Boeing 737-700 —

The RF-4C Phantom II (65-0886) that is performing "Gate Guard" duties at the 152nd AW main gate wears a "High Rollers" tail flash -- entirely appropriate because 65-0886 was assigned to the NevANG at this base back when Phantoms were being flown. Today, the Wing flies C-130 Hercs. (** I am still trying to backtrack the assignment history of 59-0483, the RF-101 Voodoo, because it also has a "High Rollers" tail flash.)

That's a very cool shot, Gary! And in addition to the Phantom and the Voodoo, the 737 looks like he is really putting the pedal to the metal on his climb out. Nice!

Greg .... He had to have been quite heavy (full pax cabin, full baggage compartments, and maybe a to-the-max fuel load, too) because his "D" roll was unusually long. I'm sure he had the throttles firewalled and if his course involved making a "right turn" to fly over Lake Tahoe and the Sierra Nevada, he probably kept them there awhile (grin).

The perspective of this shot is awesome! It almost looks unreal because of the high angle of descent that you have. I really wish we had mountains here in Baltimore!

That makes sense, Gary. And you reminded me of an experience last fall. My wife and I were taking the early morning American flight from Tucson (KTUS) to Chicago (KORD). We were all loaded up on the bird (B738) and ready to push back for a pretty close to on-time (approx. 7:30am) departure. The captain comes on the speaker and explains that there is a problem: the airport is working on the main runway (11L-29R) and although they were supposed to be done by 5:30 am, it looks like it will now be another hour or two or three or whatever. He said we have a couple of options, i.e. we can wait for the main runway to open, or we could use the alternate runway at KTUS. The problem with that is that 11L-29R is approx 11000ft long, whereas runway 3-21 is only 7000ft long. A 737 can do that, but in this case we were too heavy. So again a couple of options. 20 passengers and their luggage can get off the airplane, OR we have to have the ground crew come around and offload some fuel. He doesn't know how long it will take them to do that. Bottom line is that we waited to have fuel offloaded which took about an hour. Now we taxi out to runway 3 and instead of taking a right turn onto the runway he turns left and taxis down a few hundred feet to the very end of the runway and then does a 180. I knew it was going to be tight if he is going out of his way to get every inch of runway he could! Then he hit the gas! I was sitting in a window seat and watching our progress pretty closely. I know the airport well enough to know some of the landmarks, and just about the time I'm thinking that we're either going to fly or die in a fiery wreck, we lifted off. I checked our flight later on flightradar24, and it showed that we had MAYBE 500-600 feet (not yards) of runway left when we rotated. Anyway, it was quite the takeoff! And three days later coming home (also an American B738) we used the same runway again. And man-o-man the pilot planted that bird on the runway as soon as he could which was followed by lots of reverse thrust and brakes! Pretty fun, in a scary kind of way. Anyway, your picture made me think of that, so thanks again for posting it!

Outstanding photo, and a great spot to take pictures.

Excellent! 5* shot Gary.

Isaac, Peterjp5, and Dave -- Howdy and TYVM, guys. (Wave)
Peterjp5 ... Yours are fine. Trust me; I speak from wonderful experience when I say that airline PR personnel, airport PR agents, aviation company PR folks, and even private aircraft owners are only interested in, and directly focused on, just ONE statistic about the pics you post. If that ONE stat "Wows" them, .... well, Peter, it is too much to elaborate on here but you will love the info so -- Email me at [email protected]