Saturday 20th - Omura - Collected a hire car and drove to Omura arriving late morning. With several aircraft on the ramp, detoured to pick up the requisite step ladders and returned just in time for the 'families day' event to get into full swing.
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Sunday 21st - Omura airshow - Arrived about 8am and parked up on the public road to the east side of the base to photograph the morning displays. During the afternoon were scheduled a number of local experience flights by three SH-60K, with 15 lucky members of the public picked by lottery during the morning. After a virtual repeat of the Saturday demos decided to go inside the base to snap the static and the SH-60K two-ship as the light was over the yardarm. We parked closer to the base entrance and walked into the base. Snapped the action around the two SH-60Ks pleasure flying, departing and returning, some of the statics and then left. After the second round of pleasure flights departed we headed outside again to get in position for the expected departure of the US-1A, about 4pm or so.
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Monday 22nd - Tsuiki - Arrived about 8am and headed straight for the seawall at the south east of the base. Base security were quite diligent, attempting three checks within one hour. With landings from the West end we decamped to the fields for a while and then returned to the seawall for taxi off and shoot shots, before ending up at the Northwest fenceline.
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Tuesday 23rd - Tsuiki again - No security checks today. Again started by the seawall, basically a repeat of the day before but with a little more action from the based units.
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Wednesday 24th - Ozuki/Hofu Kita/Iwakuni - Drove to Ozuki in poor weather and to our surprise they were working, though technically not flying. There were about twenty T-5s going through take-off drills which conveniently meant taxing to the runway hold, checks, and then a take-off run which was aborted. Not exactly stunning light though. So after the same aircraft starting repeating we move onto Hofu-Kita, where there was no action. Lastly we moved onto Iwakuni, getting there mid-afternoon. Not much action their either, though it was interesting to see four EF-18Gs from VAQ-132 deployed from their Detachment at Misawa (whilst runway work was in progress. Late in the day the remaining two Growlers from the unit arrived).
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Thursday 25th - Iwakuni - Slightly better weather and more action this day. Though despite a southerly wind they insisted on landing with a tail wind all day. Limits the opportunities and the heat haze was phenomenal. Later in the day VMA-311 Tomcats were quite active, the last Harrier deployment to Iwakuni (they returned home not long after).
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Friday 26th - Iwakuni/Hofu Kita - Started at IWakuni, but with no sign of any action and again the southern runway was in use despite a tailwind again, we decided to head back to Hofu. Spent the morning at Hofu with a reasonable amount of activity. Returned to Iwakuni in the afternoon, but action was very limited.
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Saturday 27th - Miho - Having driven up to the Miho area on the Friday evening, we spent the morning along with a large number of others sat outside Miho at the east end - on the off chance of some action. Nothing happened and we headed off mid-afternoon.
Sunday 28th - Miho airshow - Were parked up relatively early in one of the on-base parking areas southside, with the plan to be to stay put for the favourable light. The shuttle buses were very busy, possibly the Blue Impulse factor. Lots of mostly photographers stayed in the parking areas for the displays. Weather was superb but the heat haze was unbelievable - making anything low level that was not close a disaster (see one example below, hopefully it is obvious!). We left the on base parking just before the Blue Impulse were due and parked nearby, but it turned out to be not a good spot to photograph the display from. As soon as the Blue Impulse finished we headed off to beat the traffic as we had a long drive back to Tsuiki.
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Monday 29th - Tsuiki - Planned as a spare day we eventually decided on a return to Tsuiki. As the previous week the west end of the runway was in use and we spent time between the seawall, fields to the west and the northwest fenceline.
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We left late afternoon for the drive back to Fukuoka and the flight home via Seoul left early evening. Another very enjoyable trip, the only downside being the horrendous heat haze suffered every day; may well avoid the south in May in future.
Paul.
