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  • Please see the most recent updates in the "Where did the .com name go?" thread. Posts number 16 and 17.

    Post 16 Update

    Post 17 Warning

Unknown Airport(s)

G

gigabyte

Jr. Admin
Ok question for the geography or maybe even the conspiracy buffs out there, on Google earth and Google maps both there is an airport in Idaho roughly 22 miles South East of Mountain Home AF Base identified only as "Unknown Airport" there are no buildings I am able to identify. Zooming in on the field there does appear to be aircraft parked, and a few vehicles parked a mile or so south of the field they could be part of the same field/base/installation, whatever it is. The aircraft appear to be military to me, and there looks to be several types, I am not quite good enough to ID them but they look like mostly fighters to me - W.A.G. So the question is does anyone have any idea what this "Unknown Airfield" is and if so is it still active - it looks like it but for all I know it could be some type of training mock up...lol

For the exact location here are the coordinates from Google Earth

42Deg 44'44.58"N
115Deg 34'12.60"W

My money is a mock up but it is very interesting to look at, if you look at the historical images in Google Earth a couple of the planes are in the same spot in 1998 as they are in 2003, 2005, and 2010, but I could be worng about that...lol


I guess this bring up an interesting secondary question, does anyone know of other "Unknown" airbases in Google Earth might be interesting to see if any made it into FSX? I am going looking for this one.
 
I can almost identify one aircraft as an f-8 crusader, and a second looks like an f-4 Phantom most of the rest of the planes are too contrasty and pixelated to make out..
there appear to be what could be gun emplacements a few hundred feet from the runway, and the plane on the runway appears to be missing part of a wing. On the taxiway to the left of the runway there's a triangular object.. and topping it off just a mile or so south and connected by a road to the strip, theres what appears to be some sort of industrial ( military? ) compound.. to the right of the compound by about a half mile theres a large set of concentric circles in what looks like broken ground. unfortunately the circles are exactly concentric, eliminating any type of underground testing..
I think you found a great mystery here :).. prolly nowhere near as dramatic or romantic as i've made it out to seem though..
 
Based on it's proximity it's likely an Aux field for Mountain Home AFB. I'm not sure if it's located in a Restricted area or MOA or not. If so, it'd likely be used for practice bomb runs. Anyone have a current sectional for that area?
 
I'm showing a Aux field for Mountain Home AFB and access is restricted with tight control.
 
If you add in enough placemark info, you'll find that Google Groups identify the area as "possibly" an Idaho bombing and target target range. Slightly to the north is a place marker describing the area as film sight where the A-10 straffing for the Imaz film Red Flag took place.

Cheers
Larry
 
Looking around inside the perimeter road, you can make out at least two Towers (by the long shadows cast) and one in the upper left portion of the road where it winds around quite a bit, what appears to be a mobile control tower. Like Pam I could spot several F-4's on the taxiway and inside revetments, also what looked like F-105's, T-33's, F-16's and even an F-15. Obviously a Gun Range. . .many bases have them. . .our "Falcon Range" for the F-16's was up in Northeastern Oklahoma.
 
Well this is just too cool, my first thought was a target range especially when I compared the historical Google Maps images, there are two aircraft on the taxi way in the same place in 1998 and 2005, either they are going VERY slow or they are there for target practice, and I would guess there have not been many good shots at the range yet...lol

There must be some more of these around, I might have to spend some time messing around in Google Earth later, fun stuff. Thanks for all the feedback.
 
Love going through GE looking for mystery airports.

Best I've ever found was here:

-20.589 148.655

You should be able to copy and paste those coords into the GE search box.

It's on the coast of Queensland, between Mackay and Proserpine.

A HUGE 3kms of runway. The date for the imagery is old (2007).

Originally the dream of one of those wacky QLD property developers to build an international airport to replace the nearby Proserpine. The money soon ran out. This 2011 newspaper article tells the story:

http://www.townsvillebulletin.com.au/article/2011/01/15/200361_business.html
 
I'd like to see the Saylor Creek aircraft revetment area on better imagery than the Google Earth coverage.
 
TARPSBird said:
I'd like to see the Saylor Creek aircraft revetment area on better imagery than the Google Earth coverage.
Click to expand...

That's not Google Earth imagery. It's USGS 1m/pixel data from the (then) USGS Seamless Server as stated in the readme. Any increase in resolution would have cost me $350.00 for just the Saylor Creek range. I had already purchased the models for the static F-16's and couldn't afford to get the high resolution ground to go into a project that I didn't charge for..

Jim
 
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