San Antonio F-22/C-130 overflight

[muddy mudskipper]

new to milair comms, but i have had my monitoring station up for 3 months now and noticed over the past week that we in NW San Antonio have been enduring some serious C-130 overflight (the ones with the jet turbines, not the prop engines) as well as some fighter aircraft that appear to be "escorting" or perhaps tailing these cargo planes.

anyone else?

the normal overflight of prop-job military cargo aircraft has all but disappeared since the Israel/Lebanon fighting started. in favor of the jet-turbine aircraft.

 

[muddy mudskipper]

CORRECTION: the dark green aircraft appear more like KC-135 refueling craft than C-130's.

skinny fuselage, with about 4 turbines.

can't remember those flying over SA since about the first Gulf War. now they're out here at least once a day.

 

[blantonl]

Boeing has some contracts to update avionics for the Swedish AF C-130s.... those were just announced this week. In addition, the KC135s have ongoing upgrades to avionics and airframes for quite a while.

In addition, they are probably C-5s or C17s enroute to Alamo at Kelly/Lackland. Not many folks know that "Alamo" is the Bomb Dump, otherwise known at one of the larger Air Force ammunition and ordinance supply sites for the Air Force. They supply a tremendous amount of missles and bombs for the entire Air Force.

Just like the Walmart Distribution center on IH35 just north of New Braunfels, there will be lots of stuff coming in, and lots going out.

 

[VintageJon]

VERY Interesting! I'll be down to S.A. next week and would be interested in freqs and mod type...

73's,
Jon

 

[ThunderBritches]

Muddy, the KC135's are fairly common out of Boeing at Kelly. I get plenty of C5's and the F16's out of the training wing at Lackland/Kelly. I'm a bit SW of Helotes and we get direct overflights a lot from Kelly. You may already have these freq's but thought I would post them.

Kelly Tower: 322.35/124.3
USAF Dispatch: 372.2/130.65
"Hill Country" Ops for the C5's 252.1
F16's Air to Air: 138.1, 140.1

 

[VintageJon]

ThunderBritches-
Thanks for the freq! I've put them in the WIN96 as the Pro91 won't accept them. (I assume they are AM anyway and it won't do that...)

73's,
Jon

 

[muddy mudskipper]

yes, Kelly Tower is the most active frequency to listen to on approach.

as for fighter jets, i have never heard them down here. it takes alot of time and luck!

concerning the "Alamo": that should explain the tremendous number of transport aircraft over our skies back in 1991/1992 during Gulf Storm. amazing stuff.

 

[ThunderBritches]

Muddy, listen to those two air to air freqs. They are in use a lot and usually have good range. I can hear them practicing ACM out near Hondo all the time. Good stuff.

 

[muddy mudskipper]

i will try 138.1 and 140.1, assuming AM?

i used to poke around with some of the known fighter jet "presets", but never picked anything up in these parts. right now, i have a 396 hooked to a 2m Yagi pointed directly at Lackland/Kelly and broadside to the SAT airport. i get a TON of air traffic, and especially on the civilian air-to-air frequencies. Police 1, Police 2, Airlife, etc.

the whole rig is linked to a "command center" via 2.4ghz wireless (because air comms are very sensitive and need to be far away from computers). at the command center, i have quite a few things running including an internet relay that i'm working on reducing the bandwidth consumption to. if it flies in Bexar County, i will hear it. my goal is to get the stream up on the web for others to enjoy.

 

[ThunderBritches]

Your right they are on am. Sounds like you have a cool setup there. I have a DIN mounted 2055 in my truck with a through the roof antenna and keep it on mostly aviation. My office is right by the airport so I have a 97 on most of time here. It's some good listening. I do always have county fire dispatch on to keep up with what's going on out in my neck of the woods.

 

[kkn50]

>i will try 138.1 and 140.1

Those are very active freqs.

 

[ThunderBritches]

Does anyone have any of the air to air freq's used by the training flights out of Randolph AFB? They have flights of AT-38's, Texan's, and T1's in formation. But I have never tried to do the searches of the proper bands.