The Secret Airline of Area 51 - JANET

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Driving to work, or relying on public transport to get there, can be a big hassle, that many of us can relate to. But… what if your workplace is a little bit different, and secretive?

How would you get to work, if your… office just happens to be at Area 51? Well, today we are going to talk about Area 51 and about the unusual commute of many of those working there, which involves a pretty unusual airline, called JANET!

Stay tuned!

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Below you will find the links to videos and sources used in this episode.

[AndrewSephiTV]

This "secret airline" was so "secretive" that on Flight Simulator X there was a mission where you would fly Janet to Area 51 and after landing a UFO would take off right beside you. One of the most interesting game missions ever.

[dalecomer]

My dad worked for the "Skunk Works" in 1955. At that time it was located in Burbank adjacent to the Lockheed A-1 Plant at the airport. The personnel shuttle flights to "Paradise Ranch" were originally operated by the USAF. When a C-54 crashed in bad weather on Mt. Charleston west of Las Vegas with the loss of all aboard and the investigaton revealed that the pilot in command had relatively low time on the C-54, Kelly Johnson insisted that Lockheed take over the shuttle flights. They used Super Constellations owned by the company leasing arm in a rotating shell game to disguise which aircraft they were using at any time. They supported the overflights of the Soviet Union with frequent flights to bases in.Britain and Europe where those flights operated.

[PsRohrbaugh]

The entire point of the Top Secret background check is to see how easily you are to blackmail or manipulate. Someone with debt problems might be easier to bribe. With "sexual activity", they are interested in whether you are doing things you're ashamed of that could be used to blackmail you. Having a mistress your spouse doesn't know about is a MUCH bigger problem than an - alternate lifestyle - that your family or friends are are aware of. One of my close friends got a top secret clearance. I know he's into some - extreme - things and asked "was that a problem?" he said "no, my wife's involved and my friends know, so there's no blackmail potential, which is all the government cares about".

[jeromethiel]

Reminds me of a joke, where a civilian pilot accidentally lands at area 51.
He is detained for several days, and finally released as he wasn't doing anything nefarious.

Two weeks later, the same pilot lands at area 51 again. He is promptly arrested again.
When asked why he came back, he said "you guys have to vouch for me, my wife thinks i am having an affair!"

[EyeMWing]

Locating Janet at the airport instead of at Nellis has a few pretty important causes:
- Nellis is an extremely busy base, servicing a constantly rotating cast of American and foreign aircrews training at the Nevada range. That's a lot of eyes, way more than you'd ever get on the GA side of an airport.
- During Red Flag and other exercises, it's functionally a military base in a combat zone in terms of operational tempo. Adding a quasi-scheduled small airline to that mix is just an unnecessary complication.
- Nellis sits on the outskirts of the city, surrounded by relatively low desirability neighborhoods on one side and literally nothing on the other. The airport is more central, and is easier to reach from the sort of neighborhood well paid specialists are going to want to live in.
- If it were on the air base, all the deniability of its operations goes away, and you may as well slap military registrations on the planes and use Air Mobility Command crews to operate them.

[Aleksandr_N]

Some of AirChina fleet has Oxygen breathing tanks for every passenger onboard (not just an oxygen chemical generator).
This is to provide oxygen for everyone onboard in case if depressurization happens flying over the Himalayas mountains with no possibility to dive down to safe altitude.

[plektosgaming]

I had a relative who was doing work for a government agency have to get such a clearance many years ago. The process was... kind of absurd. They even asked his second grade teacher questions about him. Absolutely nothing was not checked, re-checked, and then verified via a third source. We still don't know what he really did. Lol.

[xen]

I was in Vegas in the summer of 2021. I drove fairly near to the Janet terminal trying to get a good photo of the 747SP parked outside the Sands hangar next door to the Janet terminal. The gate I stopped at that had what I reckoned to be the best view of the 747 had an armed guard, but he was cool enough to let me get right up next to the gate to take an unobstructed photo through the chain-link fence. He was very adamant that I was not allowed on his side of the gate, though.

[gregwochlik]

In the game "Microsoft Flight Simulator X" (2003), there was a mission from Las Vegas to Groom lake. Once at Groom lake, one could explore the base unharrassed (in the game of course). The details that you mentioned, the call sign, the blacked out windows, were mentioned.

[After_these_messages]

Great video this week! I’m a civilian that works with the US IC/DoD. The main reason why they use LAS airport instead of the nearby base, is to make it easier for civilian workers to fly into and out of LAS from wherever they may be living/flying out of.

Employees will fly to LAS from their own home states and cities, and then work for several days or more at Groom Lake before flying back home for some days off. This just makes it easier in terms of employees being able to find commercial flights straight to LAS instead of dealing with military transport that have tighter schedules and not as much flexibility.

The OPSEC is overall better as well, when you can just have personnel all funneling into one secure location, instead of having to travel through two or more to get where they need to be.

[cageordie]

A security guard where I used to work was a mathematician in the closed area. He used to fly out of San Jose on Friday morning to Tonopah where he was picked up by another plane that took him to his work place. Each evening they flew him back to Tonopah to his hotel. On Friday they stuck him back on a white plane and flew him back to San Jose. Why was he a security guard? He said nobody would hire a fifty something mathematician. What he worked on was the F117.

[karljamieson]

Maybe I can help a little bit, but nothing I've got to add to the conversation is interesting! Here's the thing about government, like all big organisations they do occasionally look to save money. Why do they operate out of a specific airport can be as boring as they got good lease terms on the buildings, or they bought the buildings outright and did it so long ago that it's just cheaper and easier not to change. You said it in the video, this started in the 1950's. The buildings at the Las Vegas airport are probably fit for purpose, with appropriate electronic surveillance and hardening tech installed. Why spend money moving when they don't need to?

For the security clearance it's all about leverage. They ask about your sexuality, financial position, alcohol and gambling because they need to know that you can't be blackmailed. If you are having an affair and a foreign entity finds this out, they could say "hey, let us have a look around or we tell your spouse!" same thing if you're gay but your very religious family doesn't know. The government really doesn't care if you're promiscuous, they don't mind who you sleep with, what your kinks are or how frequently you do these things - just as long as no one else important to you minds. Gambling problems mean someone could get the better of you and hold it over you, want that gambling debt cleared? Then just give us the secrets! Alcohol means maybe all the foreign influencer has to do is to get you drunk and you spill the beans. It's all about the government knowing that you can't be influenced by someone else.

Boring right? Just like most things in government.

[paulgracey]

A couple of decades ago, the organization I have long been a part of, the International Human Powered Vehicle Association was holding its speed championship races in Las Vegas. Part of the annual races is the 200M top speed for extremely streamlined bicycles that at that time required a 2 mile run-up to the 200M timing traps. The local chapter of our organization had intended that event to take place at a nearby dry lake, but unseasonable rain had made it unusable. Those local organizers had some connections though.
They moved the event to a paved runway at an airfield near Mercury NV. It was well outside the inner security for the Area 51 but still within a checkpoint we were allowed to pass. Unfortunately for our contest that reserve airfield (with no regular traffic at all) had a slope to it that would not allow us to set international records, but because of that slope some of the highest speeds to that date were recorded. We require less than 1 in 200 slope for flatness. We use chase cars for the safety of the contestants, and some of the fastest of our vehicle riders were out accelerating the 3 cylinder sub-compact rental cars that got that assignment:)

[jamiesuejeffery]

I grew up in Idaho (a U.S. State in the U.S. west for my non-U.S friends). Idaho has a very large desert. Out in the middle of this desert, there is a very large nuclear training facility with a couple of dozen nuclear reactors (they are small and experimental). But what I learned early in life, is that is the best stretch of desert road to have a car breakdown. If you happen to have a flat tire, a very kind person will show up within about 10 minutes and help you change the tire. I currently live in Nevada, but nowhere close to Area 51. I don't think their guards are nearly as nice.

[WDGFE]

Wife and I watched a few of the Janet 737’s take off from McCarran, from the Jack in the Box conveniently located near the end of the runway on Las Vegas Boulevard, around 15 years ago.

It was my impression that they were climbing hard as soon as they could, and waiting to turn until they were nearly out of sight.

Interesting to get to actually see them in action, after having first heard about them on Art Bell, years before.

[cdstoc]

You're not kidding about the investigation process for a clearance. When I was in aerospace it was reported that a typical secret clearance cost the company $100, 000 in the 1980's, with special access clearances costing far more. The FBI often gets involved and interviews your friends, family, and neighbors (my neighbors confirmed this). The questions about sexual orientation, foreign influences, even financial stability, are all about assessing your risk to potential blackmail or bribery. If you're looking for work within the aerospace industry then having a current security clearance is a valuable thing to list on your resumé.

[WinterNevada]

I remember spotting one of these JANET Boeing 737s back in Piarco International Airport on the ramp, really looking forward to see the insight into them for this video!

[KyleCowden]

My next door neighbor was sent to Groom Lake to train as a QC guy on the HARM project. They were escorted onboard KNFW and boarded a 737 with no cabin windows. When the got there, they debarked through a flexible conduit to mount a bus with its windows whited out.

So I asked, what he saw. "Nothing." He was disappointed too thinking he'd actually see at least part of the facility.

[tomhargreaves]

Great research and wonderful presentation! I retired from the Air Force from Nellis in 1988. At that time, some, and maybe all, of the JANET aircraft flew out of Nellis. I don't remember what type the aircraft were at that time. In those days, getting on base was pretty easy. If I remember, you just had to show your military or civilian ID card as you passed through the gate, or had to have a "base sticker" on your bumper or windscreen. That all changed on 11 September 2001. After that, you stopped, gave your ID card to the armed guard at the gate, your card was compared against a list (and years later electronically scanned) before you were allowed to enter the base. I'm guessing that the much higher security level and ID checking, and thus much slower base entry, led to off-loading several hundred people per day to a dedicated facility at KLAS.

[andyrichardsvideovlogs]

Fascinating glimpse of the murky world of Janet 😮