I believe that is an airliner taxi trainer. It has a 777 cabin on a motorized frame that allows trainees to get the feel of how an airliner handles on the ground. The cockpit is at the same height above the runway as the real thing, and the pivot point is similar as well.
I believe this is a picture of what you're seeing, or something quite similar.
Did you ever wonder why military bases and other important features are imaged in high-res but the surrounding areas are not? When you look at Google Maps or Google Earth you've undoubtedly noticed neat strips and squares of high-res imagery.
This is because someone, somewhere, has ordered up the imagery so they can get a closer look at what is going on. Once the image is bought and paid for Google Earth gets it from Digital Globe, Space Imaging, etc. and posts that image...
It looks like an SAM site, with four launchers and a radar in the center. Four launcher sites are typically SA-3s but it is not uncommon to see SA-2s with only four launchers, and these look like SA-2 launchers.
Here's the gouge I found. The circular area with the planes in the middle is a missile impact test target, used to test the warhead effectiveness of Chinese missiles. The planes and other objects are used to document the warhead blast effectiveness.
Just to the west of the circular area are two buildings, possibly just stacked shipping containers, also used to test warhead effectiveness.
This leads me to believe the fake runway and the white lines are all part...
According to a former SAC missile guy here at the office, the site we're looking at is the training area for the missile technicians. The silo mock-up on the right is a Minuteman III site and the one on the left, with the white trucks, is a Peacekeeper mock-up. It looks like they're training to load/unload a missile from a silo.
WOW!, those are some freakish facilities. They look like some sort of military test area, but I don't know what for. I think the circular thing, with the planes in the center, might be an electronics test facility, either testing radar OR possibly testing aircraft systems against EMP. The isolated location and the strange things make this almost certainly a military test facility.
It looks like the bases are in the Lanzhou Military District, and Global Security.org lists five...
The Peacekeepers are all gone now, part of the START II treaty provisions, but the advanced warheads will likely be moved to the existing Minuteman III missiles when they are downsized from five warheads to a single re-entry vehicle.
Technically, she isn't an aircraft carrier but rather is classed as a heavy aircraft carrying cruiser (CVHG). This was done to get around a provision of the Montreaux Treaty (the treaty governing ship passage through the Turkish Straits) that prohibited aircraft carriers from transitting the Bosphorus or the Dardanelles. Since the ships were built in the Black Sea, they had to be called something besides aircraft carriers or the Turks wouldn't allow them passage into the Mediterranean.
If I were a betting man I'd put my money on the lines being an overlay on the image. They're just too straight and the corners are too perfectly square for the lines to actually be painted on the ground. If they were painted on the ground there'd be more variation along the edges where the paint soaked into the ground or changed elevation.
It's not leaking. The dark area is a calm area caused by the ship acting as a wind break. The wind, coming from the north in this image, is blocked by the ship so it doesn't cause the ripples seen elsewhere. If you look to the north on the image you'll see a large grouping of smaller ships, some nested together, creating the same calm area in the lee of the ships.
Random useless trivia: This is the similar to the technique the Navy used to practice when they recovered sea...
I stand corrected. I was talking recently to a friend who is stationed at AFSOUTH, now called Joint Forces Command - Naples, and the Flamingo Club was, and still is, on the hill above the pool. The building in the SE corner of the facility, with the smaller pool, used to be the Officer's club but is now simply called the international club. It's used for all manner of functions. The Flamingo Club is still there but isn't used much any more. There is the occasional conference there, and the...
That is certainly an old airframe. Notice the old style turbojet engines? All of the rebuilt/upgraded -135s have more modern turbofans. Possibly, but not likely, an NC but more likely an RC testing either a new system or just the aerodynamics of the new antenna fairing.
That would be an MH-53E Sea Dragon. They tow the mine hunting sleds. The big giveaway that this is an MH and not a CH is the presence of the oversized fuel sponsons on the sides of the fuselage.
Not an Apache. The horizontal tailplanes on an Apache are much further aft than the ones on the helo in the photo. Could be a UH-60 as the aircraft is located just north of both McGuire AFB and Fort Dix Army base.
The Flamingo club is the building east of the main compound and south of the football field (looks like it has a big, white tent in the middle). It's the building with the green pool on the north side.
Not a submarine but rather a surface ship rolled over on it's starboard side. You can make out the superstructure and funnel on the seaward end of the ship.
That's the U.S. Navy's training center at Dam Neck, Virginia. They teach fire control and radar related repair and maintenance courses there. It is also the host base for the Navy & Marine Corps Intelligence Training Center (NMITC), the schoolhouse for Navy and USMC intel folks.
You might have noticed that many of the streets bear the names of missile systems: Polaris, Tartar, Talos, Terrier, Regulus, Bullpup, etc.
Just my two-cents worth but they don't look like either missiles or helicopters. They're in the middle of a field and are probably just storage tanks of some sort. They remind me of a propane storage facility but they could also hold other liquids.
That's actually the USS Kearsarge (LHD 3). The Belleau Wood is LHA 3 and is in San Diego, where it was decommissioned in September.
The easiest way to tell a Tarawa-class LHA from a Wasp-class LHD is to look at the flight deck. The bow of the LHD is squared off while the bow of the LHA has small cutouts on both sides of the bow where 5-inch gun mounts once stood. The second big key is the placement of the aircraft elevators. LHDs have one elevator on each side of the flight...
The lower two are an F-102 (note the shadow of the pointed tail? F-102s had pointed vertical stabs and -106s had squared off stabs, also, 106 was longer than the 102), and an F-15 (twin engines, twin tails.)
There is an interesting patch of high res imagery about 120 miles SW of the inland missile site. It doesn't show up on Google Maps but it is on Google Earth. There is a military airfield and just to the east is a large gas-oil separation plant. It has SHAYBAHGOSP-2 painted on the roof of one of the buildings and there are several very large underground tanks visible.
Hunter's Point is in one of the worst neighborhoods in San Francisco. I was there for about 8 or 9 months in 1987. The buses and taxis wouldn't go there after dark and we were advised not to stop at any of the businesses along the roads leading from the shipyard to the interstate. It simply wasn't safe.
Interesting photo and a good illustration of how pattern analysis is done. You can see there are nine P-3 parking spots, with the DANGER - PROPELLER areas painted on the tarmac. You'll notice that the parking spots closer to the hangar have more oil stains, indicating they are used more often than the ones farther from the hangar. (Nobody wants to walk farther than they have to for parts and tools.) Also, notice that each spot has four black smudges, one for each engine, but the inboard pair...
Good picture. The F-4 at the top of the display area is the famous black chase plane with the Playboy bunny on the tail. It was used for many years before the bunny became un-PC and was removed in the early 1990s.
It's almost certainly storage for explosives. Sometimes very volatile substances, white phosphorous or dynamite for example, are stored in above ground buildings that appear to be rather flimsy. This is intentional. Small amounts are stored in separated buildings so if any catch fire only a small amount will burn/explode. The buildings are flimsy so they blow apart easily and quickly release the energy of the explosion. Even in a bunker everything would burn so there is no need to bother...
Normally, yes, it would be excessive. However comma these were visible from the exclusive Lake Tharthar compound, playground and summer homes of Baath Party elites. It is quite possible they were decorated so the privileged ones would not have to look at plain dirt mounds.
I don't see any equipment on top of the mounds, but they could quite posibly be meant to hold radar. I can't think of too many reasons to build large mounds with roads leading up the side, unless one intended to drive something to the top.
You might have notice, perhaps not, an amusement park located in the NW corner of the residential development SSE of the mounds. This is the Tharthar Presidential palace area.
GlobalSecurity.org has some good info and images...
It's almost certainly military in nature. The fenced in area is pretty big, there are guard towers at the four corners, and there are lots of hangars and parking space but few airplanes. They certainly don't want people to see what is going on inside of the fence. The airport is a commercial facility so this is probably the secure, government controlled bit.
Close, but it's an SA-3 site, not SA-2s. The launchers are quad-rail versions, and the radar in the center of the site is a "Low Blow" missile control radar. 125 meters NNW of the radar you can make out five trucks, at least four of which are carrying a pair of SA-3 missiles each. You can also see a whole bunch of SA-3 missile canisters. They're the spark-plug shaped items grouped in the parking area to the west of the three-bay, roofless "garages" just north of the missile transporters. ...
Yep, it's an SA-2 site. The cluster of vehicles in the center is the site control center and the single vehicle on the right of that cluster is the "Fan Song" missile control radar. The group of three vehicles on the northern of the site are the "Spoon Rest" search radar, generator, and radar console vans. The actual antenna is hard to see but the shadow of it is visible sticking out of the top of the upper left van. It looks like one of those old tv antenna on your grandparents house. The...
I don't think it's a SAM site. It could be a coastal defense missile site. Just north of the marker icon is a vehicle that looks like it could be a CDCM launch vehicle.
Yep, coal fired plant. It does not appear to generate electricity. Notice the absence of any substantial transformer substation or high-tension power lines? There are, however, several above ground steam pipes leading to what appear to be industrial complexes, including one approximately 4 km to the NW. Perhaps this is a central steam generation plant serving a larger industrial area.
Just northwest of these -21s, about 200 meters, you can see the engine test area. Notice the elongated fan-shaped area caused by hot engine exhaust. Also, the red vehicle appears to be a fire truck.
Probably AAA. It's too close to the end of the runway for a missile site. This would have been either 37 or 57 mm AAA for last ditch defense against low flying planes and helicopters attacking the airfield.
Typically, when bombing to cut a road, it is done at a bridge or in a confined area so it's difficult to fix. If you bomb a road in the desert it's easy for the other guys to simply drive around the craters. Also, the likelyhood of a string of bombs actually following precisely along the road is about zero, that's why roads and runways are bombed diagonally, so there is a higher probablility of at least one bomb hitting the target.
I think they're test holes dug while searching for something. There are far too many to be bomb craters, there is no reasonable target and no debris from a previously existing target, and the top line of holes makes a distinct turn...bombs don't turn the corner halfway through a stick.
Interesting photo. The parking lot/inspection station on the north side of the river, near the circular on ramp, appears to be where they switch from driving on the right to driving on the left. Notice the vehicles on the roads on the north side of the river are on the right but once they cross into Hong Kong they switch over to the left side, a remnant of Hong Kong's time as a British colony.
Looks like a cement plant, possibly the Lehigh facility. The dome keeps the dry ingredients dry. They are transported up the conveyors to the horizontal rotary mixer/kiln at the top center of the facility, and then stored in the silos on the right. The large building at bottom center is where the various items are bagged or put into other shipping containers. There are also some train loading/unloading facilities at the lower right portion of the facility.
I remember going here as a Cub Scout in the early '70s. I lived right down the road in Oakland. My best friend broke his arm when he fell out of a tree there.
It's possible, but they really don't look like spill booms. The curved object at the mouth of the loch looks more like a spill boom. Besides, this is a coal fired power plant (note the coal train just north of the "floats"?)
You can see where they are making more on the left side of the loch. One set is under construction (4 of 5 attached) and several 90 foot sections of framing with 5 attach points for the "floats".
The above ship is not listing, it's merely an optical illusion created by the backward look angle. The photo was taken after the camera had passed overhead and was looking backward from the plane/satellite that took the picture.
Bring up the image using Google Earth and rotate it 180 degrees. The "tilt" goes away.
Analogman: Comments
I believe this is a picture of what you're seeing, or something quite similar.
http://www.proctorp.com/img/48346g1.jpg
There's a good picture of one of these kilns here: http://www.cleanairnet.org/caiasia/1412/articles-58218_resource_3.jpeg, including the chimneys and the outdoor drying and storage areas.
This is because someone, somewhere, has ordered up the imagery so they can get a closer look at what is going on. Once the image is bought and paid for Google Earth gets it from Digital Globe, Space Imaging, etc. and posts that image...
Just to the west of the circular area are two buildings, possibly just stacked shipping containers, also used to test warhead effectiveness.
This leads me to believe the fake runway and the white lines are all part...
It looks like the bases are in the Lanzhou Military District, and Global Security.org lists five...
See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGM-118A_Peacekeeper
Random useless trivia: This is the similar to the technique the Navy used to practice when they recovered sea...
You're right about baseball diamonds at bases with antennas and no runways.
You might have noticed that many of the streets bear the names of missile systems: Polaris, Tartar, Talos, Terrier, Regulus, Bullpup, etc.
The easiest way to tell a Tarawa-class LHA from a Wasp-class LHD is to look at the flight deck. The bow of the LHD is squared off while the bow of the LHA has small cutouts on both sides of the bow where 5-inch gun mounts once stood. The second big key is the placement of the aircraft elevators. LHDs have one elevator on each side of the flight...
You can see a picture of a model of the aircraft here: http://mitglied.lycos.de/thomasziemer1968/hpbimg/F-4Bunny3.jpg
You might have notice, perhaps not, an amusement park located in the NW corner of the residential development SSE of the mounds. This is the Tharthar Presidential palace area.
GlobalSecurity.org has some good info and images...
Sikorsky H-3: http://www.military.cz/usa/air/in_service/helicopters/h3/h3_en.htm
http://www.lehighinland.com/inland/
There also used to be a baseball/kickball field where the soccer field is now, up in the northern corner of the property.
Bring up the image using Google Earth and rotate it 180 degrees. The "tilt" goes away.