Seven aircraft in formation, Abu Dhabi

17 Oct 2009 - Time Stamp
Four jets and a large military aircraft in formation, Abu Dhabi
Plus one more in southerly direction, which looks more like a shadow.

No idea about their IDs

5 Aircraft in formation Abu Dhabi.kmz (928 B)

Nice find!

I would say that is probably a flight of F-16's refuelling from a KC-10 Extender.
The F-16 that appears to be right up the tail of the KC-10 is probably on the nozzle at that moment.
The shadow off to the side, is not a shadow. It's another aircraft flying in the formation. If you look closely, you can see the exhaust trail behind it and the multi-spectral shadow in front of it is the same distance as the others, so it is at the same speed.

Doesn't seem to be carrying anything on it's wing pylons, so maybe some sort of electronic countermeasures aircraft?

Cheers,
Sean.

On the exact same age of imagery, there is also a 747 about 0.8 miles NW of the KC-10.

Cheers,
Sean.

May 28, 2016 19:31:12 GMT v6srs said:

Nice find!

I would say that is probably a flight of F-16's refuelling from a KC-10 Extender.
The F-16 that appears to be right up the tail of the KC-10 is probably on the nozzle at that moment.
The shadow off to the side, is not a shadow. It's another aircraft flying in the formation. If you look closely, you can see the exhaust trail behind it and the multi-spectral shadow in front of it is the same distance as the others, so it is at the same speed.

Doesn't seem to be carrying anything on it's wing pylons, so maybe some sort of electronic countermeasures aircraft?

Cheers,
Sean.

Thank you Sean
I was zooming onto 747 when my eye caught the KC-10 at corner and got lucky with four F16's and the fifth on wing. I actually missed the one nuzzling under the tail.
these F16s must be in a tearing hurry to get somewhere, considering they are passing over an oil hub.

Here's another trio not too far. As usual I am blank on IDs

3 Military aircraft Abu Dhabi.kml (1.99 KB)

Yes, Sean's nailed it in your first placemark.  The only thing that I have to add is that they need to work on their formation flying a bit more!

The large aircraft in your trio is a C-17 Globemaster of the UAE Air Force:



Image courtesy Wiki

Hard to see the escorting aircraft clearly, since they have sandy camouflage against a sandy background, but they look like tailless deltas, so I expect they're Mirage 2000s of the UAE Air Force.  This one even has a similar camo pattern to the aircraft in your placemark.  Good-looking aircraft, like most of the Mirage series.



Photo by Fred Boureau, courtesy Airplane-Pictures.net

It's an interesting airbase as well, with a some exotic visitors over the last few years.  See if you can spot the U-2s and the Global Hawk...

Cheers,

Frank

Jun 5, 2016 23:19:08 GMT frankmcvey (Angel) said:

The large aircraft in your trio is a C-17 Globemaster of the UAE Air Force:

Hard to see the escorting aircraft clearly, since they have sandy camouflage against a sandy background, but they look like tailless deltas, so I expect they're Mirage 2000s of the UAE Air Force.  This one even has a similar camo pattern to the aircraft in your placemark.  Good-looking aircraft, like most of the Mirage series.

It's an interesting airbase as well, with a some exotic visitors over the last few years.  See if you can spot the U-2s and the Global Hawk...

Cheers,

Frank

Thank you Frank
For clarifying and adding some superb images on many of my posts.
Since I don't belong to aviation industry, I don't want to make some wild guesses (or wild gas ) about ID's of planes but I guess with time I might be able to identify some of them. Like being able to differentiate a 747 from an A380 to start with 
C-17 Globemaster has a pretty impressive profile.

I guess now it's conclusive that there are 7, not five aircraft in formation.

Regards
Yamla