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Quirky Things Seen From The Air in Your RV

Tornado

Flying west near Sterling colorado I flew past a tornado... yes I have a picture but i cant post it.
If someone else wants to post the picture I could email it to you

Cm
 
Near Salt Lake City Utah

There are letters on the mountain slopes by Salt Lake City UT. I am wondering what's the meaning? :)



 
There are letters on the mountain slopes by Salt Lake City UT. I am wondering what's the meaning? :)






The Y is for Brigham Young University in Provo Utah. The C I am not sure of but probably is for a local high school. There is also a B in Bountiful, and V in Centerville Utah.
 
Lost Lake Montana

So there we were, cruising across the plains of Montana just south of the Missouri Breaks, admiring the jaw dropping beauty of a landscape spattered with both rain and sun, when we came upon this:



My jaw dropped even further. I know just enough geology to know a waterfall when I see it, and this is a big one......250 feet tall and a half mile wide. The obvious problem....where is the river? The Missouri River is more than 20 miles away. It turns out that this is yet another of the glacial artifacts that fill our northern landscape, as the Missouri was once dammed by ice and cut through these plains, carving these magnificent but dry falls.

http://formontana.net/pictures.html
 
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Giant V of Super Science

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This pic is the hub of the facility. It's located 25SM north of KREG, my
home port, in Gonzales, LA. The two lines at 90 degrees from buildings
are actually earth levees with large hollow tubes running
down the top. The length of each leg is 2.5sm, yes miles.

DSC_0023-M.jpg


This pic shows one of the legs with the facility in the
foreground.
The facility is LIGO, most people have never heard of it or it's sister
site in Hanford Washington. They work together doing research.
LIGO is Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory

Super dark science. The tubes are hollow and under a vacuum and the
lazers travel down the tubes and detect gravity waves.

If you want more info here's the link to the one here:

http://ligo.caltech.edu


[ed. The LIGO gravity wave sound is my alarm on my phone!!!!! I've wanted to fly the RV over there and tour the facility for some time. Thank you!!! v/r,dr]
 
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LIGO

Nice pics Bert. A friend in Baton Rouge wanted to fly over LIGO then do the guided tour. We did both. The legs are each 4km long. When gravity waves pass over the facility the length of the legs is changed and the laser interferometer measures the difference in length between the legs. The difference due to gravity waves is less than the width of a proton. That's a new standard of precision for even the most ocd RV builders to think about. John
 
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Very interesting pictures of LIGO.

I've read a description of all the data postprocessing required to extract a signal from the LIGO data. The device is an exceptionally sensitive seismometer. One has to somehow subtract out all manner of signals many orders of magnitude larger than any gravity wave signal, in order to detect the desired gravity waves. This also includes removing test signals at multiple frequencies always present(?). Then also comparing to signals from the other LIGO sites to verify proper timing of signals given their geological distances apart, and the orientations of their sensor legs re. the possible orientations of incoming gravity waves.

Yes, they are literally trying to measure changes in length smaller than a proton, over a baseline leg length of miles.

I've read a European technical paper which independently analyzed the initial gravity wave detection data, and concluded it was impossible to statistically state that an actual gravity wave signal had been detected, as opposed to resonances between test signals.

A very difficult scientific proposition, and a data postprocessing nightmare, upon which literally billions have been spent. Difficult to say whether this is an amazing breakthrough, or a boondoggle of epic proportions...

-Paragon
Cincinnati, OH
 
Harbor Freight must have them ?cheap?

The difference due to gravity waves is less than the width of a proton. That's a new standard of precision for even the most ocd RV builders to think about. John

Now can I just get a proton tape at Lowes or do I have to spend more and upgrade to a proton steel rule. Measure twice, cut once. :D
 
The top photo is the Air Force target area in 5314A. Zoom in and be amused. You know you made a wrong turn when your GPS highway nav puts you on "Strafe Road", the dead ends at far right :eek:
 
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Ahhh, the memories

I've dropped many a little blue bomb on that range. I've even been supersonic over the Alligator river on the way in...unintentionally. Lots of fun!
 
Top photo is Air Force Dare bombing range and with the trees cut back, looks like a .45 caliber bullet. The bottom is Navy Dare bombing range and it has a key hole shape. That is how you can tell the difference visually and on radar. The circle part of the Navy range had lights around the perimeter, just like the houses on the shore surrounding Stumpy Point Bay (the circular bay just past the ranges). Easy to get mixed up doing low level pop-up night dive bombing on a very dark night (don't ask how I know).
 
Memories

I put a lot of lead on that ground. Some of which actually went through the target! Came up to Dare from Myrtle Beach AFB (closed now), flying the A-7Ds (retired now) in 1974-77. I'm really starting to feel old now! :eek:
 
Good Memories!

Beautiful photos! At first glance, it was ?I?ve seen that before.? Dropped a few BDU-33s, BDU-50s, and even exercised the M61A1 there flying with the 335th FS Chiefs 1995-1998. Wow, that was already a long time ago:eek:
 
"ArlingtonRV" and I flew our RV-8's over to Richland, WA for lunch last Friday (10/11/19). We returned via Moses Lake. Flying over Grant County Airport at Moses Lake, I took this pic of approximately 160 Boeing 737 Max's parked on the ramps. My guess is that they are new-production airplanes direct from factory (flown over on a Ferry Permit) since Boeing has used up all the space for storing them at Renton Airport, Boeing Field, and Paine Field in the greater Seattle area, and are still producing approximately 45 737 Max's a month.


Looks like two 787s as well.
 
Somewhere in Idaho.
 

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How about completely empty Disney and Universal Parks? These are from April 19th of this year.

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Epcot

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Hollywood Studios

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Animal Kingdom

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Magic Kindgom

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Volcano Bay

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Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios
 
Seen on the way to Bonneville Salt Flats :)
 

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I'd like to see the equipment that crawls across a slope that steep replanting stuff....
 
Appears to be drainage from them, so perhaps locations where water (re)surfaces as it migrates from high to low elevation?
 
Wondering what's the purpose of these roads. There is nothing on top of those elevations.

Those are ditches put in to control erosion and reduce flash flooding down hill from those peaks. My grandfather used to put those in with a bulldozer working for the Forest Service. He might have even put in those very ones (can recognize the mountain from the pictures, looking at the other side of it out my window now).
 
Flying from Factory Butte UT toward Escalante National Monument saw this weird circles.

Less certain about these, but I think those are ant hills. The ants clear out the vegetation for a bit around the nest, you sometimes end up with a ring of extra grass/brush at the edge from the extra water. Regularly see similar when walking in the great basin parts of Utah.
 
Circles are where the worms come out to feed on hapless downed pilots. Be sure to bring dynamite / satchel charges and a damsel to be in distress at the right moment.
 
They are bomb craters

:eek:
Flying from Factory Butte UT toward Escalante National Monument saw this weird circles.

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Dropped by a lost cold war navigator - he thought he was in Siberia!
 
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