Unusual Pilatus Activity

Any idea what could be going on with Pilatus N691PC out of Idaho Falls?

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N691PC

That area he’s circling over is Atomic City and the surroundings, one of the largest concentrations of nuclear reactors in the world (if not the largest), and also home to the first breeder reactor.

Here’s more info on the owners, pretty interesting corporation:

http://www.sncorp.com/

Do that on an Etch-A-Sketch LOL!!

It might be easier to use the old Spirographs. Remember those, with the little plastic discs w/ holes that you put your pencil through, and “roll” it around the inside of a larger plastic circle…? Anyway, each one of its flights in the historical log are of the same general pattern in the same location. Definitely some sort of testing. Perhaps it’s a modified PC-12?

There’s probably been a big radiation leak and the Pilatus is taking some aerial samples…no big deal, nothing to see here, move along.

On vacation a few years back, in some very dense fog, I wound up at the front gate of the nuclear facility. For big guys with M-16’s, they were very nice at pointing me back to where I needed to be.

Just west of there is the little town of Arco, ID. The wikipedia file is here about the town and its history as a nuclear powered city.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arco,_Idaho

But what made me slam on my brakes in this little town was this, out in the middle of nowhere…

virtualguidebooks.com/Idaho/Snak … ho_FS.html

Scroll around…The Submarine in the Desert.

I filled my car up at the Shell station that you can see in that image. If you look at the cliff in the background, you will see that it appears to have faint writing on it. Each high school graduating class writes their year on the cliff, as you can see in this picture I took from that very Shell station:

http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/4038/imgp60581do.jpg

Small world, isn’t it. :slight_smile:

I think it’s a secret code for Bozo the Clown lying on his side. :laughing:

very interestin company,

THis defence contractor does a lot of interesting work. THe PC-12 flew to FL Hurlburt Field, home of the Air Force Special Operations Command and the 16th Special Operations Wing. THe link attached talks about an autonomus mid air refueling system which USAF helicopters might like to have. http://www.sncorp.com/PDFs/SNC_news/SNC%20AARD%20Press%20Release%2013Sep06.pdf

Hulbert Field ( The 319 S.O.S. 16 S.O.W. to be precise) is home to some other odd ball PC-12/U28As

05-0409
05-0419
05-0424
05-0447
05-0482
05-0573
The last three are the c/n, a bit of cross checking and came up with
the following tie ups taking the last three = c/n as correct
C/N 409 = N922RG
C/N 419 = N419WA
C/N 424 = N424PB
C/N 447 = N447PC
C/N 482 = N482WA
C/N 573 = N666GT
Hope it helps
David

I thought I got dizzy flying banners. Dang

link to flight in question