Tag Archives: USAF

F-15s Arriving for the Flyovers

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Seattle was hosting two football games in one weekend.  The Seahawks had their season opener on Sunday and the Huskies were playing on Saturday.  The 142nd FW from Portland sent up three jets to undertake flyovers for both games.  Each flyover involved two jets so the third was a spare should one be needed.  After all, these jets aren’t young.  Indeed, with the wing taking delivery of F-15EX jets, it won’t be long before the Charlie models are gone.

They showed up at the end of the day which made it easier to be there to catch them.  Since there were three of them, I decided to use a relatively high shutter speed for the first jet, a slower shutter speed for the second and then lower still for the last jet.  That way I should get a result on the early jets and hopefully would get something more dynamic on the last one if I was lucky.  Things turned out well enough and the last jet even popped the speedbrake on touchdown which was welcome.  The skies were a bit red as a result of the smoke in the are from wildfires but that might have softened the light a little.

Evening Raptor Demo at Last

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The “at last” in this title is not that I haven’t seen an F-22 demo in the evening.  I saw one once at Chino and it was very cool.  This is more about the fact that the Raptor demos in recent years have not strayed far west very often.  They did a demo in Australia but only had one demo west of the Mississippi for one season.  However, Canada did attract the team, and Abbotsford provided a chance to see them for me.

The pilot for the demo for the last two years is a guy that was a regular attendee of air shows in the Midwest when I lived there.  I know some of his friends, but he was quite young then and I can’t claim to know him.  Even so, it is rather cool to see him have made it to his chosen airframe of the F-22 and then to become the demo pilot.  Only near the end of his second year did I finally see his routine and it was a good show.  I know he has used flares at a number of events, but warm dry weather probably has meant that the fire risk precluded that.  Even so, the evening light made for a great show.

Nicely done, Sam.  Excellent performance.  Hope you have enjoyed it for the last two years.

Girls Fly 2 Arrivals

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Each year, there is an event held at Abbotsford International Airport to encourage the involvement of young women in the aviation business.  You get quite a few military aircraft arriving for the event, and they focus on female crews from the units to bring the planes in.  While this is in Canada, the US supports the event well.  I headed up to see what the arrivals would include.

Weather was a bit overcast so not ideal given that plenty of the planes coming in will be grey.  However, there were hints of sun periodically although it did end up throwing down more rain around the time I was leaving.  Aside from the A-10s and a Cyclone, the arrivals I saw were dominated by transport and tanking types.  The KC-135s had come quite a long way but the one I was probably happiest to get was the C-5 Galaxy.  No TF-39 whine, these days, but still a cool jet to see flying.

T-38s Including Some Color

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Mesa Gateway Airport is a popular spot for cross country flights by various military aircraft.  T-38 training jets are particularly common apparently so, while it was my first time visiting the airport, catching some arriving Talons was not a surprise.  What was unusual was that one of them was in a retro paint scheme in a green camouflage design.  It was looking very well finished as it taxied in and parked.  The various student trainees parked their jets and walked into the FBO.  Many of them appeared to be overseas students training in the US.

Luke F-35s

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I have never photographed at Luke AFB before.  Mark and I spent a few hours there as part of our trip.  The base is home to the F-35A training unit and a variety of foreign F-35A training too.  Plenty of USAF F-35s were in the pattern that day.  I got loads of shots of the based jets but, with the current style of low observability finishes, the jets did look very alike.  Yes, there were crew names and unit badges to be seen but, sadly, one Luke F-35 looks a lot like another Luke F-35.

Two C-37s With One Being a Bit Shy

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The US military operates a bunch of Gulfstream jets for transportation of key individuals.  One afternoon, I was at BFI and there was a C-37 from the USAF sitting on the ramp.  It had the powder blue livery common across the USAF VIP fleet.  I was hoping to see it takeoff, but it was not moving while I was there.  A little while later, it was joined by a second example.  This one was a lot less conspicuous.  It had no livery and no obvious markings at all.  The USAF has been toning down its planes recently and this was definitely in that style.  The lack of a registration might have told you that it wasn’t a civilian Gulfstream but the bigger giveaway would be the array of antennae that were on the fuselage.  This clearly could communicate with more than the average bizjet.

The Return of the F-35As on Veterans’ Day

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Quite some time ago, I posted a piece about the take off of some F-35As that were doing a flyover for Veteran’s Day.  What I didn’t cover in that post was that they had to come back!  They actually spent a fair bit of time out around the area as well as doing the flyover so there was some time between departure and arrival.  Originally, I had intended to get some pretty standard side on shots of their return.  However, earlier in the year, I had done the same thing for some other F-35s, and, at the last minute, I had a change of heart.

I rapidly grabbed my stuff and drove around to the approach end of the airfield near Ruby Chow Park.  I decided a head on shot followed by an underside shot would be a better bet.  Conveniently, they decided to do a run in and break rather than a straight in approach, so I was able to get some shot of them in formation as they passed overhead.  Then the approach shots worked out pretty much as I had hoped.  I was glad that I had done something different to my usual.  If there had been more opportunities, I hope I would have tried other ideas too.

F-35A Snorting it Up at Abbotsford

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I saw the USAF F-35A demo at SeaFair in 2022 and it was impressive but, unfortunately, a bit distant over the lake.  Abbotsford in 2023 was my first chance to see the performance closer in and that combined with the evening show to give good lighting conditions.  I was not disappointed.  The demo was a great routine, and it really tore up the skies as the pilot wrung the jet out for our entertainment.  The honking great engine means it is never quiet and, while it might not be as agile as an F-16, there is plenty of control authority for some rapid changes of direction.  The evening light made the airframe look even better.  These are some of my favorite shots from the display.

USAF Moose Low Over Canada

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The air show at Abbotsford has the conspicuous backdrop of Mt Baker.  For the evening show, the light was really nice on the mountain and I think I have already posted about that.  Some of the display aircraft would make turns in front of the mountain.  Most are too small to be obvious in a shot but something the size of a C-17 Globemaster is going to show up.  The USAF Moose was one of the display and here it is as it reverses course back towards the airfield.

F-35As Departing for Their Veterans’ Day Flyover

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The UW Huskies had a home game during the weekend of during the weekend of Veterans’ Day.  The USAF provided a flyover for the start of the game with a couple of F-35As from Luke AFB making the trip up to Seattle to do the honors.  The sun was a bit erratic on the day of the game, but it wasn’t too bad and the trees around Boeing Field still had a little fall color in them.  Both jets launched for the flyover.

I watched them taxi out from the Modern ramp and head to the departure end.  I knew that they would be airborne well before they got to me, but I was hoping that they would keep it low.  The first of the jets obliged keeping nice and low at least for a while allowing me to get a shot with the ground in the background.  The second jet was a little more eager to climb and it was well skylines by the time it got close to my spot.  They were planning on some time in the local area before the flyover so now it was time to wait.