An A-10 Warthog kind of a day

A pretty nicely warm day today.  It was in the low 70s as I took the sunset pictures to give you an idea of how nice it was.

The morning was spent sitting outside the URRV, watching A-10 Thunderbolts aka Warthogs (Close Air Suppor) aircraft do practice strafing and bomb runs in the nearby gunnery range across the highway.

The sound of their 30mm GAU-8 rotary cannon (around which the aircraft is built) is quite impressive even from a bit over 3 miles away where I sat.  BRRRRRRRT, the sound reaching me 15 seconds or more after I saw a burst of smoke come off the nose and trail behind the A-10.  More info on the warthog here:  LINK

Speaking as a former groundpounder, we on the ground loved these aircraft for their close support and willingness to "get in the weeds" to deliver ordnance on the enemy.

As I was more at least one miles away at their closest point of approach, and with just a piddly 200mm telephoto lens, not many of my pictures came out very sharp or indeed, usable!  Here's the best ones that came out.

 This one came out best as the aircraft was closest to me

After lunch, I did a small hike to a nearby hill to get a shot of the campsite from the north side of the range:

Can you spot Uma?

The rest of the afternoon, I rode Yagi, the TW200 to and from the trail junctions for the 605 and 609 trails.  No real new pic opportunities presented themselves, and I was content to just pootle along, exploring faint trails and just enjoying the warm weather.

I also did a short test ride with Fiona, my '99 Ural to test out the newest mod to fix the "hanging" throttle cable issue that crops up now and then.  The fix seems to work fine, we'll see how well it does on the longer rides.  I'm thinking of heading down to Ajo, AZ tomorrow to see what there is to see.

Sunset was OK.