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August Road Trip Day 10 Nellis AFB Plane Spotting

Frank Sellin

Blog #23 of 46

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August 12th, 2020 - 01:54 PM

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August Road Trip Day 10 Nellis AFB Plane Spotting

Monday morning came once again, and I was up fairly early and talked with Cliff for a few minutes, we talked about our families and of course work (we work in the same place).

After a little bit, I decide to grab my camera gear and get on the road and get over to Nellis AFB before the day fully begins and it gets very hot out..

I stop at the local Costco Gas Station to get gas for the truck, I have one of those key fob things that allow me to get gas without having to breakout my Costco Card, yeah well it didn't work for some reason. Discouraged at first, I leave the gas station only to realize that I WAIT I have my Costco Card with me.. So back I go and I top off the truck with the much needed fuel.

Once that is done, I proceed to head out to Nellis AFB and the Speedway for a day of taking pictures of the Air Force planes and anything else that is flying that day.

I arrived at the Speedway and found a place to park and proceeded to set myself up and to try and keep myself cool as the day was beginning to heat up.

Keep in mind when you are plane spotting anywhere there are days that are hit and miss especially when it come to military plane spotting. BUT with this being Nellis AFB which is home to the "RED FLAG" training, you usually never not see something flying.

The morning wore on slowly and I was able to get a few get a few shots of the morning departures, but after a while I moved down from the speedway to a spot that I knew about and was told about off of "Cheyenne Ave" which is on the south side of the base.

The drive over to this location isn't bad at all, however on this particular day, Nellis Blvd was closed off due to something that involved the local Las Vegas Police Department, one can only speculate what had happened, but that is something that I don't want to do.

Getting on to Cheyenne Ave, I found a spot that I had utilized before, parked there and prepared yet again for the on slought that would bring the heat of the day.

About an hour of sitting around and getting towards lunch time, the morning flights began to return and I was able to capture a few of the General Dynamics F-16's and a couple of the Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II's and a few of the Draken aggressors landing. The Draken planes are something of a small legend as the company flies several different types to include, the McDonnell Douglas A-4 Skyhawk II, the Aero L-39 Albatross, Aero L-159 Alca and the companies newest purchase the Dassault Mirage F1M. I was able to capture pictures of these planes landing and later in the afternoon I was also able to get them taking off.

Several of the other Aviation Photographers that I know, got in touch with me and said that at this time of the year the planes would normally take off at around 1300 (1pm for you non-military folks)

I eventually move from Cheyenne Ave back to the Las Vegas Speedway area and meet up with fellow photographer Robert. We hung out together for the remainder of the day and talked about many things related to Photography, Aviation, and of course life in general.

The remainder of the day was spent taking picture of the many different Air Force planes taking off and landing during the "Red Flag" Exercises. Many planes take to the skies during this time and the pilots know all too well that there are dozens of Aviation Photographers up and down the street, many of them bank off to the left and give us all the opportunities to get some great pictures of their planes.

With where we were all located we could pretty much see what planes were taking off and such, but there were a few planes that many of us wanted to get pictures of and the waiting finally paid off as we got those planes when they took off and towards the end of the day we got those planes as they prepared to land as well.

After roughly 10 hours of hanging out at Nellis AFB it was time to call it a day and to head for dinner and a beer with family that lives in the area and then back to my friend Cliff's home for a shot of Whiskey and a cigar before calling it a night.


It was most certainly a great day and one of the many days I enjoyed while gone on this journey. It is almost time to make the final drive and get home to my wife and our family..

Semper Fi,
Frank
1/9 Everywhere

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