Eyes In The Sky

We have always considered and associated as secret and clandestine info, charts and maps relating to things military and national security. But nowadays, these things need not be so and in some instances they are common knowledge.

Consider what one can find in a site innocuously titled Google Sightseeing.

This is a sparklingly clear picture of a military base in Utah, with the spanking new BI bomber sitting on the runway.

Here’s how the graphic is described in the site above:

This is a cracking shot of a B-1 bomber on the runway at Hills Air Force Base in Utah. The B-1 long range strategic bomber was first built in 1984 and has seen combat in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. It is a big beast of an aircraft with a crew of four and that cool “Swing-Wing” thing. This allows it to take advantage of the aerodynamics of swept back wings at high speeds (top speed of Mach 1.2) while avoiding the drawbacks of such a configuration at lower speeds. It can carry a frightening 34,000kg in ordnance in three internal bays.

The B-1R is a proposed replacement for the aging B-1 fleet and would have air-to-air missile capabilities and the engines of an F-22, allowing it a much improved top speed of Mach 2.2.

And here is one comment for this blog entry:

Another unusual aspect of this very clear photo is that there is a B-1 in it at all… Hill AFB is where F-16s, A-10s and C-130s get fixed up en masse. They also support maintenance of the Minuteman IIIs. I suppose they could have support services for B-1s, but there aren’t huge stacks of them there for maintenance like the other planes. I suppose its also possible the B-1 could be there on a visit to the Utah Test Range (which is one of the sub-commands of the base) (though, its not like South Dakota is too far for an Armed B-1 to come to Utah for practice….).

Visit Google’s site and search for more to your heart’s delight.

A brave new world, indeed, not necessarily to Aldous Huxley’s delight or congruent with his vision.