LOUIE TRAUB/VIEWA C-17 cargo plane is guided in at Nellis Air Force Base during a firepower demonstration on Sept. 14. Various military aircraft were on display as part of a two-week exercise at Nellis and Fort Irwin National Training Center in California.
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While Nellis Air Force Base gears up for its big air show, Aviation Nation, over the Veterans Day weekend, a group of VIPs got a sneak preview of some the aircraft that will be on display in November.
The lineup of more than a dozen aircraft, including the newest birds in the Air Force's inventory, such as the F-22A Raptor, the B-2 bomber and the C-17 Globemaster, were part of a static display held Sept. 14 in conjunction with Bold Quest, a two-week exercise held at Nellis and Fort Irwin National Training Center north of Barstow, Calif.
Watching the aircraft is one thing, but to walk among and touch some of the planes that most people have seen only on TV was a treat enjoyed by all.
The static displays coincided with a firepower demonstration held at Point Bravo, 45 miles northwest of Las Vegas, where jets and bombers swooped down from the sky, dropping live ordnance to show how American forces gain air superiority in a skirmish.
At Nellis, the aircraft sat silently like metal lions resting on a tarmac jungle as their keepers fielded questions from the visitors and the media.
"It flies really well," said 32-year-old Maj. Jason Digiacomo of Sacramento, Calif., a 10-year veteran with seven years' experience flying the B-2 bomber. "As big as it is, you don't want to do acrobatics in it, but otherwise it flies real nice."
The B-2 on display -- The Spirit of New York -- was only one of 21 such planes built so far by Northrop Grumman Corp., the prime contractor.
Whiteman Air Force Base, about 80 miles southeast of Kansas City, Mo., is home to 20 B-2 bombers with one B-2 -- the one on display at Nellis -- stationed at the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards Air Force Base near Palmdale, Calif.
The first B-2 was rolled out for its first test flight at Edwards in July 1989, where its stealth-like attributes and its unique, almost unworldly design were put to the test.
"I'm sure a lot of UFO sightings in its earlier days were really B-2 sightings," Digiacomo said of the plane with a 172-foot wingspan that's nearly three times its length and costs $2 billion apiece. "When you look at it from the side, it looks just like a UFO."
The F-22A Raptor, with its distinctive V-shaped tail wing, is said to be a plane that cannot be matched by any known or projected fighter aircraft.
The single-seat jet uses a high-technology engine that produces more thrust than any current fighter engine, which allows it to cruise at Mach 1.5 speed (about 1,075 mph) without the use of afterburners.
It also has a sophisticated missile guidance system that allows the pilot to not only fly the plane, but also take care of firing the weapons.
"I just type in the GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) coordinates into the computer that we get from the satellites and then let GPS do the rest," said 40-year-old Lt. Col. Mark Thompson of the 49th Test and Evaluation Squadron at Nellis who's been flying the F-22A for three years and flew an older aircraft, the F-15E Strike Eagle, 12 years before the Raptor. "The Raptor is far more maneuverable. The F-22 is a Mach 2.5 class jet, while the F-15 is also fast, but with everything on it, it doesn't go that fast."
The display gave viewers insight into the goal of Bold Quest, which uses the latest technology to identify the enemy in combat.
More than 850 participants from eight countries and NATO took part in the U.S. Joint Forces Command exercise at Nellis and Fort Irwin from Sept. 7-19.
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