E3 AWACS overflying my house
It's not something you see every day. The kids got all excited and told me to look up. You're right, I said, that is a weird looking airplane.
The distinctive shape of an E3 AWACS, flying relatively low, the radome clealy visible, tracking from west to east over Cambridge, Ontario. And directly over my house.
AWACS stands for Airborne Warning and Control System, and a number of aircraft fulfil that role. But I'm referring to the most famous and familiar AWACS aircraft in the world, the plane that is synonymous with the acronym AWACS, the E-3 Sentry flown by the United States Air Force.
Where it came from and where it was going, I can't even guess. Probably an air show somewhere.
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Comments
...The Martians are coming, the Martians are coming!!!
Posted by: tomax7 at July 12, 2007 02:29 PM
Saw it, low in the sky, over London ON! Think it had just taken off from the airport here.
Posted by: Kendall at July 12, 2007 03:06 PM
Are you likely to see an E3 on the tarmac in London?
Posted by: Steve Janke at July 12, 2007 03:41 PM
It is part of the new Alberta Air Force. We gotta keep an eye on you sneaky Easterners just to make sure you don't try to bring in NEP2. I mean we spy on our citizens who oppose Energy development. This is just the natural extension of that.
Posted by: Reid at July 12, 2007 03:45 PM
I saw it too sround 1 pm in Bramladesh.
Posted by: ZiLLa at July 12, 2007 05:07 PM
First U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has a "gut feeling" about terror threats on the US mainland and then an E3 flies over T.O.? Coincidence? I think not! ;-)
Posted by: Phil at July 12, 2007 08:30 PM
Was panning out on the radar at work on Wednesday and saw several formations of oilers and fighters all heading up to an altitude reservation near Eilson AFB in Alaska. This was probably part of whatever exercise they were doing up there.
Posted by: Yukon Gold at July 12, 2007 09:50 PM
Probably just pilot training. The only guaranteed way to learn route trips is to do route trips - and the only good way to learn landing at strange airports, is to land at strange airports.
They have a guiding philosophy in choosing what areas to train at - "what is their weather like when ours is lousy?" When pilots flight-plan, they are required to select an alternate - an airfield they can divert to, in case their destination is unuseable for any reason, such as weather or a crash on the ground that renders the runway unavailable - and they have to take the weather at the divert airport into account. So, weather systems being fairly predictable as to size and duration, they look for (and train at) nearby airports that usually have good weather when they are having bad weather. Then when they file their flight plans, they choose these airports as alternates, hopefully saving them having to carry a lot of (heavy) extra fuel so they can make-it to somewhere farther away.
And why London instead of Toronto? Two reasons - first, landing fees become due when their wheels touch the ground, whether stopping or just doing a touch-and-go, and landing fees at Toronto are murderous - second, Toronto is really really busy, and the controllers really don't want extra traffic in the circuit.
My 2 cents' worth - any takers? ;)
Posted by: Jim at July 13, 2007 04:30 PM
They're onto you, Mike. Time to take down the AITGWN blog...
Posted by: Tom at July 15, 2007 09:09 PM
 
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