Forum: Civil and General Aviation

Hey there everyone! I've found a great place to watch the planes come and go over at McCarren Int'l that was actually purpose built for it Very Happy

! Military jets may be my favorites, but Nellis is a bit farther away from me (I live under the departure path from McCarren's runway 25R) and McCarren has a couple of things going for it, too.

While I don't get to see Vipers and Eagles, I actually have a great view of the runways. McCarren also has a really nice system that allows the general public to listen in on the tower communications with the jets Cool

. They broadcast those transmissions on 88.5 FM (very low power and limited range) so that people can tune them in on their car radios if (like me) they can't afford a scanner at the moment.

While it would be nice if Nellis could do something like this, I can understand the security concerns Wink

. I made sure to take some pictures today and I've also made a panorama to show the viewing site and the view from it. If you're ever in Vegas and want to visit it, just take the Strip (Las Vegas Blvd.) south to Sunset, make a left (go east) about halfway to the other end of the airport, and you'll see it on your left Smile

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I've never seen a place quite like this, especially with the FM communications broadcast and I'm curious if anyone else has either? Does anyone else have a favorite place to kick back and watch the jets?

I've attached a couple of pictures from today along with the panorama. The panorama is actually an executable ( .exe file ) so that you can use the attached viewer to view it like you would a Quicktime VR presentation.

Have fun Very Happy

!

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My favorite place was the approach end of 21L along Northern Avenure at Luke AFB before I joined up. After I joined up it was in the fuels parking lot off to the east of 21L at Luke. Even when I was in the B-course I'd go out there to watch the jets take off and land. There's usually a good collection of people parked along extended-centerline at Luke when you are landing to the south, and when I was in the B-course I'd always make sure to wave to them from short-final if I had the SA to do so.

RE: NELLIS-
If you want to listen to Nellis Tower, the VHF freqs are available. If you want to look them all up they are at http://www.airnav.com/ and type in KLSV. You'll only hear the tower talking, they usually simulcast. Heavies also may use victor. You can pick up a VHF receiver at any radio shack for about $69. Or you can make one out of a standard FM receiver, the band is only about 10MHz higher than the top of your car radio.

For UHF freqs, you can hear all the fighter admin stuff, but a UHF receiver is pretty difficult to come by. You can buy them out of GA pilot magazines, but they run around $300. Or if you are smart, you could just make one, but I was a business major.

Thanks STBYGAIN!

I'll have to check out 21L at Luke if I ever get out that way! I just got a new job, so I'll be saving up for a military capable receiver, but I found an AM/FM/Aircraft (VHF) pocket radio at Radio Shack for about $40. I might just get that one, but I'll also have to look into building one myself Wink

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Have fun!

I sometimes get a view of planes cruising up high and sometimes low because they are approaching the airport, I am about 15 minutes away from the airprot, but not always I get to see th eplanes as close as I want to see them because air traffic control in Egypt is constantly making new routes for planes flying because of incongestion, therer si a lot of movement here in Egypt, God bless those air traffic controllers!

parrothead wrote:

They broadcast those transmissions on 88.5 FM (very low power and limited range) so that people can tune them in on their car radios if (like me) they can't afford a scanner at the moment.

That is seriously cool!!! I've never heard of that before. There was one time at Eglin though that I turned on my radio, and instead of hearing country music as was usual on that station, I got to listen to about 25 minutes of radio traffic between one of our F-16's on a test mission and the control center out there. There wasn't any COMSEC issues that I know of in that particular instance (they didn't talk about anything classified...), but it was still pretty neat.

Forum: Civil and General Aviation

Airliner Watching