Google Earth, Interesting sights

[Agaricus bisporus]

I've recently been looking at the N /S Korean border, Iraq and Russian coatal ports and airfields. The Murmansk area is fascinating and I've even found a bloody great nuc(?) sub on the Volga in the very centre of Russia, along with a small Caspian Sea Monster, must be 1500 miles from the sea. Why??? There's a huge Monster on the Caspian too, and lots of big hovercraft (Lebed?) too.

Anyone care to post sights worth seeing on Google Earth?

eg, which are Ivan's ship/sub/aircraft graveyards airfields.

Many of the mil airfields have areas of long cylindrical containers laid out in rows, in some cases hundreds of them, they must be a two or three metres across and ten, fifteen long, or more. What are they? Cans for spare engines?

Sadly the SA2 missile have been removed from a site in Africa that I photographed some years ago, though the compound is still there, any more like this?

I'm a nosy bugger, aren't I, but it is fun!

[Biggles225]

Watch out for the black Omega! :uhoh:

[Agaricus bisporus]

Oooooh! I had a look at Holy Loch and Guzz too, what sort of cars do they send??? And Toulon, and Punta Arenas, come to think of it!!! Should I expect a Vauxhall Astra and an armed moped as well?

[Biggles225]

With all the cutbacks I rather suspect they only have the one.

[dead_pan]

Apparently the Aurora magically appear if you stare at Area 51 on Google Earth for hours and hours... The truth is out there

You can also make out my kid's paddling pool in my back garden. I could give you the co-ordinates, but then I have to kill you.

[Red Snow]

What a great waste of time GE is!

My personal favourite airfield is this one

33° 41'10.35"N 112° 52'40.10"E

Look out for the underground hangars to the south as well.

[Agaricus bisporus]

Now that is impressive.

I rather like the Soveremenny that apparently doesn't want to be seen at 54.635N, 19.913E, and the huge Zubr LCACs next to it.

[abeaumont]

Try the Google Earth Community forum - umpteen thousands of locations identifed and detailed for you to lose the will to live over.

[India Four Two]

Look out for the underground hangars to the south as well.

The Chinese built underground hangars for DC-3s? :eek:

33°40'2.09"N 112°52'53.28"E

[Vox Populi]

Interesting.

Did you save any of the locations you mention? Or do you have the coordinates?

[Mungo5]

How about this - 40° 27'19.80"N 93° 45'09.14"E

Then keep going west a few clicks and you'll find others..

[dead_pan]

How about 39° 9'24.02"N 127°29'27.78"E? Looks like the North Koreans have taken to drawing aeroplane outlines on the ground in the hope of confusing those Yankee spy satellites (X apparently does mark the spot)

The runway just to the north also looks a bit iffy - patchwork or what?

Oh, if you ever wondered what happened to the Red October when the Americans finally gave it back - 69°26'2.30"N 32°21'19.44"E

[nacluv]

I was always fascinated by 37°10'37.51"N 116° 2'46.16"W and the general vicinity - mainly to the south. Feel sorry for the Downwinders...

[Agaricus bisporus]

AIDU's bird is a cracker, just see how many more naked bodies you can find in that area. Why can't we get that definition everywhere? (My guess is that someone at GA thought they'd include some unadulterated data as a laugh.)

nacluv. Should we know what a "downwinder " is? Do I have one in the door of my motorcar? Should I treat it better?

deadpan, the size of that thing is astonishing. I found another nearby two days ago but darned if I can find it now.

The thing that has struck me so forcibly is the horrific levels of dilapidation and wrecked/sunk vessels that seem to characterise all these places. Their sheer size, impossibly inefficient looking infrastructure, dispersal, remoteness and vast scale are a chilling testament to the late Soviet threat, but to see such a massive effort laid so low is somehow depressing, though hardly unwelcome. The photos attached to some of these add another level of reality that is hard to comprehend - the photo of that assault hovercraft for instance. And the airfields covered in scores of ancient turboprops - the sharp pointy things seem few and far between, but every airfield is covered in defunct aeroplanes, helos in rows. I've so far only found half a dozen Bears and Backfires. Where are the rest of the heavyweights?

What in the name of Heaven was Mungo5's site about? Any ideas?

Keep them coming!

[Tiger_mate]

There is a Griffin in Americas. Sad I know that I know, but I was told by an even sadder person. etc etc

[extpwron]

Now then, feast your eyes on this bird at 52° 4'43.35"N 4°19'58.00"E.

Surely, with a “beaver” that size it’s got to be a bloke?

[nacluv]

Hi AB.

The location is the Nevada nuke test range, and Downwinders was the name given to the lucky locals down nearer LV who had the immeasurable good fortune to live under the fallout clouds.

[FoxtrotAlpha18]

My personal favourite airfield is this one

33° 41'10.35"N 112° 52'40.10"E

Look out for the underground hangars to the south as well.

:eek: I counted at least 260 MiG-17s/19s/Q-5s on that field! :eek:

[FoxtrotAlpha18]

How about this - 40° 27'19.80"N 93° 45'09.14"E

Then keep going west a few clicks and you'll find others..

Scale representations of Taiwanese street scapes and air bases perhaps?

Just like the scale North Korean airfields graded in the Nellis ranges... 37°25'44.03"N 116°51'3.09"W, 37°25'19.15"N 116°39'18.40"W & 37°21'49.14"N 116°49'39.77"W

...or the fixed SA and EW complexes... 37°35'24.12"N 115°54'26.96"W, 37°44'16.70"N 116°14'33.04"W, 37°42'33.81"N 116°26'22.55"W & 37°18'23.07"N 116°46'34.47"W

[dead_pan]

Just like the scale North Korean airfields graded in the Nellis ranges... 37°25'44.03"N 116°51'3.09"W, 37°25'19.15"N 116°39'18.40"W & 37°21'49.14"N 116°49'39.77"W



Are you sure they're copies of North Korean airfields? They look a little too elaborate for our crazy cousins. As always with Google Earth they use a hotpotch of satellite imagery, some of it quite old - perhaps these are representations of Iraqi airfields pre-2003? Incidentally the latter two are 'recent' additions - you can see the earthmovers working on the last one.

[Thud_and_Blunder]

India four two,

The Chinese built underground hangars for DC-3s?

...if you look at the Panoramio links for that location you'll see it's a C46, used to fly Chiang Kai Shek. That whole line of aircraft is part of a museum open to the public, apparently.

[Agaricus bisporus]

Interesting that the sites 20Km W of mungo's 40° 27'19.80"N 93° 45'09.14"E have been used as bombing targets or ordnance testing. The big squares - one at the end of the "runway" the other on its own just to the W are peppered with craters, some may be grouped. The blue buildings in a grouphave been whacked too.

Someone went to huge effort to grade the big 850m to the W square as flat as that, some of the edges must be 15-20m above the surrounding terrain. What needs a flat, level square that size?

The Erik Von Danikens of 5000years time would have a field day over that!

Scale representations of Taiwanese street scapes and air bases perhaps?


How about this is a testing range for some kind of terrain mapping delivery system - cruise missiles etc - with final waypoints simulating a stylised streetscape and targets beyond to verify damage to hardstanding (the concrete squares) and an "erasable" area to verify scatter patterns and accuracy of cluster weapons. Look at Taiwanese urban street layouts, they bear a remarkable resemblance to the grids here.

Note how the "runways" are untouched, yet the "hardstandings" are unusable. That's what you'd want if you needed to destroy the other guy's fleet on the ground, and use runway yourself later.

Holes range from about 1 to 3.5m across. How big a munition does it take to do that? Cluster bomb size?

[Bartender]

Not exactly aircraft based but: Google Sightseeing - Discover the world via Google Maps and Google Earth (http://googlesightseeing.com/)

Plenty of sightings and some reference to google streetmap too.

Called Ordnance Survey Sightseeing for the day (April 1st)

[doubledolphins]

In the aftermath of the turkish crash at SPL the other day I looked at 18R on my Iphone as I had not been there recently. At least not since 18R was built and old 18R became 18C. Any way I loved what I saw, a one winged areplane over the lights, not sure if its still there. (No it wasn't the crashed one just a composite photo.)

[India Four Two]

T&B
you'll see it's a C46Oh dear, just reduced my Total Aviation Person quotient :uhoh: However, in my defence, I did think it was a rather "fat" DC-3!

AB
I've even found a bloody great nuc(?) sub on the VolgaI'm a nosy bugger, aren't IDear Nosy Mushroom,

Surprisingly, your sub (a Sierra?) is at a submarine shipyard :eek: in Nizhny Novgorod. The Volga is linked to the Baltic and the Black Sea via very large canals.

SAM ....any more like this?Ask and you shall receive. This will keep you busy. SAM sites, complete with range rings - Google Earth Blog: Surface to Air Missile Sites in Google Earth (http://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2008/01/surface_to_air_missile_sites_in_goo.html)

And a bit closer to (my) home - here's an interesting hexagonal pattern at Tan Son Nhat airport - radar guided AAA 10°49'32.30"N 106°39'20.05"E. There is another one a little to the north.

[BobHead]

If you Light Blue types like Defunct SSBN's (Bombers) and SSN's go to 56° 1'18.12"N 3°27'9.22"W Where you can see eight rusting away and no CDS or MOD will make a disposal decison since 1982 when Dreadnought arrived. If they did, of course, do it on their watch none of you would have new toys of any type for years to come because of the costs.

So its new FJ, Box Humpers, Carriers and even more SSBN and SSN's or remove a 35 year old ticking toxic waste time bomb.

Some more in Plymouth if can be bothered to look.

Nutty:ugh::ugh::ugh:

[GIATT]

How about Huangyangtan 38 16 00.84N 105 57 00.11E?

Apparently it is a 900Mx700M scale representation of an area on the Chinese border with India. Lots of weird theories out there as to why they've done it.

If you have a look to the west it would appear that there are multiple underground entrances to the hillside although they might just be weird hardstandings 38 15 52.48N 105 55 44.69E

[Tankertrashnav]

Slightly off-thread, but I have had a lot of fun looking at airfields I have served at/flown from to see how they have changed. One which really amazed me was Khormaksar in Aden (South Yemen). When I was there in 1966 it was home to Hunters (2 squadrons) Argosies, Beverleys, Shackletons, Whirlwinds, Twin Pioneers and (I think) Javelins, with lots of Transport Command visiting Britts and Comets. Taking a look this morning the latest pic shows 6 helicopters and a 4 prop transport (my a/c recognition was always rubbish, no idea of types, but presumably Russian). I don't suppose the Yemenis have much of an air force, but what a waste of a huge resource handed over in its entirety in 1967 when we made a rather rapid departure.

[exscribbler]

And if we were still in Aden what would the RAF be flying at Khormaksar? :}

[Tankertrashnav]

Good point - probably 3 helicopters (2 u/s) and a twin engined transport!

[FNU_SNU]

How about Papoose Lake? The tin foil hat brigade will tell you that Area 51 is just for show now and the real stuff happens here!

Think this is the right one!

36°56'52.11"N 116° 1'15.12"W

[Pontius Navigator]

but what a waste of a huge resource handed over in its entirety in 1967 when we made a rather rapid departure.

I heard it was handed over, or more properly abandoned, with prejudice.

The white globe lamps taken down, the bulbs smashed and the globes filled with water and replaced.

Quick setting cement down the toilets etc; mind you I guess they would noy have used the toilets anyway.

[Lima Juliet]

Google Earth On April Fool's Day - somewhere in the Nevada Desert tagged "Dreamland" :ok:

http://www.jarnot.com/images/google_earth_area51-1.jpg

http://www.jarnot.com/images/google_earth_area51-2.jpg

http://www.jarnot.com/images/google_earth_area51-3.jpg

Looks like they bought a Weber from the BX...:}

[GOLF_BRAVO_ZULU]

Nah: some elderly Canuks with their AVROCAR.

http://www.avroarrow.org/images/AVROCAR/Avrocar14.jpg