Buckley Air Force Base
Sunday, 30th April 2006 by James Turnbull
Buckley Air Force Base is home to the 460th Space Wing Staff and features loads of these giant radar golf balls, which I guess are used for communicating with their "Defense Support Program" satellites.
The base also hosts the Colorado Air National Guard, who we can see here performing a rescue training exercise. It would appear that a rescueman is being lowered from a Blackhawk helicopter to the lake below, where the helicopter's downwinds are creating circular waves.
Thanks: Mark Eaker
That helicopter one has got to go in for the best site ever poll!
We don’t have these in England, but im guessing this is some sort of driving test centre? View Placemark
Those “golf balls” are for regular ground radar. I did a stint at the Canadian Air Traffic Control school, and they had several of them there as they would also train the technicians. We spent a day in that wing of the building learning about them, and climbed up in the golf ball on the roof (the rest were on the ground). The radar dish inside is huge (we had 25+ people inside) and semi-circular; with a second, smaller dish sitting on top for the secondary radar, which is what picks up the transpoders . It comes within inches of the outer shell, and despite its size it is so finally balanced that it could be pushed easily by hand. That is the reason for the outer shell; radar dishes must rotate at a perfectly even speed in order to accurately show where targets are located, and since it is so easy to push it by hand, you don’t want the wind getting at the dish.
What I find interesting about the helicopter is seeing how the camo really reduces the helivopters image. Compare the helicopter to its shadow, and it’s hard to find the heli, but easy to find the shadow.
Rob, given the large amount of school busses parked there, I’d say it’s a training course for school bus drivers. I know there are also “bus rodeos” where drivers from various transit systems compete with busses on various courses, so I wonder if it’s also used for that.
RJ, I should imagine that the test centre adjoins a bus depot or something, a test centre wouldn’t own 50 busses for testing, and I think the course is a little too pokey for a bus to get round, would you not agree? 😀
From my Simpsons watching, they are school busses, no?
buses have to get around pokey things all the time. It’s probably a training course for the Denver Public School system’s bus drivers so they don’t put everyone else at risk when they’re joyriding.
Those dishes are actually pointed stright up. They are watching space. And yes, I’m actually stationed here.
Actually, that’s a Colorado ARMY National Guard helicopter, and it’s filling a water bag from the lake, as an training exercise in fire suppression. There are Air National Guard, Army National Guard, Coast Guard, and Navy and Marine Reserve units on Buckley, as well as active duty Air Force.