Jets over Tulsa/BA?

[Snattlerake]

I also find this aircraft tracking site ADS-B Exchange interesting with some unique stuff. For anyone who might be interested, currently a 9:35PM 12/9/21 there is a high altitude balloon at 68,000 ft, N254TH launched out of Sioux Falls drifting SE at 16kts, now between Coulombia MO and St Louis MO.

 

[Snattlerake]

Several years ago the dad of a lady who worked for me worked of some type of oil equipment industry here in Tulsa. They had an Antonove to fly in to pick up a piece of compressor equipment manufactured here to fly to Saudi Arabia that was so big the final assembly was done at the airport. I was invited to watch them load it the evening before, huge piece of equipment that had no more than about 5" of clearance putting it in on a retractable roller skid.

They scheduled a just after daybreak take off on 36R, a 10,000 ft runway. His wheels cleared the north fence by 46th street North by no more than 10'. Yep, there was some major weight/balance vs density altitude calculations done with that takeoff.

During my army stint, I was the logistics officer for our MED CO Clearing Hospital. It was a kind of advanced MASH unit that was to deploy when the balloon went up to a FOB and perform triage and emergency surgeries. I was assigned this duty because I was the only one who could attend a week long air force MAC training at McConnell AFB.
We learned how to load material and equipment, how to palletize, how to ready trucks, jeeps and ambulances for air transport. I learned the CG of C-141A, B and C-5 Galaxy's. At the time the C-5 was the only large plane to move outsized cargo, the C-17 was in trials. Thank God I had a good teacher and an even better calculator! When I got back I had a week to report and give my mobilization to air lift plan to the colonel. It was a really fun course. It still amazes me how something as big as a C-5 can fly. Even with M-1 tanks in it's belly.

 

[p238shooter]

Snattlerake: I saw they let the balloon down this morning out in the ocean off the Atlantic coast. It seems they have experience with less damage to let it drop in the water and pick it up by boat rather than taking it down over land to get punctured and torn up by trees, power lines, liability, etc. since it is so huge, and stuff like that. Pretty amazing flight. Interesting its path across the Mississippi River south of St. Louis almost identical to what I have flown many times to avoid the hassle of flying through "St. Louis" airspace from the Tulsa area to Indiana and back many times.

I also have been enjoying watching the air traffic controllers at the FedX hub in Memphis. For those of you who might be interested, Memphis is now 2nd in the world for the number of take offs and landings per year. And just for a little Oklahoma history, back about 50 years ago, Riverside airport (Now Jones airport, Riverside tower, soon to be changed back to Riverside airport because of the 30-40 year political confusion) just outside of Tulsa was at one time #2 in the world for take offs and landings per year with all the flight training that went on due to Spartain aviation who has trained thousands of pilots world wide. Both Good and Bad guys. Yep I have lots of stories, was in a bar in Cancun MX talking with a guy who started MyPie pizza in Tulsa while doing flight training here for the Mexican Air Force. They yanked his Mixican Visa. Some might remember it oddly closing one day. He was not supposed to open and own a business here with his visa regulations. Guess times have changed. I won't get into other language dialects trying to figure out the aircraft positions they were reporting to try to avoid traffic I tried to decipher.

Back to my original post about the ADS-B Exchange site. Last Thursday evening between 10 and 12PM, actually it obviously was going on longer than that, I saw more than a lot of traffic at the FedX hub in the Memphis area on this great website Snattlerake shared for those interested in aviation. (Clicked on "U" to get rid of clutter to move and see where you are looking), and I Zoomed in. Unclicked "u" to see all air traffic. There were more than 70 FedX planes from at least 100 miles out lined up in an X pattern outside the "official" 30 mile radius "Memphis Airspace" where they were sequencing in from four different directions. Obviously the IFR ATC flight planners were on top of this. Not just "getting them to the ring" and they are on their own with Approach Control, but sequencing them in from way out a hundred miles or more. Once inside the 30 mile ring, Approach Control was pairing them up with spacing for others to join from the opposite directions for sequencing for handoff. They were then being handed off to "Tower" control be sequenced into the Memphis Tower pattern (usually a 5 mile radius) to land 2 at a time on their parallel runways. I only saw one plane have to abort close to touchdown because the plane in front of him could not get off the runway onto the stacked up taxiway turnoff quick enough because of a ground taxiway bottleneck. It was a symphonic masterpiece of cordination of flights from all over the US.

It was certainly not that busy this evening (Monday night). I have not watched this long enough to have history to see if the traffic increases later in the week, but this is certainly one of my "take a look" sites as I am piddling on my computer. It is also interesting for me to watch the flight patterns of the local Tulsa Police helicopter. Again thanks for sharing this site for those who enjoy flapping our wings.

 

[Snattlerake]

You can go to ADSB Exchange dot com. Then move the map to cover Tulsa. Then you will see icons of planes flying. Touch your mouse onto, or click on, the airplane icon. Then you can read what kind of plane it is and who it belongs to. For civilian and commercial planes it will show you the Nnumber. You can take that Nnumber (tail number) and go to the FAA website and plug that into the registration search block and it will tell you more about it.

Right now, 1:27 AM, there are only 2 aircraft flying over/around Tulsa. Looks like a City of Tulsa helicopter, I assume Police. The other is a 47 year old crapbox freight hauler.

Giving credit where credit is due.

It was @GeneW that gave us the ADSB Exchange.com site. I merely endorsed the website and thanked @GeneW for the recommendation.
I also suggest using a scanner phone app to listen in to police and ATC at the locations you are watching. That is fun too.

5-0 Radio is free and you can get a lot of stations.

 

[GeneW]

Right now there is a F35 Lighting fighter toodling around in Arizona, looks like he came out of Luke AFB, which is on the west side of Phoenix. He's NW of the Phoenix area right now. You just don't see these very often.

Better hurry, you never know when these will go away. Apparently these are built in Fort Worth and sometimes I've seen them launch a brand new one for testing or proofing before it's delivered to the Air Force. They fly them out West of Fort Worth around 100-150 miles and twist and turn them like crazy.

 

[GeneW]

Well wow, here is something else you rarely see. This is the C2 Greyhound plane that lands on our Aircraft Carriers. It moves people back and forth as well as very important parts, etc. It came out of Tinker. These are old and being phased out with the new V22 Osprey, the tilt wing/engines plane.

 

[GeneW]

Wheeeee! Jackpot tonight! Here is a P3 Orion toodling around by Spokane, Fairchild AFB. It came out the Whidbey Island area. This is kind of out in the middle of nowhere, must be some sort of training flight. Weird, no subs are out there.
Whidbey Island and just around there is is an important area, our Navy stations Subs and other ships out there. The P3 Orion planes are very old, they are being retired and replaced by the new P8 Poseidon. The P3 are sub killers, they hunt enemy subs. 4 engine Prop Jobs, very fuel efficient. The new P8 has the same role, well google it for more info.

 

[GeneW]

A NASA U2 is toodling around Central Oklahoma in sort of race track pattern, just going around and around. RIght now it is over the Piedmont area at 50,000+ altitude.

The U2 is a plane you don't see very often.

 

[Snattlerake]

A NASA U2 is toodling around Central Oklahoma in sort of race track pattern, just going around and around. RIght now it is over the Piedmont area at 50,000+ altitude.

The U2 is a plane you don't see very often.

I'm surprised it had its locator on. How high was he?

 

[sklfco]

I'm surprised it had its locator on. How high was he?

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