Photo: USAF/Airman 1st Class Julia Lebens
In a straight line, the distance that separates Kadena, Japan, from the Joint Pacific Alaskan Range Complex (JPARC) is of about 7,000 miles (11,265 km). That’s how far the F-15 Eagle shown below had to travel to have this amazing photo of it taken.
The plane calls Kadena its home base, just like the entire 18th Wing and associate units do. Back in October, it had to travel to JPARC to take part in the Red Flag Alaska exercise unfolding there, one of the last drills of the year for the U.S. Air Force (USAF).
JPARC is a part of Alaska where these things take place multiple times per year. And it’s only natural, given how the location is considered the “world’s largest instrumented air, ground and electronic combat training range.“ It covers a total of 67,000 square miles (174,000 km), and includes so many landscape types that it is the perfect setting for soldiers of any military branch to hone their skills. In fact, even some non-governmental agencies come here to do the same.
So it’s no wonder the F-15 flew that far to reach the place. In the pic the USAF recently released we see it as it’s getting ready to be refueled by a KC-135 Stratotanker flying out of McConnell Air Force Base in Kansas, it too some 3,400 miles (5,471 km) away from Alaska.
This particular image caught our eye and earned itself a place in our Photo of the Day coverage because, at least at first, you have to focus a bit for the brain to understand what it’s seeing. That's on account of the dull grey of the aircraft, which blends so well with the colors of the desolate landscape below that for a brief second the eye doesn’t even register it, as if the plane is invisible in the proper sense, not the way airplanes usually are invisible to radar.
JPARC is a part of Alaska where these things take place multiple times per year. And it’s only natural, given how the location is considered the “world’s largest instrumented air, ground and electronic combat training range.“ It covers a total of 67,000 square miles (174,000 km), and includes so many landscape types that it is the perfect setting for soldiers of any military branch to hone their skills. In fact, even some non-governmental agencies come here to do the same.
So it’s no wonder the F-15 flew that far to reach the place. In the pic the USAF recently released we see it as it’s getting ready to be refueled by a KC-135 Stratotanker flying out of McConnell Air Force Base in Kansas, it too some 3,400 miles (5,471 km) away from Alaska.
This particular image caught our eye and earned itself a place in our Photo of the Day coverage because, at least at first, you have to focus a bit for the brain to understand what it’s seeing. That's on account of the dull grey of the aircraft, which blends so well with the colors of the desolate landscape below that for a brief second the eye doesn’t even register it, as if the plane is invisible in the proper sense, not the way airplanes usually are invisible to radar.
Google News