ID this plane

Hey guys I live in kalispell, Montana and for the last hour this plane has been circling overhead and doing touch and goes. The closet Military base to me is either Great falls or Spokane. Anyone have any idea what this beast is? Cant for the life me figure out what a Navy Jet is doing here of all places.

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It's probably doing test flights, or "play" drills or something similar. Here in Canada where I am, we get the Sea King Helicopters flying around doing their drills and test flights, of course, there is a base nearby.... Sea kings are fun to fly in I must say.

Originally posted by w810i
Hey guys I live in kalispell, Montana and for the last hour this plane has been circling overhead and doing touch and goes.

Military planes regularly travel to low traffic runways with low air traffic too to get multiple touch and go time for qualifications.

They will travel for a couple of hours to find a place rather than wait in line at high traffic airports with high volume air traffic. Cut's down on everyone's nerves and gets multiple landing practice in short time without hassle waiting.

And you can bet at their own major air base the traffic will be just as bad as a major airport, so they will go to a rural airport with less traffic.

It's an E-6 TACAMO

Don't military planes also have numbers on the tail?

This is the Boeing E-6B Mercury

en.m.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by weavty1

It's actually the Tacamo. The Mercury doesn't have the large hump on top, the Tacamo does.

Originally posted by w810i
Don't military planes also have numbers on the tail?

Generally...

It's probably flying out of Offutt.

Originally posted by _Del_

Originally posted by w810i
Don't military planes also have numbers on the tail?

Generally...

It's probably flying out of Offutt.

What is offutt?

Originally posted by _BoneZ_
reply to post by weavty1

 

It's actually the Tacamo. The Mercury doesn't have the large hump on top, the Tacamo does.

It's the same thing. TACAMO is just the mission. It could be any airframe (EC-130Q TACAMO, previously). The E-6B has the hump because it took over the Looking Glass mission as well as TACAMO. Both A and B models are the E-6 Mercury.

reply to post by w810i

I suspect this. Google can sometimes be your friend. Well, so they say!

Originally posted by w810i
What is offutt?

en.wikipedia.org...

Strategic Command HQ in Nebraska. E-6's are frequently detached there.

Long way away from Nebraska to come to work on touch and goes it seems. Ya know considering the whole budget crisis bs

Originally posted by _BoneZ_
reply to post by weavty1

 

It's actually the Tacamo. The Mercury doesn't have the large hump on top, the Tacamo does.

O'rly?


www.navair.navy.mil...

Hey OP nice pic! Thanks I believe that's one of our doomsday planes.
S&F

Originally posted by w810i
Don't military planes also have numbers on the tail?

Often - but the location is not fixed and you will sometimes see tehm elsewhere.

the E-6B's seem to have it on the fuselage between the rear door and horizontal stabliliser, at the same level as the bottom of the door - eg see this high res picture (not hi res enough to actually read it though!): jetphotos.net...

Originally posted by w810i
Long way away from Nebraska to come to work on touch and goes it seems. Ya know considering the whole budget crisis bs

You've got to do foreign field proficiency somewhere, right? Maybe someone has a girl in Montana... Not that that would ever happen... It's also possible the aircraft came out of Boeing Field or near a subcontractor after a retrofit or is on it's way there. All kinds of reasons for cross-country wanderings.

reply to post by _Del_


You can probably look up the flight path on various online ADSB monitoring sites like flightaware or similar

reply to post by iwontrun


Doomsday plane?

Originally posted by w810i
reply to post by iwontrun

 

Doomsday plane?

Airborne command and control. Nukes go off and you have a planeload of Generals and Admirals airborne, with enough communications gear to continue the war..