I knew a guy who got the call sign "Baja" in R-2301 on the TACTS range. On a bug south they popped up just tooling around well south of the border. Bill Dollard, working the TACTS range says something along the lines of "Aardvark 106, recommend turning right to 350 heading to re-enter the United States." The RIO who was sure he was still in 2301 was forever known as Baja.
When I was doing a BI in Las Cruces I had a stud who was struggling under the bag. The working area is only a couple of miles from the border and as I asked him to turn north, I could see the road/fence that marked the "Hotdog line." For whatever reason we just weren't turning and I finally had to say, "Hey man, I need you to turn or the Mexican Air Force is going to come shoot us down." I guess that did the trick.
We've spent the last 4 winters parked next to the golf course on the north edge of the Goldwater Range. I often saw F-18's and AV-8's hauling ass due south at low level and wondered if they ever poked into Mexican airspace since it is only 18 miles to the border there.
Well, I'm only an Air Force guy, and don't know much about the Navy,... but I'm guessing this rules out about anyone who's an O-5 or below. How many O-6's or higher fly in the S-3?? Speaking of flying over Mexico, I heard this at Laughlin AFB: "Rake 45, Rake 45 (Rake is a solo T-38 call sign), Del Rio approach on Guard,... Turn left heading 060,... the United States is in your 6 o'clock for 12 miles."
The border in the 2301 is really easy to see. That said, people bust it fairly frequently but nobody ever gives much of a shit. Range just comes up and tells you to work North. Every WTI some East Coast Hornets will take off runway 21 and go direct to the R2507 (Chocolate Mountain). They'll invade Mexico by 10 or so miles. It's always entertaining to the rest of us, but nothing ever comes of it.
The border road is pretty easy to see at altitude...but it quickly becomes an invisible line of dust at 500' and 500 kts on a low altitude bug out. Ask me how I know, Señor...
There's a fence and a road there now. It's even easier to see down low. Doing a same side left from Patriots to Cactus West, if you action for more than 15 seconds, you'll start hearing Mexican trumpet music.
You think we'd pay Mexico a buck a year to have MOA's and other SUA's on their side of the river, and expand some already very good airspace. With all the aid we give them, that should be an easy sell.
Actually, I think that would be a great idea! Noise complaints, not! (unless someone thought they'd be a buck in it). We get some of best training on deployments using Godforshaken relatively unpopulated parts of countries like Oman (++++), Saudi Arabia, Morocco, etc. especially when they launch against us. Mexican Navy has E-2C Hawkeyes and wants Su-27s. Maybe if that doesn't work out for them, we can make a deal with US provided "Red air". I know at least one company is working on getting some Su-27 Flankers in country USA and has pilots already in ground school now. Why not? +1 for a great idea! So true, but we dump counter-narco money on them in a big way, why not ask for something tangible in return?
