Tag Archives: Lockheed Martin

Evening Raptor Demo at Last

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.

My First USMC F-35B Demo

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The Marine Corps F-35Bs have been in service for plenty of time now and I have had the opportunity to photograph them on quite a few occasions. However, I had not, until this year, seen their air show demo. I have seen the RAF F-35B at RIAT on an occasion, but it was not a full demo but a brief flyby and hover. Consequently, when the jet was slated for the Seafair schedule this year, I was interested to see the performance. It turned out to be an interesting combination of things although maybe not intentionally.

The displays at Seafair are a bit tricky. The alignment of the lake and the populated areas means the show box is a bit distant from the shire. Consequently, the flying takes place quite a way from the crowd. This is not ideal for photos. However, the Marine demo did seem to approach the box from some interesting angles that included coming almost along the shoreline at one point. Not sure if this was intentional but it did make for some closer shots.

Sadly, the hovering portion was quite a way offshore. I had hoped that this might be closer in given the lack of speed but that wasn’t to be. Even so, it was fun to watch the jet doing its thing and looking to see how much the surface of the lake was being disturbed by the efflux. Hopefully, I’ll get to see the demo again at a location that allows some closer passes.

Top Aces F-16s

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Luke AFB has some contractor operated jets that we were hoping to get a chance to shoot. The ATAC Mirage F1s did launch while we were there but, despite waiting for quite some time, they never returned. However, Top Aces launched their F-16A aircraft and we were more lucky with these guys. They did do as requested and recovered before we left. Contractor operations are usually with old jets of previous generations so it is hard for me to accept that early model F-16s are now sufficiently old to fit that model. How can that be? These ex-Israeli aircraft are still in their desert colors and it was nice to get a chance to shoot them.

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.

Foreign F-35s

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Luke AFB is not just home to a load of USAF F-35s. It is also the training base for many of the export operators. They also allocate some of their jets to the unit, so you do have the opportunity to catch a bunch of jets that are not from the USAF. This includes Italian, Danish, Norwegian and Dutch jets. Aside from the Danish ones that actually have a tiny bit of color in their national markings, all the jets are low viz. At least they are slightly different, even if not very conspicuous.

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.

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.

My First Sighting of F-16Vs

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The designation of the F-16V is one that leaves me a bit confused. There are A model jets that are upgraded to this standard, but I thought some new build jets were also having the designation. Maybe I am mistaken about that. I also see two-seaters upgraded to the standard so an A or a B model can now be a V model? Anyway, enough about that. I got to see some.

Taiwan has been upgrading its fleet of A and B model F-16s to V models. The program is nearly complete from what I have read. They operate a number of the jets from the Guard base in Tucson at the international airport. While Mark and I were there, we got to see a bunch of them launch and recover. This included one with special markings in the fin. The markings are otherwise not too conspicuous but, because they are early model jets, the lack of the bulged fin root with its antenna is the thing that allowed me to identify them. Must be some life left in those airframes despite their age!

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.