Good afternoon planefags! 2/9 Daily Post
✈️ Planes ✈️
Today's finds
- Algerian Gulfstream out of Savannah, GA via u/leta
- The 82-8000 "AF1" plane landed after seeming to circle/land at Langley.
It didn't put up a callsign at all and its transponders seemed to stay off for the majority of the flight.according to u/Tropic_Lightning and u/Warren_Puffitt they may have been practicing approaches! - An Israeli B703 is flying on the East coast as well and has stopped tracking. This plane is a 'blocked aircraft' on most major radar sites (like AF1 is)
- 3 VENUS flights are up out of DC. Probably training, but the one commonly used as AF2 has been turning tracking off on occasion.
- SAM735 out of DC
General info:
- Joe Biden took one of the 'small' planes that can be used as AF1 this past weekend to Delaware. I have seen no confirmation of the callsign "Air Force 1" being used, please post if you find out anything more.
- A SAM flight is a Special Air Mission meaning a high level official is on the plane
- AF1 alternates between 2 different flights reg number: 82-8000 or 92-9000, but they may be flying a test flight if they aren't putting up the AF1 callsign.
- The callsign "AF1" does not need to be used to mean POTUS is onboard, they may use a different one for security
- VENUS indicates a training mission
Side note: if anyone is a front end dev or knows react/vue we need you for a project.
Happy flying!
VC-25 82-8000 over Tidewater VA may be practicing approaches; I have a friend near there who tells me they use a Portsmouth or NN airfield routinely for that.
I work for the Air Force, they do this all the time. Pilots need to stay trained.
Thanks for the info, I added it to the post. I'm always happy to learn more. As an aside, the 92-9000 VC-25 has been in Wichita Falls for almost over a month. It seems to be 'staying' at the municipal airport and not Sheppard AFB (probably too small). When it flies, which is fairly rare (last time was the 5th) it does patterns with some Tex2s and T38s. What do you think they're doing with it?
EDIT: Here's a link https://www.radarbox.com/data/registration/92-9000