Message posted by JB737 on March 17, 2007 at 14:21:26 PST:

Oops, missed replying to a couple more good points people made:

CoyoteYgly asked: Wasn't December 18 was it???
(re: Pole Cat crash)

No such luck, 10 days off.

lone wolf noted:
If it is the first two weeks of December, the choppers could be related to "graduation" exercises of the weapons school.

Then that is a possibility, as it was December 8.
Luckily no weapons were seen!
Are you referring to a weapons school at Nellis AFB?
I presume they have their own aircraft and don't use the Groom security-patrol Pave Hawks.

Now you're making me wish I'd photographed them or noted some markings to be certain of Pave Hawk vs Black Hawk. Aargh.

But I didn't want to antagonize them with my 480-1440mm equivalent zoom setup or Canon 15x stabilized binocs.

Bringing a touristy-looking secondary camera or camcorder, and maybe little 7x21 or 10x25 binocs would be a good idea for these upclose encounters if I'm going to chicken out from pointing an optical cannon at them at short range. If not a secondary camera, at least mounting a smaller-looking lens than your main 26-miler while traveling would be smarter than what I did.

In Reply to: Up-close visit from all 3 Pave Hawks posted by JB737 on March 16, 2007 at 20:28:33 PST:

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