St Athens doesn't test-fly actually...
It's a military air-reserve/training base, although hosts a lot of jets.
Test flights for new planes in Wales, are towards Powas, and up north and alot by Pembrokeshire nowhere near Cardiff.
Last edited by Joshuae; 22-06-2008 at 02:35 PM.
Aha, never knew that. Didn't get much time to research before I posted so.
I was writing it quickly before going out to work, hoping people wouldn't look too deep into it...
There's an interesting discusson on it, here.
Yes we can.
So, we can't take planes that BAE Systems, for example, are manufactoring and let our Pilots loose on them? Seeing as y'know, it'll be our pilots flying them and needing to train on them.
Wales is mostly countryside and that's as good a place as any to let Pilots fly planes which we don't want revealed to the public. So, actually, yes.
Though, if the Helicopter was landing at this airbase, they should know what other sorties are flying from it, and if there was a valid reason for the near miss then I don't know why they reported it to the Papers and the like.
Were just not buying any new planes that are out in that stage of testing.
Also if it was then we would know because of ATC
propper need a good sig:\
Who knows what we're buying and what we're not?
The U2, B2, F117, SR-71 and many other American aircraft were flying tests out of Groom Lake for years before they became public knowledge. There are many more they tested and didn't go on to buy, e.g the Northrop YF-23 was flown by American's and not bought as they went in favour of the Lockheed Martin/Boeing F22.
Also, the ATC frequencies for "Black" Aircraft would be secure, though I'm not too sure whether UAV's clock in with ATCs. Mistakes do happen with ATCs though, basic human errors can never be ruled out.
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