PROOF: Some Janet Flights To Tonopah Really Going To Area 51

I was looking at Janet flights on FlightAware and since it doesn't recognize KXTA (Groom Lake/Area 51) as an airport but it does recognize KTNX (Tonopah Test Range), I thought I'd look for impossibly short Janet flights between McCarran (KLAS) and KTNX. According to Wikipedia, WWW is the ICAO identifier for Janet, so I typed in a random WWW flight (WWW204) and I saw several flight records. One of them was a 12 minute flight from KLAS to KTNX. Now, I'm no aviation expert, but KLAS is 150 miles from KTNX in a straight line, so the absolute slowest a 12 minute flight could manage that distance would be at an average speed of 750 mph. Again, no aviation expert I, but I'm guessing 737s don't cruise at Mach 1. It also couldn't decode the route for that particular flight and displays no flight path on the map. Here's the link to that flight record:
flightaware.com...
Now, I only looked at one. I'm guessing if I keep typing in random WWW flights, I'll find more like this. Anyway, what I'd like to know, since some of you are aviation experts, is it more likely that the arrival/departure times are wrong and that the route data got screwed up, or that KTNX wasn't really its destination?

[edit on 31-5-2010 by shmuu]
Hah! Now here's your smoking cannon right here:
flightaware.com...
Here's a screenshot of the planned vs actual flight path for WWW217, Janet flight from Palmdale to Tonopah Test Range, on May 27, 2010, 4 days ago:

It heads straight for Groom Lake instead of it's scheduled path.
Explain that?

[edit on 31-5-2010 by shmuu]
Here's a close-up of the end of the recorded path.

I don't know about you, but that doesn't look like Tonopah Test Range to me.

[edit on 31-5-2010 by shmuu]
OK, I just found a daily flight from Area 51 to McCarran, WWW223:
flightaware.com...
Supposedly coming from Tonopah Test Range every day, except it never checks in with any tower until it's most of the way there. It's obvious the plane is coming from groom lake, because the first two check-ins almost always make a straight line to Groom lake. Sometimes the pilot starts reporting a little too early, making it obvious where he's coming from. The flight in the link is a good example.

[edit on 31-5-2010 by shmuu]
Another flight from Area 51 to KLAS (WWW231):
flightaware.com...
Unless you think he made it 100 miles 3 minutes after departure. =P

[edit on 31-5-2010 by shmuu]

reply to post by shmuu


What's a Janet flight?

Ok, obviously I'm not the person you want answering your questions but I am interested.

reply to post by Iamonlyhuman



Janet is an airline that runs several flights a day to and from McCarren International Airport, Tonopah Test Range, and the USAF operating location at Groom Lake commonly known as Area 51.
en.wikipedia.org...(airline)

I just updated my original post with more-or-less proof that some Janet flights scheduled for Tonopah are actually landing at Groom Lake. I know it's no secret that Janet flights land there, but since sites like FlightAware don't even list KXTA (Area 51) as an airport, the Janet flights to Groom Lake aren't listed there. But here's proof that they're hiding the true destination of some of these planes.

reply to post by shmuu


Flights to the TTR nearly always include TPH in the route. Groom Lake flights are in the 14k/15k range, while flights to the TTR are higher in altitude. Flights to Groom generally include SHOWW, FIDOE, or BTY060030.

KXTA seems to be only used in the Honeywell flight database. I haven't filed a FOIA to see if it is reserved and by what entity.

I started tracking these flight about 8 years ago and logged a few:
flytecomm and other tracking

For a while, they had a fully functional passur tracking over the range. I have some logged here, along with flightaware:
flightaware and passur

In the days before internet tracking, you could listen to the Janets on the KLAS clearance/delivery frequency to determine where they were going:
janet scanner audio
The page needs work since I've uploaded way more than I've linked.

I have a bit more on the ICAO codes here:
ICAO codes

More general Janet stuff here:
Janet Airlines

Note WWW comes up as "reserved", not Janet Airlines. Much of the nomenclature used by the base has been filed with the FAA to reserve the names, but not actually assign an entity to the name. The next level is to find who reserved the names. Some go to Nellis, and some the FAA just won't say. ;-)

Janet Airlines runs very much like a commercial airline. If you scan them landing at Groom Lake, they use the typical approach/departure and tower comm channels, along with a chit chat channel for fuel (ground).