09-02-2025, 11:10 PM
Some of you may remember a former ATS member Sammamish Man. He and I got together for another one of our trips to the desert. This one we decided to get ambitious, and hit multiple sites throughout the week. We started with Plant 42, and Edwards, with a day trip to Sidewinder, before moving to Tonopah. Being ambitious turned out to be a good idea at the end of the week.
I arrived first on Sunday, and while waiting on Monday I decided to go down to Plant 42 and do some daylight spotting with a quick trip over to Mojave to see if anything interesting was going on. I managed to catch the Scaled Composites Model 400 that was going to be their T-X entrant before Northrop withdrew from the bidding.
![[Image: DSC_1171.jpg]](https://denyignorance.com/uploader/images/DSC_1171.jpg)
Arriving at Plant 42, I encountered ARRIS88, the Edwards based C-17 doing touch and go and low approaches.
![[Image: DSC_0033.jpg]](https://denyignorance.com/uploader/images/DSC_0033.jpg)
Shortly after arriving I heard XRAY77 cleared to taxi to the runway. This turned out to be U-2S 80-1099 making its first flight in 17 years. It was deployed to the Middle East where it suffered a hydrazine fire on the ground, and was deemed beyond economic repair at the time. It was disassembled and transported to Georgia where it became a ground trainer, and was stored in a warehouse for a few years. In 2018, the decision was made to try to repair it after all, and it was sent to Site 2 at Plant 42, where Lockheed did PDM work on U-2s. It was finally ready to perform check flights, and made the first one that Monday.
![[Image: DSC_0113.jpg]](https://denyignorance.com/uploader/images/DSC_0113.jpg)
ARRIS88 and XRAY77 were joined by COBRA19, an Edwards based C-12 that is used for flight testing and test pilot flights.
![[Image: DSC_0263.jpg]](https://denyignorance.com/uploader/images/DSC_0263.jpg)
That night we found a nice little field that overlooked the Plant to stake out the runway and see if anything showed up. The only thing we caught that night was either a Global Hawk or Triton that was parked on the ramp and moved into a hangar.
Tuesday we made a day trip to Point Alpha along the Sidewinder low level route. We caught somewhere around 15 passes that day, which was the busiest of the week, with other days having between 0 and 5-6 passes.
![[Image: DSC_1233.jpg]](https://denyignorance.com/uploader/images/DSC_1233.jpg)
![[Image: DSC_1270.jpg]](https://denyignorance.com/uploader/images/DSC_1270.jpg)
Tuesday night things got really interesting. We staked out Edwards where we could watch South Base, and it paid off. Around midnight we heard a Socata TBM 700 flying around the area at low altitude. Shortly after, a small jet aircraft went practically right over the top of us at low altitude, and went dark as soon as it crossed into the Edwards airspace. It turned at least some lights back on as we were able to see it flying with at least four other aircraft off in the distance.
![[Image: DSC_1623.jpg]](https://denyignorance.com/uploader/images/DSC_1623.jpg)
Around 3am the TBM came back, and shortly after the mystery aircraft came back out of the Edwards area, and the lights came back on. We were able to get cell phone video showing the lights and giving a rough size idea.
Wednesday was a travel day, with us moving to Tonopah. It started with noticing an Arizona based KC-135 coming up past Mojave. It set up a refueling track near China Lake, dropping down to just above the Mojave Air and Space Port. The passes that I caught he had F-22s on the boom refueling them. He eventually went to Edwards and did a single touch and go before heading back to Arizona.
![[Image: DSC_1690.jpg]](https://denyignorance.com/uploader/images/DSC_1690.jpg)
![[Image: DSC_1846.jpg]](https://denyignorance.com/uploader/images/DSC_1846.jpg)
Also at Edwards were ARRIS14 (Pittsburgh C-17) and ARRIS47 (Edwards C-17). ARRIS47 launched first, and circled around the base, and as he overflew the runway ARRIS14 took off and met up with him. They flew together towards Barstow and disappeared. On the drive to Tonopah, while heading to Death Valley, I passed through a small town called Trona. Just on the other side both aircraft appeared flying low level in trail together, just above the top of the ridgeline.
![[Image: DSC_2129.jpg]](https://denyignorance.com/uploader/images/DSC_2129.jpg)
Wednesday night, after getting to Tonopah, we set up in our usual spot overwatching the base at Tonopah. The base is still having runway work done, so the NOTAMs showed as base assigned aircraft only, so we weren't expecting much. There was a lot of vehicle activity around some of the hangars, but not much else going on.
Thursday turned into a windfall of a day. We hit a new spot overlooking TTR, and immediately caught an ongoing test over the range. We heard several calls from "VAMPIRE02" reporting "no tangos", shortly before VAMPIRE03 reporting tangos near the range (us). We caught one reasonably close pass, and were able to determine that it was an F-18 with tanks or pods under the wings, but after the report of tangos they moved farther down range, where we could hear them but they never got close enough for us to see them again. There was some interesting comms chatter though, with VAMPIRE02 reporting that 01 and 03 had "sweet temper" with "the gadget" while he had "sour temper" with it. He was troubleshooting, and talked about going to test point 5 for three minutes before starting the test over again. Both VAMPIRE02 and 03 cleared off for fuel at different points. We never heard anything from 01 but we could hear them all flying around the range for a while. We believe they were VX-9 out of China Lake, as they use the VAMPIRE callsign.
After they cleared off, we were just able to catch two (or possibly the same one twice) Groom Lake based F-16s ridge running. They just popped up high enough to see before dropping back down below the ridge again and disappearing.
Tonopah Test Range
That night, some time between 830 and 9pm, after it was full dark, four aircraft flew in from the west and entered the TTR range. Two seemed to disappear, although they might have gone dark. Two of the aircraft set up orbits with each other and were flying around the range for a while. They had an odd strobe pattern with one blinking three times, then pausing before blinking again, and the other blinking twice before pausing and blinking again. They flew around a good thirty minutes to an hour before heading over the ridgeline into Groom Lake airspace.
What made Tuesday and Wednesday even more interesting was that at about 945 on both nights, we saw what appeared to be satellites showing up over the horizon, both nights from the same area at the same time, on the same track. Some of them were overtaking others, and a few were even going in the opposite direction. We believe they were a Starlink train that was launched a few days earlier, finally spreading out. We caught another train on Wednesday night that was still together, but interestingly the odd satellites that we caught on Tuesday and Wednesday didn't appear at all on Thursday. There were at least 25 of them, if not more.
I arrived first on Sunday, and while waiting on Monday I decided to go down to Plant 42 and do some daylight spotting with a quick trip over to Mojave to see if anything interesting was going on. I managed to catch the Scaled Composites Model 400 that was going to be their T-X entrant before Northrop withdrew from the bidding.
Arriving at Plant 42, I encountered ARRIS88, the Edwards based C-17 doing touch and go and low approaches.
Shortly after arriving I heard XRAY77 cleared to taxi to the runway. This turned out to be U-2S 80-1099 making its first flight in 17 years. It was deployed to the Middle East where it suffered a hydrazine fire on the ground, and was deemed beyond economic repair at the time. It was disassembled and transported to Georgia where it became a ground trainer, and was stored in a warehouse for a few years. In 2018, the decision was made to try to repair it after all, and it was sent to Site 2 at Plant 42, where Lockheed did PDM work on U-2s. It was finally ready to perform check flights, and made the first one that Monday.
ARRIS88 and XRAY77 were joined by COBRA19, an Edwards based C-12 that is used for flight testing and test pilot flights.
That night we found a nice little field that overlooked the Plant to stake out the runway and see if anything showed up. The only thing we caught that night was either a Global Hawk or Triton that was parked on the ramp and moved into a hangar.
Tuesday we made a day trip to Point Alpha along the Sidewinder low level route. We caught somewhere around 15 passes that day, which was the busiest of the week, with other days having between 0 and 5-6 passes.
Tuesday night things got really interesting. We staked out Edwards where we could watch South Base, and it paid off. Around midnight we heard a Socata TBM 700 flying around the area at low altitude. Shortly after, a small jet aircraft went practically right over the top of us at low altitude, and went dark as soon as it crossed into the Edwards airspace. It turned at least some lights back on as we were able to see it flying with at least four other aircraft off in the distance.
Around 3am the TBM came back, and shortly after the mystery aircraft came back out of the Edwards area, and the lights came back on. We were able to get cell phone video showing the lights and giving a rough size idea.
Wednesday was a travel day, with us moving to Tonopah. It started with noticing an Arizona based KC-135 coming up past Mojave. It set up a refueling track near China Lake, dropping down to just above the Mojave Air and Space Port. The passes that I caught he had F-22s on the boom refueling them. He eventually went to Edwards and did a single touch and go before heading back to Arizona.
Also at Edwards were ARRIS14 (Pittsburgh C-17) and ARRIS47 (Edwards C-17). ARRIS47 launched first, and circled around the base, and as he overflew the runway ARRIS14 took off and met up with him. They flew together towards Barstow and disappeared. On the drive to Tonopah, while heading to Death Valley, I passed through a small town called Trona. Just on the other side both aircraft appeared flying low level in trail together, just above the top of the ridgeline.
Wednesday night, after getting to Tonopah, we set up in our usual spot overwatching the base at Tonopah. The base is still having runway work done, so the NOTAMs showed as base assigned aircraft only, so we weren't expecting much. There was a lot of vehicle activity around some of the hangars, but not much else going on.
Thursday turned into a windfall of a day. We hit a new spot overlooking TTR, and immediately caught an ongoing test over the range. We heard several calls from "VAMPIRE02" reporting "no tangos", shortly before VAMPIRE03 reporting tangos near the range (us). We caught one reasonably close pass, and were able to determine that it was an F-18 with tanks or pods under the wings, but after the report of tangos they moved farther down range, where we could hear them but they never got close enough for us to see them again. There was some interesting comms chatter though, with VAMPIRE02 reporting that 01 and 03 had "sweet temper" with "the gadget" while he had "sour temper" with it. He was troubleshooting, and talked about going to test point 5 for three minutes before starting the test over again. Both VAMPIRE02 and 03 cleared off for fuel at different points. We never heard anything from 01 but we could hear them all flying around the range for a while. We believe they were VX-9 out of China Lake, as they use the VAMPIRE callsign.
After they cleared off, we were just able to catch two (or possibly the same one twice) Groom Lake based F-16s ridge running. They just popped up high enough to see before dropping back down below the ridge again and disappearing.
Tonopah Test Range
That night, some time between 830 and 9pm, after it was full dark, four aircraft flew in from the west and entered the TTR range. Two seemed to disappear, although they might have gone dark. Two of the aircraft set up orbits with each other and were flying around the range for a while. They had an odd strobe pattern with one blinking three times, then pausing before blinking again, and the other blinking twice before pausing and blinking again. They flew around a good thirty minutes to an hour before heading over the ridgeline into Groom Lake airspace.
What made Tuesday and Wednesday even more interesting was that at about 945 on both nights, we saw what appeared to be satellites showing up over the horizon, both nights from the same area at the same time, on the same track. Some of them were overtaking others, and a few were even going in the opposite direction. We believe they were a Starlink train that was launched a few days earlier, finally spreading out. We caught another train on Wednesday night that was still together, but interestingly the odd satellites that we caught on Tuesday and Wednesday didn't appear at all on Thursday. There were at least 25 of them, if not more.
