Transportation from NAS Fallon

[Randy Haskin]

For any of you familiar with the Reno/Sparks area....

Is there any kind of public transportation from NAS Fallon to downtown Reno or to Stead?

Due to Hurricane Ivan, I may be forced to scrap my commercial flight to Reno and instead bug out of south Georgia with a T-38. If I end up at Fallon, I am trying to figure out how to get to Stead.

Anyone? Anyone?

[Curt]

Re: Transportation from NAS Fallon

are you going to commute every day??
i get there tuesday night and i have room at my hotell, i can run up to fallon and pick you up then run you back up sunday night after the races, let me know if this will work for you

Curt

[Randy Haskin]

Re: Transportation from NAS Fallon

Well, the plan is to stay with my dad in the RV lot across from the pits during the week (probably wed-sun, depending). We have been doing this for 15 years...I had been planning on flying in commercial, but the hurricane trashed those plans. Not only will my flight out of Orlando likely be cancelled, but Uncle Sam has also called me back from my leave this week so I can fly a jet away from the storm, too.

I'm trying combining these two bad deals into a good deal. I'm going to try and HUREVAC a jet to Fallon, since neither Stead or Reno/Tahoe are viable parking options for the week. So, instead of flying into Reno/Tahoe and catching a shuttle out to Stead, I have to find my way out to Stead from Fallon.

[Curt]

Re: Transportation from NAS Fallon

i have the route programmed in my gps 68 mile i can boogie there wednesday am and pick you up no problem let me know how the plan works out and i will play cabbie !!

[Randy Haskin]

Re: Transportation from NAS Fallon

Curt -

Thanks for the very generous offer. At current, I don't really know exactly when I'll be there. I am guessing Wednesday around the noon hour.

Do you have a mobile phone number?

[Curt]

Re: Transportation from NAS Fallon

drop me a line at

curt@kpunet.net

and ill pass my cell # to you

No problem dude you have gone many more miles for more important busness than what im dooing for you

[AAFO_WSagar]

Re: Transportation from NAS Fallon

Curt and Randy, you guys are warming my heart here!

How often can we (civies) say thank you to "our guys" and especially in a way like this!

Randy.... still no go on "parking" at Reno Stead as a static? The -38 have Rolls engines by any chance???

Lemme know asap...

Wayne

[Eric]

Re: Transportation from NAS Fallon

Hey Mr.Haskin, I see your a Eagle Driver. Were you ever sationed at Luke? I was stationed there when they left. Anyways I am a fellow bluesuiter also stationed at Travis doing the QA thing. I truly miss supporting Fighters. These C-5's give me give me hemroids :P. Take care and cant wait to get there!

[Curt]

Re: Transportation from NAS Fallon

Curt and Randy, you guys are warming my heart here!

How often can we (civies) say thank you to "our guys" and especially in a way like this!


Wayne

We do owe our boys in blue (greeen tan ) a big debt,

The other part of this i was an Air Force Heavy Equpment Mechanic for a 4 year tour and when a fellow gi needs a favor even tho Randys an Officer we gotta help our bros out

[AAFO_WSagar]

Re: Transportation from NAS Fallon

We do owe our boys in blue (greeen tan ) a big debt,

The other part of this i was an Air Force Heavy Equpment Mechanic for a 4 year tour and when a fellow gi needs a favor even tho Randys an Officer we gotta help our bros out

LOL>.. yea, but Ran's a "Pilot Officer" and that's just different!

Damn I'm gonna miss being there!!!!!!!!!

Wayne

[Randy Haskin]

Re: Transportation from NAS Fallon

Wayne -

Unfortunately, due to a laundry list of inane reasons, I can't land/park at Stead (even if RARA wanted to let me do so for a static). All of them have to do with USAF rules regarding the length of the runway and the density altitude at Stead.

I tried Reno/Tahoe, but the ANG unit there laughed when I asked them if they had ramp space. The FBO at Reno said they'd be glad to let me park there free....one night...for each fill-up of gas.

The US Navy has a nice, big runway (14,000!) out there at Fallon and will gladly let me park there for free for the whole week. So, that is where I will try and go.

By the way, my motors in the Smurf are General Electric J85-GE-5R, so I doubt Rolls Royce would be interested!

Eric -

My time in the Eagle was after the Luke era. They moved all the F-15Es out of Luke in the mid-90s, and the training squadrons are both in North Carolina where I was stationed.

Thanks again, guys. There are still a lot of moving parts to this story, and I can't take anything for granted until I actually put the gear handle down on short final at Fallon. Still lots of opportunities to break the jet during a gas stop, or blow a tire, or get weathered out, etc etc.

[AAFO_WSagar]

Re: Transportation from NAS Fallon

Hey Randy, good luck to you, however you get to do it! Give "The Dad" a hug and smack "The Brad" around a few times for me OK?

One of these years, we're actually gonna get to meet !

Wayne

[FlyinLo]

Re: Transportation from NAS Fallon

Unfortunately, due to a laundry list of inane reasons, I can't land/park at Stead (even if RARA wanted to let me do so for a static). All of them have to do with USAF rules regarding the length of the runway and the density altitude at Stead.
...
Thanks again, guys. There are still a lot of moving parts to this story, and I can't take anything for granted until I actually put the gear handle down on short final at Fallon. Still lots of opportunities to break the jet during a gas stop, or blow a tire, or get weathered out, etc etc.

I think they said in the briefing this morning that 14-32 is now 9000 freshly paved feet of nice smooth runway. Mind you, it is not marked yet, but I hear it is the best runway at Stead now.

Speaking of blown tires, an F100 Super Sabre blew a tire landing at Stead over the weekend.

[Randy Haskin]

Re: Transportation from NAS Fallon

Jeff, I actually spent a bit earlier this year trying to get to Stead as a static display and talked with the airport manager a number of times regarding the runway lengthening. The extra 1000' definitely helped out, but....

The deal is this (get ready for pilot speak!). The T-38 has very poor performance when it comes to TOLD. We have tiny tires and no antiskid system, meaning that our Refusal Speed is pretty low compared to our normal rotation and takeoff speeds.

Operating at home base, close to sea level on a 9000' runway, there is a 50-knot window on takeoff between Refusal Speed (somewhere in the 115-knot range) and takeoff speed (somewhere around 165). That means any abort which happens above 115 knots puts the jet *in the dirt* off the end of the runway. We mitigate this risk at our training bases via a raiseable "rabbit catcher" barrier on the departure end of the runway. Most fighter aircraft don't have this kind of problem, because their bigger engines mean slower takeoff speeds and antiskid brakes mean higher refusal speeds.

Legally, I can fly cross-country into pretty much any field so long as they have a departure-end barrier which allows me to abort my takeoff all the way up to my takeoff speed. Since Stead does not have a rabbit catcher, I have to go through further machinations to determine if it's "legal" in the Air Force's eyes for me to land there (or, more correctly, legal for me to *take off* there!).

Getting further into the T-38's TOLD quagmire, we find out that there is a disconnect between how the test pilots came up with the abort data and how the procedure is performed in real life. Basically it is impossible for a normal pilot on a "normal" abort to achieve the braking action the test pilots did...which pretty much invalidates the technical data. Again, in layman's terms it means that if we abort when "they" say it is safe to abort...we can still end up in the dirt.

So...the USAF has built in a safety factor on top of the tech data numbers. It is that safety factor which makes it impossible for me to take off from Stead. When I ran the numbers using almanac data for "average" temperatures at Stead on the dates I would likely be leaving, I found that I was legal if I could take off with the average temperature at 7 am. By noon, the average temperature made the jet's performance eat into that safety factor, and thus "illegal".

My leadership was unwilling to take the chance that I might get my airplane -- which is needed for student training at home station -- stuck at Stead because it was simply too hot to take off. Even worse in their book, they were unwilling to accept that I might have to high-speed abort on takeoff and put a T-38 off the end of the runway at an out-base.

And there you have it. I told you it was a complicated and inane situation...but you asked anyway!

Anyhooo....I'm off to Barksdale today with a HUREVAC for Hurricane Ivan. Hope to see some of you in the pits this week (even if I might have to leave to come home on Saturday or Sunday!)!

[mgbf4u]

Re: Transportation from NAS Fallon

We'll "git 'er done" Randy. I'll be flying into SMF early Wed. afternoon, 1320 and driving rent car to Reno. A trip to Fallon would be painless. My guess is it would be approximately 1700 before I could get there. We have cell phone and laptop.
Hank