Can anybody else who is using Apple Maps on iOS (only got it confirmed for iOS 11) take a look at Ellsworth AFB? To help home in a little, one of the auto-complete options that comes up once you've typed in Ellsworth AFB is the Commissary at 2649 Lemay Blvd.

South of Lemay Blvd is Tinker Dr. South of that is a large brown hanger. South of that is an area of flight line where a number of aircraft are sitting. There are a couple of B-1Bs as you'd expect at Ellsworth, there's a couple of F-15s at the SE of the area, and what looks like an MQ-9 Reaper in the corner.

Between one of the B-1Bs and the MQ-9 is an aircraft that looks for all the world like an F-106. The shadow of it (which seems to show opened cockpits) suggests maybe it's an F-106B.

Are there any airworthy F-106s left? I thought they were all history. Does anybody know the story of how it came to be there? A big of Googling returned a story or two about people trying to get one of the last airframes flyable in 2005 or so, but nothing later.

Oddly, viewing the same area in Apple Maps on a Mac shows no planes at all in that area, which suggests that they're using different satellite imagery datasets.

Anybody know?

Al

There was at least one NASA F106B flying as of about five years ago, not sure if it's still flying-- maybe at Elsworth for a stopover? The F106 and F102 are a couple of my favorite Aircraft-- I have two F106s in the stash, and have photographed the Mchord bird extensively.
VR? Russ

Hmm, that actually seems like it may well be the answer - NASA's site has a page on the F-106 (which is being used for lightning research, I believe) that indicates they still have the F-106B at Langley and the page has a most recent update date in August this year, so it's contemporary. Dropping in at Ellsworth either as a stopover or for the annual open day (which I assume they still have) doesn't seem to stretch credulity at all. Just knowing there's an airworthy F-10
6B out there makes it a lot less of a mystery.

Thanks,

Al

Yes, NASA has several "retired" USAF aircraft they still fly-- I think the NASA F-104s are retired now, but they fly the 106B, and the F-18 for research--they will probably be flying them for quite a while longer.
VR, Russ