[MilCom] big honkin' airplane Sunday afternoon

[Duane Mantick]

I don't know if this was a military bird or not (and unfortunately this was not from my home QTH and wasn't in position to get at a scanner or other radio) but it overflew Fort Wayne, IN Sunday probably approx. 5:30 PM EST from SW to NE.  This was at contrail altitude, and in spite of the altitude the good visibility allowed a clear definition of 4 contrails; 2 from under each wing that merged into a single line on each side of the aircraft.  BIG bird, and as it passed to the NE I got the sun behind me (which tends to give you a more accurate idea of light vs. dark in coloration as you're not looking into the sun but rather seeing it reflected from the aircraft) and the bird was quite dark in color.  I could not distinguish any real color other than dark. REAL dark. Saw no bright glinting reflections from any angle.  

It would have been better if I had remembered that in my Amateur Radio "Go-Bag" (concept that for going mobile/portable in an emergency situation, you equip yourself with some basic essential equipment) is a small pair of binoculars......I might have been able to distinguish the airframe shape. DUH.

Aircraft was not a particularly fast mover.  The size and overall spread of the contrail is what caught my attention - we see commercial jets leaving contrails across Indiana all the time and so we're used to those but this was easily twice the width, maybe a hair more.

Anybody catch a radio transmission about that time of day that might ID this dude?

Duane
WB9OMC


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com