

Mapleflt

Mapleflt wrote:Maybe a review of the "Backcountry Etiquette" thread should be added to their "mission briefing". I had a very close call in my sailplane many years ago with an F4, the dude went straight thru a gaggle of 6 of us thermalling and as a result this style of flying lost my respect.

Mapleflt

Maplefit, This isn't a "Style" of flying. This is critical tactical aviation training that is being conducted on a published military training route. See and avoid.

Something else to be aware of are SR routes or slow routes. These are flown at 250 kias or lower. However they are not charted. We publish our own local maps and place them at the local FBOs hoping pilots take notice. If your field is close to any local Military operations it wouldn’t hurt to call and figure out where these routes are.

Cool vid.

I love seeing them and am grateful that they are able to conduct training missions so they know what to do when we need them. Just jealous I’m not in the cockpit with them.

Tactical? So, when was the last time a US military fixed wing fighter aircraft flew into a hot combat zone at low level as a tactic?

The Brits did so with their Tornados in GW 1 and a few of them got their butts shot off.

So, my question is: Is there actually a functional tactical utility for this type of (relatively) high risk flying in this day and age?

Just a question....

MTV

I'm with MTV on this subject; not sure there is a need, high risk levels too all and there are plenty of "remote" places that would mitigate the safety concerns to a minimum if it is deemed to be necessary training. Does anyone remember Goose Bay, NFLD both NATO and USAF have spent plenty of time in that corner of Canada.

Mapleflt

A-10 Wharthog air to ground tank killer. Energy maneuverability (Boyd's term) all the way. Excellent tactical air aircraft. "The mission is a Private with a gun."

The question if low fast flying in valleys is still good for training in the modern environment. Short answer, yes. Most of the newer missiles still cannot discriminate targets that are behind rock. Some of them data link to AEW platforms that have AMTI (airborne moving target indicator, uses doppler shift), look down capability. Now most of the bad guys don't have this working well or at all, getting there. There is the huge surprise factor to the folks on the ground when you scream overhead and they never heard or saw you coming. If your worried about small arms and the golden BB factor, it works well also. Your in visual range for too short of a time for them to effectively aim and shoot. If they do shoot they tend not to lead you very well, so the bullets pass behind you. While in Africa, I always went in low and as fast as I could eek out of the aircraft, just to see how warm a welcome the Somalis or Sudanese would offer me. You can see them shooting, but they are usually aiming directly at you, so not a factor, visit another day. Now if I went in high, I have had them open up with a ZUS-23 or even on occasion 37mm. They can walk those right up your tail. You tend to suck in a bit of seat cushion and bug out.

So short answer, yes still works. A mountain is the ultimate stealth shield. An S300 can't shoot you down if it cannot acquire a lock on you with the search radar, it is line of sight. Then they need to illuminate you with the beam for the missile to acquire. Then it can track on its own. If it looses lock, it goes predictive and hopes to re-acquire. Manpads are a problem, but if the guy does not have it on his shoulder when you pass by, it don't work. Russian Manpads have a chemical battery, which literally burns. It only works once, so once you power it up and you don't launch you have to go down to the 7-11 to get another, unless you have a pack full of them. Besides, I used to love screaming over highway 395 at 50' doing the speed of heat. blows RV's off the road. We had a great low level training route through the Santa Susana Mountains enroute to China Lake. We where getting something close to minimum wage, had to be a few perks.

Luckily, I had data link, so if there was an E2, within 250 miles, and the little guys had turned on their transponders, or where made of some metal, we saw you on the link.

G44 wrote:I had 2 F-18' almost T-Bone me while I was landing on a lake in Maine, scared the hell out of us! No, they were not on a low level rte nor any where near an MOA and I seriously doubt they were below 250kts, they were screaming. It was VERY close, within feet, I was PISSED, still am just thinking about it!

Were you landing on Moosehead Lake? If so there’s a VR that runs right over it. And if you follow that route on a chart it crosses a number of lakes in the area.

We were running a flight of 4 Harriers on that route in 2001. We did our mission planning at the tanker unit in Bangor (including talking to center to check for updates and talking to local crew)and there were no indications that there would be an unusual level of activity on Moosehead. Imagine our surprise when we blasted right through the middle of the seaplane fly in at 300’ & 450kts. Most planes never saw us and the ones that did didn’t have time to respond anyway.

When we got back to Bangor we asked the locals and they said oh yea, that’s the seaplane fly in! We were pissed too. We weren’t flying recklessly and had fully planned the flight but nothing about the event made it into any source of information for us. I’ll bet no one on the lake there had a clue a military route ran right through their event.

Not saying this applies to your close call but for the most part these conflicts are the result of lack of familiarity. Many civilian pilots I’ve talked to were never taught what an MTR was (because their civilian instructors didn’t know either) and had no sense how one could affect their planned route of flight. On the flip side, beyond NOTAMS there’s not much local information that cues the military crews who use these routes into where there may be increased civilian activity along the route.

mtv wrote:Tactical? So, when was the last time a US military fixed wing fighter aircraft flew into a hot combat zone at low level as a tactic?

The Brits did so with their Tornados in GW 1 and a few of them got their butts shot off.

So, my question is: Is there actually a functional tactical utility for this type of (relatively) high risk flying in this day and age?

Just a question....

MTV

Yes and we’ve had this conversation before. The answer I gave you then was based on my personal experience operating daily in Liberia in 2003 between 3-500’ to stay under ceilings of 5-800’. We’d push in off the ocean at low altitude and stay there until we needed fuel, then pop up through the weather to find the tanker. If we needed to go back in we’d go feet wet, get down through the weather over the ocean and then push in again. We did it at night too on night vision goggles. The first time you asked the question my anecdote was much fresher, since then low altitude tactics have been employed elsewhere as well.

The training that goes into learning these skills is extensive, consequently the flying isn’t high risk. If it were high risk you’d hear about aircraft bouncing off the rocks at high speed more often.

The domestic infrastructure that goes into supporting the training is extensive and is designed to provide sanitized airspace with deconfliction procedures where there is a chance of traffic conflict.

I like seeing them cut loose now and then, like the ones I saw in the Copper Basin some years ago. He and his wingman popped over the same pass I had come over an hour earlier, dropped down, and flew around the entire basin in a few moments, then popped back up and out and headed back to Mountain Home. And another time near the ghost town of Gilmore.....totally unexpected, spooky as hell, but thrilling I don't worry much about getting running over by them, odds are WAY against that, hell, it'd be a privledge.

Vick wrote:

mtv wrote:Tactical? So, when was the last time a US military fixed wing fighter aircraft flew into a hot combat zone at low level as a tactic?

The Brits did so with their Tornados in GW 1 and a few of them got their butts shot off.

So, my question is: Is there actually a functional tactical utility for this type of (relatively) high risk flying in this day and age?

Just a question....

MTV

Yes and we’ve had this conversation before. The answer I gave you then was based on my personal experience operating daily in Liberia in 2003 between 3-500’ to stay under ceilings of 5-800’. We’d push in off the ocean at low altitude and stay there until we needed fuel, then pop up through the weather to find the tanker. If we needed to go back in we’d go feet wet, get down through the weather over the ocean and then push in again. We did it at night too on night vision goggles. The first time you asked the question my anecdote was much fresher, since then low altitude tactics have been employed elsewhere as well.

The training that goes into learning these skills is extensive, consequently the flying isn’t high risk. If it were high risk you’d hear about aircraft bouncing off the rocks at high speed more often.

The domestic infrastructure that goes into supporting the training is extensive and is designed to provide sanitized airspace with deconfliction procedures where there is a chance of traffic conflict.

I recall your previous response. And, I never suggested that this type training is necessarily unduly hazardous to the military aviator. That said, in your previous post you noted being pissed because you were routed over a seaplane Fly In, with no notice in your brief. So, the domestic infrastructure is “designed to provide sanitized airspace with deconfliction procedures where there is a chance of traffic conflict”?

I can show you where regularly used MTRs cross major and heavily used mountain passes perpendicular to the flow of GA traffic, and there is no way for GA pilots to know whether these routes are hot or not. Other than see and avoid, there’s no way for the military aviators to know if a GA airplane is coming through the pass. And there are similar examples on many MTRs.

The “deconfliction procedures” are in fact largely “little airplane, big sky”. And, that works most of the time.....

MTV

All Army NOE was two pilot. I expect the other services try to have two pilots for low level routes. Hitting, or even scaring civilians was a huge NO NO.

I'd like to see this low pass come over Johnson Creek at 6am

Then the Skywagons can get going without the worry of waking someone up in the motorized wilderness

Cool video

AKT

The first half of the video is right in my backyard. I have fished those lakes and hiked those mountains for the past 60 years. The first low level jets I remember started in the mid to late 1960s. I think I even heard a few sonic booms back then. At first they came right up the Chinook pass Highway. The oldest Seattle sectional I have is 1984. IT depicts VR1355 exactly as it is shown on today's sectional.

In the early 1970s my wife was the fire lookout on Little bald Mountain off Chinook pass. It was on the edge of a cliff on a 20 foot tower. A6 intruders would fly by at eye level and give a wave/salute to her. She couldn't hear them coming. She always had the flag flying at the lookout so I think the Pilots liked flying by it.

This Forest Service region (R6, Washington and Oregon) has an airspace coordinator now that talks with Whidbey NAS and coordinates with them about any FS air operations and vise versa.

Anyhow, here's the spots I could identify in the video. Washington people may recognize them too. 0:20 Rimrock lake; 0:45 starting up Indian Cr; 1:31 Blankenship meadow; 1:55 starting down Deep Cr; 2:18 Bumping Lake; 6:55 Keechelus lake off the left wing; 7:21 kachess Lake.