A Loud Roar in the Sky – what is it?

I heard a loud roar in the sky from outside my window. It was a deep roar. No it wasn’t a lion, but the roar of a huge sea plane flying overhead very low. I live in a small valley like area where there are low hills on three sides of me. The sounds seem to be magnified sometimes but not this time. The noise really is that loud.

Lake Elsinore, where I live is one of the seven natural lakes in Southern California area. It is smaller now that there is a dam there for the past many years, but still big enough for the huge plane to land on the lake. It is a huge red and white antique-like plane, reminding me of the famous “Spruce Goose” of a bygone era.

It is used to scoop water to fight the incessant forest fires in the surrounding areas. Well I shouldn’t say forest, because it’s mostly semi-desert around here with high dry grass and lots of low bushes in the hills.

The plane circled at least twice going so slow it seemed like it couldn’t possibly stay up in the air. It seemed to fly slowly like a small 4-seater, but surely it had to be going faster. Maybe it was 300 – 400 feet up, so low it cast huge shadows on the hills close to me.

I haven’t checked the TV lately, but there were fires raging in Orange County. That’s the hills behind me to the west. There were also fires in the northern Los Angeles area, but maybe that’s too far from the lake for this plane to be of much use, besides there are a few lakes up in that area.

Well let me get back to my computer. I had to start fresh a couple of days ago after wiping it clean and installing my old Windows XP. It had very serious problems before so I was forced to start over. It’s working now, but no sound, no cable (it’s using the wireless) and several other things are still not working. I’m trying to fix them now.

Charles