[Scan-DC] Interesting Activity at Andrews

[listen13579 at att.net]

ABC had live footage of the plane during the inauguration. It was gray in
color with the military star logo on the rear fuselage. The producer on the
ABC IFB mentioned that it was circling the parade route and the camera
angles seemed to indicate that it was much lower than 7500 ft. Could this
plane have been the Wizard callsign with the datalink problems?

Here's info on some C-26 programs:

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/c-26.htm 

-----Original Message-----
From: scan-dc-bounces at mailman.qth.net
[mailto:scan-dc-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Rapbep at aol.com
Sent: Friday, January 21, 2005 12:28 PM
To: milcom at mailman.qth.net; scan-dc at mailman.qth.net
Cc: cothen at yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Scan-DC] Interesting Activity at Andrews

All,

In the last few days there's been some interesting activity taking place at
Andrews. It involves one and possibly two C-26/SA-227 aircraft using
civilian registrations and military-style callsigns.

On 18 January, Anvil 09 landed at Andrews. In chat with SAM CP (141.55) he
identified himself as C-26 Merlin, registration N6131Z.. According to the
Landings database, N6131Z is SA-227DC registered to PIONEER AVIATION INC,
5025 N CENTRAL AVE, PHOENIX, AZ.

On Inauguration day, 20 January, aircraft Merlin 01 and Merlin 02 were both
active out of Andrews. In the morning both aircraft departed Andrews to set
up their "stations" at 7,500 ft outside the restricted areas set aside for
the Inauguration. Merlin 02 even told the Potomac controller that he was
flying "Inaugural support."  I even noted Merlin 01 checking in with
Huntress on AICC (364.2). At the time I thought that Merlin might be a
JSTARS aircraft supporting the DC CAP set up for the Inauguration.

Today (21 Jan) I heard Merlin 01 landing at Andrews. In chat with the SAM CP
he gave his registration as N6131Z with a four-man crew.   

I don't know who they belong to or where they are based, but these two
C-26s/SA-227s are obviously specially configured for some sort of
surveillance/tracking mission. 

RON
MARYLAND, USA




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