Lackland AFB Airfest '08

[texasemt13]

Airfest is this weekend folks. I'll be there (with company) on Sunday morning- early. Looks like a pretty standard lineup. Weather looks like it should cooperate as well.

Haven't heard anything on the SA Military Smartzone System about activities yet, but...

I have heard the US Army Golden Knights doing a practice run on 123.4750 MHz. I heard pilot to ground chatter then the 5 minute warning (which came too late), then suddenly "jumpers ready!" All of a sudden a guy on a headset (with a lot of wind in the background) yells "all jumpers away and clear."

So, without making this the standard airshow thread, let's list the freqs we catch that are ACTIVE for the weekend:

USA Golden Knights 123.4750 MHz AM

Anyone else hearing anything on this practice day? I'm a little far away...

 

[scrotumola]

Onsite operations on 8F (SIG channel)

 

[layjohn]

While flipping thru an old Pop Comm (May 06) last night I ran across the following:

32.2 Operations
32.3 Operations
45.35 Primary
122.925
123.0 Air to Grnd Support
123.4 Air Coordination
123.45 Air to Grnd
123.475 Air to Grnd
123.5 Air to Grnd
124.0

I Don't know if they're still valid or not.

 

[texasemt13]

... going in a few hours.

Anyone there on Saturday or is this just the same ol' boring Texas forum...?

 

[layjohn]

I was there yesterday. The only golden knight comms I heard were on 123.475. The air boss was heard on 121.8.

 

[scrotumola]

A little fun yesterday. A P51 mustang doing a simulated attack had a pyrotechnic malfunction and sparked a 4 acre brush fire.

Heard Hazmat operations (sounded like roving teams on Texas Fire 1 154.280)

A LOT of air to air comms on 123.3 multi-plane formations and open canopy craft.

 

[ThunderBritches]

I was there both days and had a great time. I agree with the above on the air boss and Golden Knights.
F16, F15, and F22 used 376.025 with their observers.
Fat Albert used 305.5
Blue Angels Solos 237.8
Blue Angels Diamond 275.35 and 284.25
Blue Angels ground 346.5

I met a guy from Austin on Saturday listening in, and on Sunday I saw a group of 3 guys with scanners. It was a good airshow, me and my family really enjoyed it.

Rich

 

[texasemt13]

I heard a ton of stuff going on yesterday. Quite busy and an awesome performance. I was most impressed with the F-22 demo- amazing is all I can say.Thunder, that group of 3 guys was myself, davidbond, and another friend of ours.

I also heard these frequencies in use:
Blue Angels Air Refuel: 289.8 (this was at the middle of the demo when other freqs were real busy)
Blue Angels Fat Albert: 302.1 (heard only for a few transmissions, as Thunder noted, primary comms were on 305.5).
Blue Angels Communication Cart B: 139.815 (had to be standing real close to the cart to get this one)

Commemorative Air Force (formerly "Confederate"): 123.15 (this is also a Heritage Flight frequency and an AETC frequency).

As scrotumola noted, 123.3 was very busy with air-air and was the frequencies the performers used to communicate with the crowd (heard the hang glider, P-51s and others).

I think it was an awesome airshow. I was impressed, that's all I can say.

 

[ThunderBritches]

You are so right about the F22! Amazing aircraft! I was right behind ya'll for a few minutes. I was going to walk over and say hi, but ya'll moved on and I didn't see where you went. It would have been cool to meet some of the others on here.

 

[texasemt13]

Agreed, it would have been nice to meet. I only saw one other scanner while I was there and that was a Pro-97 sitting in a lounge chair cup holder. The earbuds were a must yesterday. I had forgotten how loud some of those engines were. I also enjoyed seeing the Tora, Tora, Tora demo (had only seen it one other time- which also started a grass fire) because those P-51s are beautiful (as was that P-40).

 

[ThunderBritches]

I wish I had thought to check on here first. We could have met up. I used my 396 for this show. I have used a 97 and a 43 in the past years. It did work really well. I will try to not brain fart in the future and check here first! LOL

 

[blantonl]

Cool! I can't believe I missed you guys.

I also brought my 396 and it worked well. I spent the week listening to the Blue Angels practice and all of their common frequencies were used during the show. It's fun to listen to them say "Pull.... Puuuullllllllllll, smoke on!" and all the other jargon they use. I suspect that the pilots use different voice inflections to communicate subtle changes in flight etc.

I kept a close listen on the security forces and EMS operations. I used close call to identity the air boss on 121.8 - but heard them tell the F-22 to go to discrete and never found them. I see someone above found the UHF discrete so nice work!

All in all, my kids had a blast, and I honestly thought the F22 was the coolest demo at the show. That was fantastic!

Unfourtantly, the static displays were so crowded that I decided to stay away from them and just hang with the kids. Spent a total of 12 bucks at the show and shot about 15 min of HD Video.

Next time we'll all meet up and drink some $5 beers!

Lindsay

 

[ThunderBritches]

Glad you made it out Lindsay! I do wish I had checked here and set things up for a get together.

Rich

 

[mike_webb59]

I got married less than two weeks ago and just got back from the honeymoon. I was there with the wife -- but I haven't totally moved in (or told her about) all of my scanning gear and don't want to scare her off.

We went Saturday and for the 1st time in a long time the cloud cover wasn't bad enough to limit the Blue Angels to the 'low ceiling' demo or whatever it's called. We also enjoy the K9 Demo as Kelly/Lackland does all the training for all the agencies.

See you all next time, Mike

 

[ThunderBritches]

Lindsay, I'm just getting started using the 396. Do you have any files that you can share? Anything on Lackland/Kelly would be awesome! I'm using ARC396.
BTW, what is being used by there? (not training). The P25 sounds like all training use. Are they still using the Smartzone?

Rich

 

[davidbond21]

Yeah, I thought the Blue Angels traffic was pretty interesting, but cool how they do that.

Agreed, the F-22 is definitely worth whatever tax-dollars of ours are going into it. I only wished I'd gone both days to see it twice(though I don't think I could stand 2 x the sunburn I got).

I was listening to the Lackland trunk to the whole time. At one point in the morning, we noticed a Security Forces guy following us, and after a few minutes, confronted us in the C-130 wanting to know if our "radios" could transmit. We explained they were receive only scanners and while he was looking over my PSR-500, he asked me what we were listening to, and I replied "the planes out there" just as my LED came on informing me a Lackland security talkgroup was active, good thing my headphones were plugged in at the time and he didn't hear it, and more surprising, was he was looking at the front panel and somehow managed to miss the "LAFB Security" text tag.

Some of the Sweeper Objects I got:
135.675 (10 hits)
123.3 (24 hits)
120.45 (1 hit)
125.1 (122 hits)
125.7 (76 hits)

Golden Knights heard on 123.475

Blue Angels Heard on 237.8, 275.35, 284.25, 305.5, 346.5, 139.8125, 142.6125, 143.0

I definitely wish we could have met some of the other RR members at the show. I know our group stuck out like a sore thumb with us carrying the scanners and me putting on the telescoping antenna whenever we were stationary watching a demo, but the rest of y'all blended in pretty good.

 

[ThunderBritches]

Hi David, I saw you in the group with your telescoping ant on. Again, I wish we could have all met up.

 

[texasemt13]

Another interesting note on the SA Military Smartzone was when we heard some Security Forces personnel ask a superior some questions about some Chinese nationals... went something like:

SF: Hey Sarge, do you know if they have to be American citizens to enter? We have 3 Chinese nationals here and they don't have IDs. One has a passport but the other 2 don't.

Then the Sgt. said something to the effect of "don't let the gates hit their asses on the way out." That's the last I heard of them. Hopefully they weren't whisked away to Gitmo or some other secret jail...

So Airfest '09 meet-up of the Central TX RR crew?

 

[blantonl]

Yup, I heard that too... they had a lengthy discussion about it - give their descriptions and even checked with the base commander I believe. But in the end they wouldn't let them enter.

 

[ThunderBritches]

'09 sounds good to me! So is the old smartzone still in operation?