Wall Street Journal FAA blocked aircraft project

There FAA has announced that it will no longer block private aircraft at the owners request. You can take a wild guess at which party in Congress is trying to restore the blocking by law. (It rhymes with republican...oops).

The Wall Street Journal has filed a FOIA and set up a website where you can track blocked flights.
WSJ Jetracker

You can run it on TNX and see some contractors that landed at the Tonopah Test Range. Searches on PMD (Palmdale), BTY (Beatty), and WJF (William J Fox in Lancaster) to see other contractor flights. However, the database is censored. Take for example the plane N168D. It doesn't show up on the database, but it is blocked.

How do I know the tracking data exists? Well, because I have it.

Beatty (BTY) flights.

Northrup Grumman

Obviously a test aircraft. They often put the radar gear in a conventional plane for development before putting the gear in the intended aircraft.

N161NG

This looks like a plane to transport the suits.

Northrup N22NG

N22NG photos

Northrup N162W

N162W photos

Another test aircraft, as indicated by the unusually long radome.

Originally posted by gariac
There FAA has announced that it will no longer block private aircraft at the owners request. You can take a wild guess at which party in Congress is trying to restore the blocking by law. (It rhymes with republican...oops).

The Wall Street Journal has filed a FOIA and set up a website where you can track blocked flights.
WSJ Jetracker

You can run it on TNX and see some contractors that landed at the Tonopah Test Range. Searches on PMD (Palmdale), BTY (Beatty), and WJF (William J Fox in Lancaster) to see other contractor flights. However, the database is censored. Take for example the plane N168D. It doesn't show up on the database, but it is blocked.

How do I know the tracking data exists? Well, because I have it.

Very nice gariac, I've got the WSJ Jetracker bookmarked, right beside my fullscreen link to Flightaware of KLAS/Las Vegas:
flightaware.com...
EDITED TO ADD:
Bah, direct link doesn't work - copy n paste this:
flightaware.com/live/airport_status_bigmap.rvt?airport=KLAS

reply to post by FosterVS


Just to be clear here, this is a static database. That is, they will not be updating the database as far as I know.

I filed a FOIA to get the blocked list for the month on May. No routing, just the tail numbers. I'm trying to clear up why some planes are not in the WSJ database. That is, did the FAA censor the list, or did the WSJ self-censor.

Searching on TNX (Tonopah Test Range), both N161G and N162W show up, similar to the Beatty search. However N162W had a 2.15 hour flight. It was listed with destination Las Vegas (LAS), but clearly it must have flown over the range about 90 minutes. That is the trip to Vegas shouldn't be more than 45 minutes.

Tonopah Test Range

This is an interesting flight. Normally N545PA is not blocked, so they must have block this particular flight.

N545pa flight

Here is the plane with a pod attached to it.

Here is one for Nellis AFB.

N71PG

A plane used in extraordinary rendition. By 2008, the plane could have been er um hosed off inside and returned to normal transport.

The hits keep coming. Check out the photo of N10LX:



That is pod of some significant size.

N10LX flights

Fort Huachuca is Army signal intelligence. (Something like the NSA).
Fort Huachuca

Hanscom AFB N404PA (AKA Paul Revere). Flights to China Lake and two other desert airstrips.

N404PA flights

N404PA at Red Flag

Originally posted by gariac
Hanscom AFB N404PA (AKA Paul Revere). Flights to China Lake and two other desert airstrips.

N404PA flights

N404PA at Red Flag

There is something funny going on with this plane.

One it shows it departed Trona airport L72 and Death Valley L09
I have flown out of Trona and i would not try to land a 707 at that airport.
The runway at Trona is only 5930 feet.
Death Valley runway is only 3260 ft
I take it they did not land or they would still be there in pieces.

A 707-320 needs 10,840 ft at MTOW

reply to post by ANNED


There is a nuance in FAA tracking where the flight can start IFR (instrument flight rules) and change to VFR (visual flight rules) while in flight. Once VFR, the actual destination can't be traced via internet tracking. They need to drop some altitude to make the change.

Another nuance is it is possible to file for both VFR and IFR flight, get the takeoff time assignment, then pick one and cancel the other. That is, many cancelled IFR flights (internet trackable) do take place as VFR flights.

Spotlight on Mojave airport (ok, spaceport), the civilian flight test center.

N403VS. This is Calspan's flight simulator airplane.
N403VS on WSJ tracker



A flight simulator that can fly seems like an oxymoron, but the idea is they tweak the flight controls so the plane acts like the plane to be simulated. Perhaps to keep hours off the more expensive plane.
Calspan flying flight simulator

N1757. Just your run of the mill, privately owned, Boeing 757. Blue City Holdings are the google boys. They fly out of KNUQ (Moffett Field) using a barter deal they made with NASA. Well some money changes hands too. NASA lets them park at KNUQ if NASA gets to use the Google boys toys.

N1757 on WSJ tracker
n1757 images

Presidential Aviation. Hint: the president of the US doesn't fly on Presidential Aviation. We're talking Blackwater and extraordinary rendition.

Presidential Aviation on WJS

Presidential Aviation back in the Blackwater days

Hemet is famous for the Church of Scientology "re-education center." Lake Havasu has had it's share of spooky planes.



Northrop Grumman is a regular visitor at MHV. They own Scaled Composites.
Northop MHV WSJ
Scaled Composites

BAE has a facility at MHV. For a while, they were retrofitting old tankers for the USAF. I believe that program is complete. They still convert F-4 Phantoms to QF-4 drones for target practice.
BAE MHV WSJ