In my previous visits to Tucson International, I have never seen jets taking off or landing as pairs. It has always been single jets. This time I had a couple of times when section takeoffs were carried out. There also appeared to be some arrivals in pairs too. Nothing too dramatic but a bit of a change from what I have seen there before.
Tag Archives: Tucson international airport
RO-6A Lurking Around
A while back a friend of mine told me about a modified Dash 8 that the Army was using that had been flying out of his airport. It ended up coming to Livermore – a short drive from home. I went to see it but it was parked in a hangar on the other side of the field and I couldn’t see much. It flew a few times but never when I could see it. I figured that there was nothing much to do since I wouldn’t see it. Imagine my surprise when I came across its siblings.
I was driving around Tucson International when I saw two Dash 8s parked up. Sure enough, they were in the same configuration as the previous one. This time they had their civilian markings obscured. A little check with Google and they are apparently RO-6A airframes. The Air Force operates Dash 8s to monitor ranges for traffic under the -7 designation but these are different. Spooky stuff no doubt. Sadly, they didn’t move while I was there but they had been active. I was just glad to catch them out in the wild.
Dutch Training
The Dutch F-16 training unit has been at Tucson for a while now. It moved from Springfield IL to join the Arizona ANG unit at the International Airport. I have seen their jets before but it was nice to see them again. The Dutch F-16s have been through an extensive upgrade program but the airframes are knocking on a bit. Built by Fokker as F-16A/Bs in the early days of the program, they have soldiered on while the USAF retired their F-16As a long time ago. I didn’t get a lot of chance to shoot the Dutch jets but managed to catch a few during my time there.