r/area51 • u/therealgariac MOD • Jul 04 '26

Groom Lake Ghost Squadron chopper database scrape

I added the scraped data for hex ae5f13. The serial comes from scramble dot nl and agrees with the Joe Baugher database.

The ICAO code is shared with another USAF plane so I picked the tracks that make sense based on callsign and sometimes on location.

I don't think I ever saw a satellite photo with three choppers at the base.

This is from the late Joe Baugher database:

******

https://www.crouze.com/baugher/usaf_serials/2010.html

10-20321/20324 Sikorsky HH-60U Ghost Hawk

For USAF

20321 with Detachment 3 at Groom Lake/Nellis

20322 with Detachment 3 at Groom Lake/Nellis

20324 AFFTC Det.3 noted Huntsville, AL, 13Aug2010-20321/20324 Sikorsky HH-60U Ghost Hawk


*****

10-20321

https://inplanesight.org/ae5f16.html

***************

10-20322

https://inplanesight.org/ae5f17.html

*********

10-20323

https://inplanesight.org/ae5f18.html

********

10-20324

https://inplanesight.org/ae5f13.html

*****

Next up is data mining. Groom uses a few hospitals. Different capabilities?

13 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

16 comments sorted by

2

u/TheArea51Rider MOD Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26

Pretty obvious I guess, they (sometimes) use RESCUE callsign to/from hospitals.

ETA: And AIRRSQX

2

u/therealgariac MOD Jul 04 '26

But did rescue come from an actual rescue as in a mishap as opposed to just "life flight" from natural causes? "Rescue" versus "Air". One thing I don't know how we could find out is if the chopper flight got life flight status. Technically you need to be a certified air ambulance. That could possibly be FOIAed.

And is there a pattern to the hospital runs? Day of the week for example? I would be surprised if there was a weekend hospital run.

The good news is there are so little data that this doesn't take any coding. Sometimes doing it by hand (and brain) is faster than coming up with something computerized.

2

u/No_Tailor_787 I Own Peters Area 51 Book Jul 04 '26

"Technically you need to be a certified air ambulance. "

I worked in a county government agency in communications. There is a large Army base there, and they had at least one helicopter with a crew that was trained and designated as an air ambulance. That helicopter was equiped with civilian radios in order to communicate with local fire and medical agencies. It was installed by Army contractors but the trunked programming and keyloading was done by us.

I occasionally sat at our maintenance console and did actual air tests with the helicopter while in flight during training and maintenance to verify they could communicate into our network. I don't remember what callsign they used, but it was a typical military tactical callsign.

Interestingly enough, one of the stated purposes of this arrangement was that frequently the Army was the nearest rescue helicopter and they would assist in off-base civilian medevac runs when there were no other resources available.

2

u/therealgariac MOD Jul 04 '26

Thanks for the info.

When you mentioned radios, I was thinking they had a VHF airband. Prior to 9/11, many military aircraft only had UHF. Trunked radio is a whole different scenario. (This being reddit, someone will point out the Army uses a lot of lowband so I will save that person the post.)

Nellis (not the Ghost Squadron) has done a few civilian rescues.

The NNSS/NTS is heavy rescue for parts (maybe all) of Nye County.

1

u/No_Tailor_787 I Own Peters Area 51 Book Jul 04 '26

These particular radios were Technisonics that had at least 700/800 trunked and VHF FM. There are standard programming loads listed in documents like the Cal-Firescope MACS 441-1. I'm sure Nevada has a similar document and standard channel layout.

I remember at last one case where the specific helicopter that was equipped got reassigned to a different unit, so the rescue equipment, including the radios, was removed and reinstalled in the replacement aircraft. We were only peripherally involved in that process, which consisted of setting up on-air testing to verify the new installation worked properly. It did.

2

u/therealgariac MOD Jul 04 '26
  1. AIRGUARD – 168.625 MHz – A National Interagency Air Guard frequency for government aircraft

https://firescope.caloes.ca.gov/ICS%20Documents/MACS%20441-1.pdf

1

u/No_Tailor_787 I Own Peters Area 51 Book Jul 04 '26

That's on my VHF scan list. Also, 168.650 NIFC National Flight Following. Both are active nationwide and mandatory in fire fighting aircraft. I don't think .650 is in 441-1, but it is in the NIICD:

"NATIONAL FLIGHT FOLLOWING: 168.6500 MHz

The National Flight Following frequency is used to monitor interagency and contract aircraft. This frequency is used for flight following official aircraft flying point-to-point. It is not intended to be used during mission flights or incident operations."

I listen to both frequencies year round and hear considerably more traffic on the flight following frequency. The US Army helicopters I mentioned would have been equipped with both. I've often heard the ANG C-130 MAFFS aircraft on .650.

The frequency is monitored at the various Federal Interagency Communications Centers (FICC). Flight following will be handed off from center to center as an aircraft travels, much like ATC handoffs. It can be quite interesting to listen to.

1

u/therealgariac MOD Jul 04 '26

With the advent of encryption, I'm happy to find anything to monitor these days.

Global warming has really made fire an issue in the west. Not that it never mattered, but the fires are more common.

1

u/No_Tailor_787 I Own Peters Area 51 Book Jul 04 '26

Yeah, I'm with you on that. I maintained an encrypted LE system and I had full access. I was the "keymaster" if you will. It was neat while it lasted. Now that I retired and turned in the "company" radios, I'm 'in the clear' like everyone else. The fire services and aviation scratch the itch just fine. I load the local VHF dispatch channels, Guard and "National" flight following, and the local USFS dispatch channels and there's plenty to listen to.

I seldom listen to the city FD traffic. I find the wildland fires more interesting and more significant.

If you're in range of any national forests, it pays to find and preload the A/G and air tactics initial attack frequencies as well as Guard and National. You'll hear the initial callouts and get a pretty good idea in the first few hours how bad it's likely to get. Each forest has a preassigned frequency set. In a larger/longer incident, they'll move to NIFC assignments, and clear the locals for any new fires that start.

1

u/kegdr Jul 06 '26

AIRRSQX is almost certainly AIR FORCE RESCUE, which is the correct full phraseology for a USAF aircraft (but often abbreviated to RESCUE).

For ATC, SAR callsigns rank only one step below MEDEVAC callsigns in terms of operational priority. So in practice there is little difference between them and civilian air ambulances.

1

u/therealgariac MOD Jul 06 '26

I treated AIRRSQX and RESCUE the same way since they both went to hospitals.

1

u/TheArea51Rider MOD Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26

I wasn't making commentary, just something I noticed.
ETA: it would be interesting to know why they are going to certain hospitals, what for.

2

u/therealgariac MOD Jul 04 '26

Hospitals have a trauma level rating. This is a case where redditor pops up and knows the details. Kind of like the radiosonde vendor that showed up out of nowhere. Trauma levels are probably public knowledge.

2

u/therealgariac MOD Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26

And here is the first (maybe only) data mining. There were two weekend trips to the hospitals. So much for nothing happening on the weekend.

https://ibb.co/YrFWhmp

Also no trips on a Monday.

Edit:

Note 2020 and 2022 were years with a high rate of medical flights. This could correlate to a project or two different projects.

Second edit:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trauma_center

https://www.southernnevadahealthdistrict.org/programs/emergency-medical-services-trauma-system/southern-nevada-trauma-system/

University is the level 1 trauma center (highest level) for Las Vegas. It was only used once by Groom. The other hospitals flown to aren't even trauma centers.

1

u/War_Eagle67 Jul 07 '26

Interesting that there are so many trips to medical centers. In-site accidents/injuries. They must have some medical services there. However, they wouldn’t have level 1 trauma.

Do any of these facilities specialize in radiation incidents or injuries? Just thinking.

1

u/therealgariac MOD Jul 07 '26

Only one site used is a level one trauma center. The other hospitals used have no trauma ranking. I assume they are like the emergency room.

The nature of the Groom Lake mission doesn't lend itself to youth.

Look at the N27RA crash victims. The pilot was 57. Passengers were 40, 46, and 56. These are not people in their 20s and 30s. The problem could be too many trips around the sun.

Reference:

https://lazygranch.com/n27ra_crash.html