Imagine if you will...

[beaky]

Been working down at MacDill AFB for a week now, and sadly no pix due to the super-tight security restraints.
not a whole lot going on there right now anyway, but here's what I've seen while arriving, leaving, or stepping out of the CentCom building for a break:

About eight KC-135s
A P-3
A coast Guard C-130

There is a B-29 and I think a F-4 on display along the perimeter road- I've been told it's OK to take pictures there if one approaches the nearby guard shack first and gives them a heads-up (it's right near the flag entrance to the base, and visitors sometimes cause alarm when they seem to be snapping pictures of the entrance and security shacks).
So maybe Monday, when I'm not playing chauffeur, I'll drive in early and try to get some pix of those two.
Meanwhile, this weekend I'll check out some nearby "legal" areas near the base where I might catch something in the pattern.

It's very unlikely I'll be able to wangle access to the flight line or anything like that: our contacts are just the A/V guys and some  civvie aerospace contractors, and our escorts so far have been very low-rated kids from various branches.


Quite a mix of service personnel and even nationalities here; it's an important supply and comms hub for Coalition ops in the Mideast.
I'd tell you more, but... I'd have to kill you... and there's just too many of you...


And oh yes, I'm booked for a rental checkout in a Cessna at nearby Knight Airport tomorrow afternoon- I'll be sure to bring the camera, and if all goes well, the following weekend I'll be flying over to  Orlando and  either Cocoa Beach or  maybe Crystal River and Cedar Key.

You'll all have to wait until maybe the last weekend for some banana-hammock shots; I need to get some color first.

[BFMF]

Quite a mix of service personnel and even nationalities here; it's an important supply and comms hub for Coalition ops in the Mideast.
I'd tell you more, but... I'd have to kill you... and there's just too many of you...

You can tell me...

[flyboy 28]

I'd tell you more, but... I'd have to kill you... and there's just too many of you...

<=====

Spill! Who can resist this smile?

[RitterKreuz]

sounds awesome... i was taxiing right next to an F-22 the other day  ;D

[Willit Run]

Sounds like your having a good time!!

[Chris_F]

I recall visiting an Air Force base with my Boy Scout troop back in the late 1980s (still cold war).  I live in the North East US and the base was home to an active F111 squadron which, if called upon, was to fly over the North Pole and deposit their munitions behind the Iron Curtain.  So security was fairly tight.

Anyways, apparently our military caperones weren't the brightes knives in the deck.  After a tour of the base security office they took us in to one of the maintenance hangars where one of the F111s was torn apart and let us sit in the cockpit, take pictures of everything, etc.  As they were loading us back on the bus an officer came over, pulled them aside, and chewed them out.  They then sheepishly came aboard our bus and asked us to surrender our film since some of what we saw was not to be photographed.  They never told us what specifically was out of bounds but looking back on it I can think of a half dozen or so things that were probably sensitive.  Heck, I'd bet the ejection systems in that F111 cockpit were probably live and had one of the scouts gotten curious and pulled the wrong lever...  Yikes.  

Anyway, it was really, really cool to a 13 year old kid interested in aviation.  I remember seeing those F111s parked under their reventments, big things (fuel tanks probably) under the wings, umbilicals attached, cockpits open, waiting for a call that tankfully never came.

[beaky]

Quite a mix of service personnel and even nationalities here; it's an important supply and comms hub for Coalition ops in the Mideast.
I'd tell you more, but... I'd have to kill you... and there's just too many of you...

You can tell me...

OK, here's a message coded for your security level:

"Same old crap as on every other base. "

[beaky]

I'd tell you more, but... I'd have to kill you... and there's just too many of you...

<=====

Spill! Who can resist this smile?

There's really nothing to tell... I just like to use that phrase whenever the situation calls for it.