Better than sleeping at altitude...

Nihon_Ni

Nihon_Ni

Well-Known Member
Saturday I was flying back home from Korea when I heard over the radio: "Fukuoka Control, Air Force 1 checking in at FL320" followed a few minutes later by "Fukuoka Control, SAM 91 with you at FL320." We were assigned a new frequency shortly after they checked in, so I continued to listen to Fukuoka on our back radio. When Control asked them for a FIRR estimate, I was able to figure out they were headed for China on a specific airway. I spent about 30 minutes plotting their course on my charts and GPS and following them from freq to freq. We were at FL260, so when we got near where I figured our flight paths should intersect, I turned our TCAS to "above" and sure enough, about 25 miles away I found a track at +60 at about a 40 degree intercept. We finally caught sight of them as they passed within a few miles of us, close enough to see the unique paint job of the president's chariot. Never expected to see that way out here at the edge of the Earth.
 
That's pretty cool! Nothing like keeping a little bit of SA on those long hauls. You never know when it can reward you with a "once in a lifetime" experience and a "it was almost the end of my lifetime" experience.
 
Stomp16 said:
Nice! Any pics?
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture. All I had was my cell phone and we were still over a mile or two at the closest point of approach, so I didn't bother even trying. That would've made a cool screen saver though, even if it was nothing but a dot out the windshield.
 
I'm a little surprised that they use the AF1 callsign internationally, figured they'd use something a little less conspicuous.
 
Nihon-Ni, are you 909th? I don't remember if we've pm'd about this before or not. I was out there from 2003-2005.
 
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