mkewman
Member
I've been hearing a significant increase in Beale activity the last week or so. Also been seeing an increase of activity on ADS-B. RECCE01 (Squadron or Base commander callsign) even took flight like twice this week in a T-38 with the transponder on. I haven't seen that in a LONG time. Most of the increase has been T-38s, but there have been quite a few aircraft flying low and slow touch and go patterns with either invalid Hex IDs or TIS-B/MLAT targets. Could be just Dragon Lady doing training but I can't tell because I BEARLY pick up the tower frequencies from here. It's definitely a lot more activity than we were seeing a few months ago, even at the beginning of the war in Ukraine when a lot of AF folks were catching up on their training hours "just in case."
What makes this increase in activity so interesting is that the last Global Hawk aircraft at Beale left the base in July. There is a rumored new UAV (RQ-180) allegedly being flown out of (probably just operated from) but of course since it's Intelligence/Reconnaissance related, the government hasn't disclosed any information. Again, it's rumors, so take it with a grain of salt, but someone did fly over (authorized of course) recently and noticed a recently renovated hangar that was fenced off, in the corner of the ramp.
Of course U2s, T-38s and KC-135R are still there and flying, so the base isn't going anywhere yet, but y'all may want to keep your ears out for some new callsigns other than SLATE, ONYX, ROPER, RECCE, and TAHOE. Last time I tried monitoring the Trunked system there, it was ALL encrypted, but if someone close by wants to see if there's new activity on there, that would be good to know.
Anyway, I don't have a whole heck of a lot of reception of Beale down here in Sacramento, but if there's anyone who can record Beale Tower VHF and UHF for a week or so and shoot me a file, I'd love to see what's going on up there. May have to take a quick qrip up there one of these days and see what's up.
If you hear anything of note, feel free to log it here.
What makes this increase in activity so interesting is that the last Global Hawk aircraft at Beale left the base in July. There is a rumored new UAV (RQ-180) allegedly being flown out of (probably just operated from) but of course since it's Intelligence/Reconnaissance related, the government hasn't disclosed any information. Again, it's rumors, so take it with a grain of salt, but someone did fly over (authorized of course) recently and noticed a recently renovated hangar that was fenced off, in the corner of the ramp.
Of course U2s, T-38s and KC-135R are still there and flying, so the base isn't going anywhere yet, but y'all may want to keep your ears out for some new callsigns other than SLATE, ONYX, ROPER, RECCE, and TAHOE. Last time I tried monitoring the Trunked system there, it was ALL encrypted, but if someone close by wants to see if there's new activity on there, that would be good to know.
Anyway, I don't have a whole heck of a lot of reception of Beale down here in Sacramento, but if there's anyone who can record Beale Tower VHF and UHF for a week or so and shoot me a file, I'd love to see what's going on up there. May have to take a quick qrip up there one of these days and see what's up.
If you hear anything of note, feel free to log it here.
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