Nellis AFB Spotting?

I have taken some decent photos at Nellis but I'm going to list the definative Nellis AFB Spotter to save yourself from searching for him.
His Flickr Site is HERE
His website is HERE
He takes awesome photographs out there. His buddy aslo has some HD videos from Nellis.
His youtube account is HERE

I have more "expensive" equiptment than him, yet my photos pale in comparison to him. His name is "Nellis Spotter". He has a "press pass" to Nellis AFB. AND he is ony 13!!!!!!! Make me want to give up photography!!!

What to do

when you are used to working on Thursdays, and you dont anymore??? Well if you are me the choice is obvious. Combining my two favorite pastimes...photography and aviation. Nellis AFB does not usually fly much on the weekends so it limits my picture taking. Last week though they were holding the Red Flag Training Exercise which involves military aviatyion from many of our allies.


This is a F-22. The F-22 was designed to be the elite fighting aircraft of the USA replacing the F-15. The F-35 ,on the other hand, is the cheaper mass produced aircraft to replace the F-16.



My favorite pic from Red Flag. An F-15 breaks off for laning at Nellis.


An F-16 returning from training.


Here is Big Daddy just after lift off from Nellis AFB. Quite impressive I must say!


Loaded down on short final.


An A-10 "Warthog" on short final.


A poor picture of a helicopter used to rescue downed pilots, or so I think.


A Brittish Harrier.

Welcome to the DeltaVA Pilots!

I've gotten quite a few hits from your site related to a few people that are coming to Las Vegas and have an interest in plane spotting.I'm flattered that my little 'ole blog was mentioned as a reference...Thank You! I must say I'm far from an expert on plane spotting in Vegas, but I'm happy to share what I can.

On a typical day, and it can change from hour to hour, most traffic will be landing on 25L and taking off from 25R. Sunset Boulevard is a good choice for plane spotting. There are many little strip malls on the south side of Sunset Blvd to park and take photographs. There is also a designated plane spotting area on the north side of Sunset Blvd east of Paradise Rd. They even broadcast on 101 on the FM dial so you can listen in also.

The best spot though, and it will soon be gone, is along the Fed Ex Cargo building on along that is near Rnwy 25R. It elevates you above the fence so you are looking slightly down on the runway. Here are some pics from that position:
From here you can also hear the radio transmissions. I'm usually there on the weekends and the Fedex Building is more or less closed with the occasional FedEx employee coming or going. They have never said a word to me. Not sure what its like during the week though.

Also anywhere along Eastern, which borders McCarren to the east, is a good spot also. I also like Sunset Park that is located on Eastern north of Sunset Blvd. If you head north on Eastern from Sunset Blvd and go past the ball diamonds and turn right into the first entrance you will find many places there.

Although possible to shoot from Tropicana, it is difficult because of limited parking.

If you want to see the Janet flights you can go from the south end of the strip near Russel and Las Vegas Blvd and head north. Turn right on Diablo at the McDonalds and follow it until it ends and turn left. There on your right will be the B727 Janet aircraft. There will likely also be a DOE guard watching you also. I have parked ton the left side of the street, right across the street from the guard, and never been bothered, only watched! there is also good general plane spotting here also.


Also on the strip, south of Russel Rd. you can occasionally see military aircraft parked. I've seen F-18 to Cobra helicopters parked there. It is, from what I'm told, used as overflow for Nellis.

As far as Nellis goes, the weekend traffic has been rather limited in my experience. The two best spots I've found are on Cheyenne Rd west of Nellis Blvd from which you can see the runway....kind of, but can get a good shot of the planes taking off. And on Las Vegas Blvd near the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. At the speedway I normally have parked right at the entrance to the speedway with no problems as it is usually closed. During the week it is common to see flights of 4-6 A-10s, 8-10 F-16/F15s, AWACS, Tankers, C-17s. You can occasionally also see forign Tornados and other aircraft. Seems to be slim picking on the weekends though.

Aviation Nation 2007

Aviation Nation 2007

Next weekend is the Aviation Nation Air Show
at Nellis AFB. This year the USAF is celebrating
it's 60th year anniversary. I know some good spots
to take pictures and video because I basically spend
all day every day in North Vegas within 10 miles of Nellis AFB
and see the planes take off and land all day long. I've even been
to Nellis, actually a DOE complex within Nellis, for work.
It is a very cool place. So that will be coming up in the
next week on my blog.

The C-17

This is a C-17 Globemaster III entering the landing pattern at Nellis. It is, needless to say, a huge aircraft. It was a very amazing thing to watch this plane flying so slow and manuvering like it did.

The F-22

Here are a couple of F-22s flying the pattern at Nellis during Red Flag. I didn't even realize they were F-22's until I got the picture on the computer and could view it full size. Almost every working day I start out in the morning about 1/4 mile from Nellis.

The Tornado

This one of two German A-7 Tornados that took off from Nellis on Saturday. I'm guessing he is heading back to Germany because his only payload seems to be extra fuel.

Nellis-Red Flag

I think that they knew I was comming today! After sitting around Nellis for about 3 hours on Saturday there just seemed to be very little activity. We did get to see a better view of the B-1 Lancer as shown here on the left. One of the amazing things about this aircraft is the variable sweep wings like on the F-14.
To the right you can see(kind of) the Red Team aircraft sitting idle. I just read that during Red Flag they fly 2-3 sorties per day, except on weekends! So that goes a long way towards explaining why we saw so few aircraft.
Here are 3 more B-1s sitting on the tarmac.

This is a T-6 Texan II trainer that is used by the Air Force and the Navy to traing new pilots.

MH-53 Pave Low

This is a set of 3 Pave Lows we spotted comming back from Mt Charleston. They were flying from presumably Nellis AFB west to an unknown destination.

B-1 Lancer AKA The Bone

This little guy (B-1 Lancer)took me by suprise this morning. After leaving my second service call I spotted him in the landing pattern for Nellis AFB. They were the replacement for the B-52. There are only 67 of these still operational and supposedly none of them are stationed at Nellis. Its been reported though that they are being sent to Iraq to support combat operations there. This may just be a little bit of training beore they go. I only had my point and shoot with me so I was lucky to get anything at all.

More planes

Again, just some more planes taking off from McCarran in the morning.

Nellis Air Force Base

If you are looking for plane spotting info you can look here also:PlaneSpotting

Today we found a great spot to go see the fighter jets land at Nellis. We were on North Las Vegas Blvd which seems to run parallel to one of the runways there.

There were quite a few different aircraft there including this F-16. In addition there was an A-10 Warthog that we saw flying over North Las Vegas with a couple of F-16s. The Warthog picture is not here because it didn't come out good.

This is a F-15 from the State of Missouri I believe, or as Karen likes to call it the State of Misery.

Overall we saw about 16-20 jets land at Nellis. We were so close to the jets that you could hear their hydraulic systems as they deployed their flaps and in the case of the F-16s deploying their air brakes which I found strange. I would think that they would try to control their speed prior to turning on final, but that seems not to be the case, at least to my un trained eye. I have several photos of them with their speed brakes on during short final. You can see the rest of the pics here.

Janet

This is the Janet flight taxiing to take off. Officially, this flight does exist.
You can find it listed in the various web sites that list take offs and landings. Generally its destination is set either KLAS, as if doing a round trip, or to another airbase in Nevada. It actually goes to Groom Lake aka Area 51. This particular plane is:
N-number :N4529WAircraft Serial Number :20785Aircraft
Manufacturer :BOEING
Model :737-275Aircraft
Year :1973
Owner Name : DEPARTMENT OF AIR FORCE
Owner Address : PO BOX 1504
LAYTON, UT, 84041-6504
Type of Owner : Government
Registration Date : 13-Feb-1996
Airworthiness Certificate Type : Standard
Approved Operations : Transport

Area 51 is the best known non secret secret in the US!

Day 6 (Monday)

This is a photo of Lake Meade Recreation area. It's about 10 miles from Vegas. Lots of boating, fishing, swimming, and hicking. Not to mention all the new bird I saw out there.

This is a huge park. It stretches for miles and miles and was created by the Hoover Dam.

Another benefit of living in this area is Nellis AFB. There were jets all over the place.

You can get right up to the base. Great for picture taking. We saw about 8 F-16's and 2 F-15's flying and landing at Nellis. I have quite a bit of vidoe also, but this laptop does not have firewire so it will have to wait until I get home.