Military aircraft sighted

[DX-300]

Just thought I'd mention that over the last few days including today I've been seeing 1 or a pair of Military aircraft fly by here in the Calgary area in the Southern part here, always Northbound in the Morning around 7am or in the Afternoon between 12 and 1pm. I assume their most likely doing some sort of practice. So keep your eyes peeled. On the weekend I tried the aircraft band as well as the 200-300MHz channels when I saw one go through in the afternoon but I heard nothing so I'm not sure if I was too late and missed the comms or what.

 

[Jay911]

Hi,

Around the time you were posting, or a few minutes later, I was eastbound on 16 Av near 19 St NE, heading to work. A military jet of some sort crossed 16 Av lining up for rwy 34, but it was definitely not a CF18. It had a single tail and seemed to have two external fuel tanks near the wing roots. For the life of me, I can't figure out what it was - it almost looked to have variable geometry wings, and the closest my co-workers and I can come up with after chatting about it is an RAF Tornado. It was all grey and due to the lighting conditions I couldn't see any distinguishing markings.

I have a whole metric buttload of UHF milair freqs in my 996 but the only real thing I've heard lately is the simulcast of the YYC tower comms on 283.9, etc. I often wish we had more to hear for military comms in our area - without the cost, of course, of having events which require military intervention.

 

[DX-300]

That sounds more like what I saw this morning, it was flying North solo and it had 2 external tanks for sure. Couldn't see if it actually turned around to go to the airport though but I assume thats where he was headed.

 

[DX-300]

And I'm thinking I should have changed the title of this thread to Millitary Aircraft sighted. As I might have mistaken last weeks aircraft *blush*.

 

[Jay911]

There!

 

[DX-300]

Thanks!

 

[Jay911]

One of my co-workers is a flight nut and suspects we may have seen a Jaguar. As seen in the photo at that link, they've been in Calgary in summer/fall before.

 

[DX-300]

Yeah, hard to say, I was almost leaning toward the Tornado until the Jaguar photo, maybe I'll just have to take my binnoculars with me everywhere until further notice lol. Here's the Tornado:

http://www.aeroflight.co.uk/types/international/panavia/tornado/tornado ecr upper heyford 1991.jpg

 

[electricsheep]

I don't know if the RAF still fly the Jaguar... If I recall one of the last times I was back in the UK in the past couple of years there was some sort of ceremony for the retiring of one of the last Jaguar squadrons. Most likely a Tornado either taking part in the BATF exercises at Wainwright or heading up to the Cold Lake/Primrose Lake ranges.

Could also be transiting from Red Flag. There has been a crap load of RAF troops transports up here at the airport in Edmonton lately. They also double as AAR tankers.

 

[bcradio]

How about Alpha Jets, from Top Aces Consulting? (www.topaces.ca)

 

[Bravo1]

Those topaces are them...

There are 4 of them on the tarmac at Shell Aerocenter...

Cheers!

Bravo1

 

[Jay911]

Good eye! Never heard of them before, nor "Alpha" jets. Wonder what they're doing here.. I wonder if it's perhaps got to do with that US firm that's going to move its operations lock, stock, and barrel to Springbank YBW. Kind of a stretch considering it was only mentioned recently and ground hasn't even been broken.

 

[DX-300]

Awesome! I guess all thats left now is finding their freqs. Wonder if they use regular traffic or the 200-300MHz band. I guess we'll find out in due time.