Thursday, January 29, 2009

FINALLY...



The "Official" Website of the 131st Has Updated Its Homepage Picture. Instead of the old picture with the first few eagles in the early 90's they replaced it with the new picture flying over the arch that was taken in September. Why its four months late I don't know but it makes the page look so much better. But it still says 131st Bomb Wing...

You Know they actually had a real website that was all there own as well, but that was taken down i believe in July.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Drill Weekend




The Pictures Above Show Unmarked and Marked 79-0057 From the 131st Fighter Wing. It previously flew at Nellis AFB Before 2004;I Learned from Scramble On The Web.


So This Weekend was Drill Weekend instead of the first of the month. This weekend was alright. They Flew Both Weekends But Only Did One flight On Sunday, which I missed. This is also the first drill weekend where only two F-15's Flew. Yup, they just flew two that were unmarked. But it was not all bad. On Saturday Morning They did a pair take-off which is always nice to see, and then coming back they both did a low approach followed by the lead man doing a second. Then came the afternoon, where I missed the take-off by a minute because they took off earlier than I anticipated. That was just a normal take-off and the landing was normal two. You can tell they are really winding down because they don't fly as much as they used to. I'm thinking most of the people are now at Whiteman and they only have a minimal flight requirement during the last few months. Out of the (at least) 8 jets we have left most of them are now unmarked. Goodbye SL Tailcode, however I do hope they keep the Arch Logo Jet painted during the final flight. It is really sad to see them go. Watching these planes has always given me a "high" if you know what I mean and without them its not going to be fulfilled. You can't rely on Boeing to fill it because they make about 1-2 jets a week now and its mainly Growlers which always fly during the weirdest and worst times of the day. (Theres never real pattern to know when to go and watch them) I was surprised the St. Louis Arch Jet did not fly this weekend. And it figures I get a new camera where you can actually see the tail-markings and its not blurry and they fly two unmarked planes. The base is pretty much empty they don't even have enough fighters on the ground to fill up the five portables they have, since the other four or five or probably kept in the hangar for ground drills and taking all the markings off.

I hope that by the grace of god I will catch one of those rare days where they fly a four-ship still, but that only happens early on in the week in the morning and I'm always busy during those hours so I guess good-luck with that.

Maybe they will still offer a base tour of the unit since there are still a few fighters left? But I don't even think the 131st Fighter Wing has a public affairs office anymore I think its all for the 131st Bomb Wing Now.

Well Anyways Most of Saturday morning is now on youtube so check it out at youtube.com/131stfwfan and I will hopefully add part of Saturday afternoon two if the video ever uploads...

Sunday, January 11, 2009