French Mirage F1 goes down west of White Tanks today

[Suck My Glock]

I was headed out towards the Sun Valley Parkway area to get in some shooting today, but the road was blocked off with Air Force vehicles, including Explosive Ordnance Disposal.

Turns out that a couple hours before I decided to head that direction, an F1 Mirage went down out there about 15 miles NW of Luke.

Put a crimp in my plans, but oh well. Some frog pilot was having a worse day than I was.

I live out here under the flight path of the fighters from Luke and I've grown so accustomed to the noise I rarely look up anymore unless they're really low. But while I've seen lots of F35s, F16s and even F15s on occasion,...I can't recall ever seeing any Mirages out here.

I know we train a lot of foreign pilots at Luke, because I've bumped into them over the years. But usually they are here to train on planes we build. It makes me wonder what sort of occasion would bring French planes here.

 

[Blue109]

Insurrectionists and antivaxxers

 

[Ballistic Therapy]

When I was in the service I worked at a training base and there would be pilots and planes come in to train from all around the world.
They don't come here to train on our planes , they came to get better training on theirs.

 

[bldr60]

https://www.12news.com/article/news/local/pilot-safe-in-fighter-jet-crash-west-of-luke-air-force-base/75-10f00335-6331-4c25-87bd-1b844e6407fa

 

[Bullzaye]

It makes sense...using the Mirage as an aggressor. Many Middle Eastern countries use Mirages. Likely a U.S. pilot flying it. Glad he's safe...regardless of his nationality, of course.