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It had been quite a while since I made a trip purely for aviation photography.  I may have managed to sneak some photo elements in to other trips but nothing just for planes.  I decided to go to Nellis for Red Flag 22-2.  I had skipped 22-1 because it clashed with some other stuff despite having some things I was quite keen to shoot.  German Tornados were supposed to be at 22-2 which I was keen to shoot but they sadly canceled before the event even kicked off.

Despite this, I still wanted to go.  A couple of days off work seemed like a good plan and it was a chance to explore the capabilities of the R3 on aviation subjects.  While the Germans were not attending, there were some foreign operators taking part.  Singapore had brought its jets – admittedly, they didn’t have far to come with Singapore having units at Luke and Mountain home – and Saudi Arabia had brought some F-15SAs.

Things were not as active as they have been on some previous Red Flags.  Not everything seemed to be flying in each wave.  The B-1s only flew on one of the evening and one of the day sorties of the two I was there.  Also, things seemed to happen earlier than is sometimes the case.  There were some long gaps in flying when I wondered whether something was up.  It was just a slow Flag I guess.  However, it was a good chance to hang around and photograph some jets.  I guess I can’t complain about that.

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