Friday, June 21, 2013

Mirage F.1 Near Yakima Training Center?

This morning, at about 1030AM, what is best described as a Mirage F.1 flew over East Valley and Yakima.  I was within 10 feet of my camera bag, but because the thing was closed, it took me precious seconds to dislodge my camera.  This is the best photo I could grab.  He was banking pretty hard and the profile was not great.  My camera chose to focus on the wires in the foreground rather than the more interesting aircraft behind.
Did anyone else see this aircraft?  Here is the Mirage F1. and here is the Mirage 2000.  What do you think?  I know it was NOT an F-5, nor a T-38.  At first I thought A-4, but it was too long.  Mirage was the only one that seemed to fit my observation.  Are there any in the USA?  Does ANYONE know?  Damn it, I hate it when interesting stuff happens and I can't nail it down.

On a related note, there has been quite a bit of helicopter activity at the Training Center over the past week.  I suspect it is related.  The Public Relations officer could not confirm nor deny the presence of European forces at the Training Center.  Alas, we won't know unless some one lets us in on the secret.