NC by any chance?

"Trent Moorehead" wrote in message
...
I have crossposted this question because I realized that those in the
military area would definitely have some knowledge about this.

Last night, which was a super quiet, calm and moonless night, I was out
standing on the ramp when I heard the rather sharp bark of tires as a
plane
landed at the far end of the runway. There was no sound to preface this.
Immediately afterward I heard the sound of prop blade reversal which was
fairly loud. Then I noticed that this plane probably only rolled about 100
feet after touchdown. From my perspective, it looked like this plane
hardly
rolled at all after touchdown.

The plane, which was a turboprop by the sound of it and fairly large, took
off with about another 100 feet of ground roll. I could hardly believe
what
I could hardly see (it was very dark). The airport beacon did splash some
light on it for a split second as it rotated, but I couldn't discern much.

It stayed in the pattern, but only got to about 100 feet off the ground
and
was moooving fast. It came in for another landing, banking extremely to
line
up for final. I now realized that there was no landing lights (just nav
lights, no strobes), but more importantly, no runway lights. "Holy crap,
how
is the pilot doing this?", I thought.

I remember when arriving at the airport, seeing a black SUV parked at the
landing end of the runway, just visible in the waning light. Could he be
helping with this operation?

Another pilot joined me and said that this was Special Ops from a local
base
and that the plane was a Pilatus. Not the new fancy ones, but a special
STOL
equipped aircraft.

Does anyone have information about this? This was the most eerie display
of
flying I've ever seen....well, barely.

Thanks,

-Trent
PP-ASEL