From: Andrew Johnson
Date: 2008-04-21 17:56:21
Attachments : Customer Service ■Subscribe to Air Force Times ■Subscription Renewal ■Advertise in Air Force Times ■ Researcher offers clues on new Area 51 By Philip Ewing – Staff writerPosted : Thursday Jan 24, 2008 14:17:10 EST The name Homey Airport which reportedly is the new official designation for the top-secret Nevada military installation better known as Area 51 could have its origins in the annals of top-secret aviation, one Area 51 enthusiast said. Joerg Arnu, a Las Vegas software developer and military aviation buff, said Homey Airport is a term that could have been working its way through records and bureaucracies since the 1960s when CIA pilots first began flying the then-top secret A-12 spy plane, a highly classified version of the supersonic jet that flew from Area 51 and is better known to the public as the SR-71 Blackbird. Because the base near the dry lake bed at Groom Lake, Nev., was so secret, A-12 pilots couldnt even list it on their flight logs, Arnu said, so instead they listed Home Plate as their airport of origin. Its possible that subsequent pilots also making secret flights shortened the home plate designation over the years to Homey, Arnu said, which then entered the lexicon of the insular corps of clandestine military and defense workers. The Homey moniker made its first publicly accessible appearance in a service bulletin distributed by the aerospace firm Honeywell, associated with the companys Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System, a technology built into aircraft to help them avoid collisions with obstacles or terrain while taxiing. In that January 2005 bulletin, Arnu said, Honeywell listed a slew of private airports with which the gear was newly compatible, including a field called XTA, listed in Homey, U.S.A. There are no Nevada towns called Homey, or at least none with airports. The information in the system listed with that designation coincides exactly with the location of the runways at Area 51. Homey Airport and KXTA now appear as the official designations for the Groom Lake base in new editions of flight planning software and civilian aviators navigation gear, several civilian aviation Web sites have reported. Because of Area 51s longtime role in alien and conspiracy theories, wags online have speculated the new three-letter code stands for extraterrestrial airport. The K designation indicates only that the field is in the U.S., according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Honeywell spokeswoman Karen Crabtree confirmed that Honeywell included KXTA and Homey, USA in its system database, but she said that information came from another aerospace company, Jeppesen. A Military Times search of the Honeywell information turned up four runways associated with KXTA and Homey, USA, and one additional listing for Homey. Jeppesen maintains a flight database and distributes it to companies like Honeywell. However, a Jeppesen spokesman, Eric Anderson said he did not know when KXTA and Homey were added or exactly where the terms came from. The company acquired the information from an official source, most likely the Federal Aviation Administration, he said. An FAA spokeswoman was contacted, but at press time said she was still trying to determine the origin of the Homey name and KXTA designation. Arnu, who runs the Area 51 Web site www.dreamlandresort…. said the Homey Airport and XTA revelations are typical of the bits of information associated with the growing public profile of Area 51 by themselves they dont mean much, he said, but associated with the Groom Lake location and runway information, they form a piece of the puzzle. Arnu said he has visited Area 51 several times, and described each experience as spooky. Based on his expeditions to the base, he said the base isnt being scaled back, as some online theorists have said, but rather that its operations are expanding to the tune of at least one new building or hangar per year. Staff writer Michael Hoffman contributed to this report. Previous story: Area 51 designated with a new name
