Moderator: joost
Hi Wolbie,Wolbie wrote:May 21st LGGG:
20.17 STATE77 (? USAF) passing FL120 for FL200, final FL220, sq 2012. 15M NE of PLH, dir ARLOS. 20.40 Malta 123.625
(all times local Dutch time, GMT+2)
Another airplane with a State callsign is ex USE Jakarta C-12C 76-0171 which was operating from Souda Bay last year.This was using State 71 as a callsign.Wolbie wrote:He Pieter,
Think you nailed this one, good work! I've been hearing STATE77 on Malta / Athens ATC for over a year now, routing always the same: Souda -> Malta FIR -> Libya FIR and back.
Always wondered what kind of a/c this was, never heard a a/c type confirmation or any other clue. But you're definitely right about the connection with the 2477 flt, never noticed it myself, but now that you mentioned it: May 21st I heard STATE77 with sq 2012 departing Souda, the Maltese boxes on mode s-logs showed 'E-3A 2477' a little bit later with sq 2012.
So most likely sneaky CN235 2477, there's definitely still some sneaky ops going on in that region, Do-328 73091 'MAGMA40' was active in the region 2 weeks ago, and what i think is an EP-3E is flying regular missions direct Libya out of Souda (last noted as 'DR25' on May 19th). See also http://theaviationist.com/2012/04/13/ep-3e-derna/ for a Libya sighting of a EP-3E.
Cheers,
Marco
Thanks for your contribution on our STATE77 trivia, the net is closing in..minotaur wrote:I know it is not a big help, but at least it is a photo of the mysterious all-white CN.235. In the latest issue of the greek magazine HAF Yearbook, there is a photo of the aircraft. In the link below you can see a thumbnail of the all-white CN.235, in the article about US involvement in Unified Protector from Souda. Unfortunately there is not a larger image available online:
http://www.specialprojects.gr/show.php? ... 1b&lang=en
In any case, I have personally seen the aircraft taking off from Souda on May 20th at about 16:00 (dutch time). This perfectly coincides with Wolbie's report on STATE77 for that date.
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