a mystery in the sky.

Don't forget to click the pic

Boondocking sunset at Box Wash

I could hear a really loud jet airplane flying around this morning but whenever I went outside to see what was going on I couldn't see an airplane in the sky anywhere, but I could  hear the roar of its engines. This told me that it was either a teeny tiny little airplane that was too small to see, or more than likely it was so high up I couldn't see it.

The noise went away so I went back to doing something more useful, like relaxing in my easy chair, but after an hour or so I started hearing the airplane flying around again. I knew from last time I wouldn't be able to see it so initially I didn't bother to look but after a few minutes curiosity started getting the best to me and I poked my head out the door to see what I could see.

This time I could see a bunch of contrails in the sky. High-level winds were dissipating and scattering them pretty quickly but I did see one that was crisp and clear and knew there had to be an airplane ahead of it.

I grabbed my camera pointed it a little ahead of the sharpest contrail and started snapping pictures. I got about 20 shots off without even seeing what I was taking a picture of, because it was so high, and so far away.

I opened the pictures up on my computer and all I could see was deep blue empty sky from all of them except two, and on those two I saw a tiny little dot... Gotcha!

I zoomed way in, way, way, in and got the two pictures you see below. Their pretty pitiful  pictures as pictures go but their pictures of the first Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning I've ever seen in person

I looked them up on the Internet and found out they belong to the Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 211 based at Air Station Yuma. So my pictures as blurry as they are solved the mystery for me so now I can go back to doing what I do best... Relaxing.

                                      theboondork  

Wispy clouds and contrails. by the look of the contrails the pilot must've been having fun up there flying all over the place,

When I first saw the twin tails I thought I had captured an F-22 but seeing it only had one engine I knew it was probably the short takeoff and landing, [STOL] F-35.

This is by far the best picture I got before the F-35 left the scene. There are several bombing ranges in southern Arizona, and since boondocking puts you close to some of them, you never know what you will see flying around over your head.