No obstacles close enough as the building you see are on the new Strip which is line of sight ten miles away.
The Stratosphere is on the right side of the picture and planes landing at McCarran approach under the elevation of the top of it. I have been there on the Big Shot watching 737’s approaching the N/S from the north under where I was on top of that structure.
My mother lives on Lamb Blvd and noise abatement is also not something they seem to worry about with the F-15’s and other flamers doing it full blast on takeoffs.
Red Flag is an exercise to test combat readiness and I could see that this was a purposely executed landing to simulate what they might expect.
The picture was shot with the full F-stop which would show everything in focus which in turn would screw up the depth of field making the building look much closer than they are.
So that photo does not depict the normal published approach for that airfield and is likely a short field landing exercise?
“Old BUFFs don’t get that way by accident.”
Or can it now be said that any currently airworthy B-52 is a “Franken-BUFF”?