Lockheed Martin flight to Groom Lake

You may recall the PC12 and BE190 showing up at the new Yucca Lake runway.
PC-12 and BE190 at Yucca Lake
Both FBOweb and flightaware are showing a track from Lockheed Martain PC-12 N146PC. This can be seen on flightaware at the moment.
n146pc on flightaware
Since things "fall off" flightaware, I archived the image at
n146pc trip to Groom Lake
I took the logged trail and created a Google Earth KMZ file
N146PC flight on Google Earth

For those not aware of TKM, it is code used to represent Groom Lake. That is, it is the FAA documented "tie-in facility."
TTR and Groom Lake ICAO codes
Yes, I know about XTA Homey as the designation for Groom Lake in the Honeywell flight system computer. It seems to be unique to Honeywell. Honeywell still provides documents in the open regarding XTA Homey:
XTA Homey on this PDF
I don't make much of the nomenclature since the FAA designation of TKM is more useful.

What I found pretty interesting on FlightAware is that it lists the destination of that flight as KTKM. But when you try to pull up any information on KTKM from FlightAware it tells you that it is an unknown or invalid airport code. Even searching just TKM does not return anything.

Gariac: Do you have a list of tail numbers that you keep up with?

reply to post by desertdreamer


TKM is something the FAA understands, but it is not an official ICAO airport code, which is why it bombs when you search for it on flightaware. I don't know of a similar designator that is handled the same way.

Around the range, you are likely to see
www.lazygranch.com...
In theory, N168D would show up around the range as well, though I never saw it.

There are three Twin Otters at North Las Vegas. I never saw them in the ranges, but they are based nearby. That would be N512AR, N94AR, and N255SA. [The SA plane was at one time a Twin Otter owned by Scenic Air.]

N5083J has done surveillance work on the Nellis range.
www.lazygranch.com...
www.lazygranch.com...

N229DE (Department of Energy)
www.lazygranch.com...

Lockheed Birds
N623BA
N146PC
N402LM
N403LM

N185XP (DOE)
www.lazygranch.com...

N334GW (DOE)
www.lazygranch.com...

Thanks for all the information. I am former military, never made it over to Groom Lake though! I was based at Ft. Bliss in El Paso, TX, I tested new weapons systems for the Army at White Sands, Oscura Test Range, Holloman AFB, and not too far from the trinity test site. So, I have been interested in Area 51, military testing, etc for a while.

Great post, thanks again.

Kinda boring, but I found a couple of pics of the Pilatus:


Pictures

And I found a record of Pilatus itself using the plane at one time to fly a crew from Colorado to Indiana to pick up a downed PC-12 that made an unplanned landing on a highway:

From airliners.net:

Information as of 12/15/2004 3:23:01 AM GMT
FlightID: N146PC (General Aviation Piston)
Status: IN FLIGHT
Owner: PILATUS BUSINESS AIRCRAFT LTD
Ground Spd: 257 kts Altitude: 27,000
Type: PC12 (Pilatus PC-12)
Origin Apt: GXY GREELEY-WELD COUNTY
Dest Apt: SBN SOUTH BEND REGIONAL
Departed: 05:47 PM MST (0047Z)
Original ETA: N / A
Calculated ETA: 11:04 PM EST (0404Z), In 0h 35m
Dist Fm Dept: 680 nm Dist To Dest: 151 nm

reply to post by emsed1


The PC-12 is used by special ops.
05-0409 U-28A 409
05-0419 U-28A 419
05-0424 U-28A 424
05-0447 U-28A 447
05-0482 U-28A 482
05-0573 U-28A 573

There have been two more flights by these Lockheed shuttles.

Here are the google earth KMZ
n146pc on 7/10

n623ba on 7/14

n623ba on 7/15

Check out flightaware:
n623ba on flgihtaware

Note the route includes SHOWW ABY
From a phone conversation I had with the FAA, SHOWW is a reserved aviation fix. Now ABY is interesting since most recordings of Janet scanner audio include the fix what I expected to be ABBIE, since fixes are traditionally 5 leters.

If you look at the track log
track log
the plane was still at 15kft, so I suspect this is not a flight to the new Yucca runway but are actually flights to Groom Lake.

Note N623BA has made a flight to KDRA (Desert Rock Airstrip) and two to KTPH (Tonopah civilian airport). There is no tracking on the flights. Flights to KDRA are often a ruse to land at Groom Lake. The flights to KTPH may be to Base Camp, the TTR, or perhaps really KTPH.

flightaware.com...

The flight plan to KGVO is a bug. They meant the GVO vortac. I suspect the flight changed from IFR to VFR to hide the final destination.

flightaware.com...
This is a flight from Henderson to Creech AFB. While it is possible the plane landed at Creech, note that no tracking is provided.

Interesting. I found this after doing a Google Image Search for the secret drone base controversy that reared its head the other day after images showed up on Google Earth. Interesting that this is the result of what was happening before when this thread was started a few years ago.



"Google unEarths image of secret US drone base in Nevada"
rt.com...