Tag Archives: f-16c

Thunderbirds Show Up (As Does Their Support)

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While Mark and I were in Arizona, we heard about the potential of Harriers being at El Centro.  We decided an additional leg to our trip was worth it and headed for California.  As we came up to the base after a few hours of driving, we saw something rather unanticipated over the airfield.  The USAF demonstration team, The Thunderbirds, were flying around over the field.  It turns out that they had gone to El Centro to spend some time working with the Blue Angels that were still there for winter training.

This had us worried.  If the teams were going to be flying, that would stop the other base operations, and our trip would have been futile.  Fortunately, they landed and were going to spend the afternoon on the ground talking about whatever demonstration teams talk about.  Operations would continue.  We did get one flight with a Thunderbirds call sign, though.  The C-17 that had come to support them headed off.  It had a Thunderbird call sign and did try a sporty take off and climb out.  I’m not sure whether everyone was really buying it though.

Singaporean F-16s

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While Luke AFB is now predominantly an F-35 base, there are still some F-16s based there.  The Singaporean Air Force has its US based jets at Luke, and we were glad that they were active on the day we were there.  Their two seat jets have the enlarged spine and so stand out compared to US aircraft.  They also have some special paint jets on base, and we did get a look at these.  One of the jets did a low approach followed by a go-around which resulted in it passing by low with the gear up, which was a welcome piece of action.

The light was bright and harsh, which isn’t ideal for photographing dark jets, but you go with what you have.  Trying to get the most of the markings of the jets meant playing with the images in post quite a bit.  If the high clouds make for a bad backdrop, nothing much you can do about that.

Mix of F-16s in Tucson

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Every once in a while, the Air Force moves airframes around between units.  One may have exhausted the limits on their airframes and they need to be retired or it could just be a balancing exercise to spread the usage types across the larger fleet.  The Arizona Air National Guard unit at Tucson has recently received a bunch of different (calling them new would be a stretch) jets that have come from various units around the country.  They will be marked up with the AZ tail code in due course but, at the time of my visit, they were still carrying markings from a bunch of other bases.  Getting a diverse range of tails before they all became the same was the challenge while there.  Here are some of the results.

Shooting Under The Arrivals

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When the arrivals at Nellis on on the 03 runways, it means a trip to Cheyenne.  This is not the greatest part of the world to visit but it is a feature of a Nellis trip.  The sun angles were still quite low while I was there so I decided to try shooting from further around the road than I have done previously.  For the planes coming in on the left runway, I had a reasonable sun angle on them.  For planes on the right, they were coming right over my head.

I quite liked shooting like this.  The planes have a surprising amount of variety in their line up angles when this far from the threshold so, while they are all coming close to you, it is not a repeat of the same shot every time.  Each pilot takes a slightly different line and some variation in elevation too.  You get something akin to head on shots and then it is a case of rapidly swiveling around to get a shot from behind.

There is a lot of fencing and trees along that part of the road so getting a clean shot of everything is hard to achieve.  However, it is still possible to get something a little different.  With the light angles being less than ideal, rather than worry about shots that aren’t going to be very usable due to either glare or shadow, why not get something a little different.  It does require some quick adjustments and it can get a touch noisy but it is still fun to try something a little different.

Head to Head With the Aggressors

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Shooting at Nellis always requires choices to be made.  Aside from determining which end you will go to, there is the question about how far up you will go at the Speedway.  Some jets turn very tight, others turn long.  Some departing jets flex, some flex more tightly than others.  Where to go?  Paul and I headed up near Gate 7 to see whether we would do alright.  As it happened, quite a few of the jets were flexing right overhead us.  This didn’t provide the sort of shots we had originally envisaged but, as it turned out, I was rather pleased with the different look.

I was getting some very head on shots of some of the aggressor F-16s as the turned towards the ranges.  There was even a bit of moisture in the air and the vortices over the root extensions were showing up.  That angle has a very dynamic look, even though the lighting in that location is not great for such an angle.  The other benefit was as they had passed overhead.  You got a close look at the top side of the jet from behind as they flew away.  It might not have been what we intended but I was rather pleased with the outcome anyway.

Iraqi F-16s

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B11I3768.jpgIraq places an order for F-16s a number of years ago.  The first aircraft were not initially delivered to the country but instead went to Tucson to set up a training unit.  There are still some aircraft there being used to train new Iraqi pilots.  Soon the remaining jets will head to Iraq following those that have already been delivered.  I hadn’t seen them before since this all happened since my last visit to Tucson.  They operate from Tucson International, alongside the ANG unit and the Dutch training unit.

B11I3570.jpgWe had a few movements of the Iraqi jets while I was there and these were, apparently, some of the newer jets to have been delivered.  They have adopted a different camouflage pattern to the normal F-16 scheme so it is easier to recognize it is them as they approach.  I doubt I will be back before they leave the country so this was one of the few times I will likely see these jets.