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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 |
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