US trip, day 7, last day, a cloudy Rainbow Canyon (pics)

[tally]

From where did you take picture nr 56?

No 9 of the scramble air field guide most likely. Cropped as well.

[stipjes]

From where did you take picture nr 56?

No 9 of the scramble air field guide most likely. Cropped as well.

Pictures are Always cropped .
Is is this spot. 1,5 km from the B-52....

[tally]

From where did you take picture nr 56?

No 9 of the scramble air field guide most likely. Cropped as well.

Pictures are Always cropped .

Agreed. Spot 8 and 9 are great early morning for the number "freaks" among us.

Tally.

[Jovel]

Great, great report Mr van Stiphout. Do you also have some civil stuff or is that a no go for you?

[stipjes]

Great, great report Mr van Stiphout. Do you also have some civil stuff or is that a no go for you?

Thanks! But no civil stuff for me . Unless it is ex mil , I do Photograph civil stuff when I am at an airport but never publish because I do not know what is special. In 1999 I spent 3 days next to the runway in Kathmandu and in 2008 in Santiago, many pics and I guess it is special stuff .

After it turned dark at Nellis I left for Rainbow Canyon. I wanted to go here for years but never took the time. Coffee and Spotify made it a relaxed trip. I stopped in Beatty (a town itmon) for the night. The casino had good wifi so I slept there . At 5 I woke up and got gas, coffee and breakfast at the only gas station in town. The drive to Panamint springs is unbelieveable beautifull, especially with sunrise.
To get to a good photography spot pass Panamint Springs and follow the 190 west. After 5 minutes you can park your car (see coordinates).


After Parking the car there a 2 good spots to wait for your catch. Both spots are a 15 minute walk. If you are a bit fit it is not very hard.
Exactly a week before very nice pics where taking of both the Dutch F-35's, they made many passes. A Dutch guy arranged it and it attracted many spotters who took a lot of great action shots. Unfortunately I was not there but I was hoping for the best.

After a half hour we already had our first and best catch of the day, a catch I was hoping for:
74

75

76 The rest of the day was great but unfortunately only Super Hornets and a Growler. We where dreaming of the China Lake Sabreliner (if it is still operational) or some more older types USAF a/c. This is the first glimpse you get when the Rumble turn into a visual.

77

78

79

80

81

I like the results but you have to be patient. I spent 3 hours looking and listening around for the Rumble but nothing happened. Around 13.30 I left for spot 2. The sun got low and the colours beautifull .
82

83

84 This is the view if you look east from this spot. Once the Canyon ends the a/c get in a big playground.

85

86

87

88

89

90


Winter must be the best period to visit. The sun is low and temperatures ok (although I wear gloves in the morning). Tomorrow I will post day 2 in the canyon.

[PH-BRAD]

Great series.

[stipjes]

Great series.

Thanks, almost finished .
After my first day in Rainbow Canyon I drove back to Nevada again, I like Beatty. Hamburgers and beers were on the menu again and the spot in front of the Casino felt familiair.
The next morning the sunrise drive was even better then the day before and Coyote's followed me while driving through the Panamint plain.
On the parking spot I met my new friend Paul again (he slept in Ridgecrest). I met him a week earlier in Tucson and he showed me all the possibilities of the Canyon the day before.
This thurday was a day with more variety. First in was a Super Hornet that was chased by a Holloman F-16.... Did not even know Holloman had F-16's....
91

92

93

94

95 Happy with this one. Just need a serial, Edwards owns two B-1's... .

96

97

98

99 More F-16's! And what a colours. I think they flew in from March AFB (QRA).

100

101

102 Just when we wanted to leave four SDANG F-16's approached. It seems they are not so familiair in the area. Only the leader went low.

103 After they passed once we thought the day was over but they passed again.

104 When we walked back to the car we saw them appoach again. I was not prepaired but with a shutter speed of 1/100th it turned out ok .

Later I will post my last pics of this trip. Rainbow Canyon is so addictive that I decided to spent the first hours of daylight there on a friday.
Hope you like the pics so far .

[TvanD]

Beautiful photos and a great report, a good read. Thanks for sharing.

[stipjes]

The last operational hours of my holiday I spent in the Rainbow Canyon again.... I am a numbers cruncher (on pics) but I like te place so much that this spot won from Point Mugu on this Friday. From what I heard firday would not be a good day. For sunshine it definately was not but to give you an idea of non Sunny shots and to get a good impression on the number of plains that fly by I included all of the passes (mostly Hornets).
The last a/c that I saw was the F-35, a type I was still missing in this Canyon. It passed by at 11 o' clock so my guess is the fridaymorning is worth a visit . After this pass I waited a little while and left.
105

106

107

108

109

110

111

112

113

114


This was my last post on this trip. After leaving the Canyon I planned 4 hours driving to LAX but as usual the traffic was bad and I ended up in a few traffic jams. Because I left early I easily caught my A.380 flight to London.
Looking back I really loved this trip. It was very relaxed, spotify, coffee and converting your family car into a camper is really good for zen. I had enough energy to go back to work again .
Hope you liked it! On to the next trip....

[Sowald]

From where did you take picture nr 56?

No 9 of the scramble air field guide most likely. Cropped as well.

Pictures are Always cropped .
Is is this spot. 1,5 km from the B-52....

What lens did you use for that B-52 shot if I may ask?

[stipjes]

A Nikon D800e with the Nikon 200-400 VR

[Schffrs]

Absolutely terrible pictures: I fear I have to reschedule my 2017 holiday plans, thanks a lot!


Cheers,
Rob

[Adraf]

Unbelievable awesome set!

[Flanker27]

Nice pics. Do you have a KMZ file?

[stipjes]

Nice pics. Do you have a KMZ file?

Hello, thanks for the nice comments! I do not have a KMZ for Rainbow Canyon but the only thing you need is the parking spot coordinates that I mention in this forum. What might come in handy is a scanner, I will try to get and post the 3 frequenties that are used in the area for low flying.
Sometimes you wait for hours and with a scanner it is more exciting. You just wait for aircraft to change to the low flying frequency and hear them call "transfer to Jedi Transition". After that you wait for "the rumble"......