Tag Archives: nas Whidbey island

P-3s Coming Out of the Sun

When Ault Field is operating on 25, the aircraft taxi out to the departure end along a taxiway that gradually brings them into view from the crash gate. The sound will usually precede them and, in the case of the P-3s, that is a pretty distinctive sound. As the day wears on, they are coming at you out of the sun so a bit more silhouetted but that helps to make them look more interesting. They pull around to the hold point, sometimes mixing in with the Growlers before departing off to the west. This is a sight that will soon be gone as the P-8s take over.

EP-3 Aries

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P-3 hunting was part of the plan when Paul and I headed to NAS Whidbey Island. We had some success. There was a nice bit of icing on the cake for us. An EP-3E showed up too. The EP-3 has a nice selection of large radomes added to the airframe to cover the wide variety of sensors that this type has to fulfill its role of listening to transmissions around the world. I don’t know how long the EP-3 has once the P-3s are gone from fleet service so getting one was a definite plus.

P-8 in the Wild

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Despite the number of them that are now in service, I have very little experience with the Boeing P-8 Poseidon. I had only seen one flying and that was a test jet at Boeing Field. When we got to NAS Whidbey Island, the P-3s were the thing I was more interested in but I certainly wasn’t going to turn down an operational P-8 for the first time. It didn’t take long to get one. We had not long arrived when one departed past us on the shoreline.

As we moved around for the arrivals, we got a bit more P-8 traffic. Some arrivals showed up. One was lacking in anything colorful for squadron markings but another included a bit more individuality. I wonder whether we shall gradually see more color showing up on the jets or whether they shall be a fleet of bland, gray jets. Fingers crossed!

CAG Growlers

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NAS Whidbey Island is the home for all of the Growlers in the fleet. It is a fair chance that you will get a bit of Growler activity on a visit and we were not disappointed. What was really pleasing was to see a bunch of the CAG aircraft in action. The first glimpses were as they taxied out for departure and you could see the planes coming up the taxiway. Unfortunately, the heat haze was a bit of a problem while they were on the ground.

Naturally, if they were launching, they were likely to be coming back at some point. Sure enough, we got them come into the overhead and down the approach. Even when airborne, the heat haze was a bit of a problem. Better than on the ground but still an issue. In a time of gray jets, it is certainly welcome to get something a bit more colorful, even if for some of them that is only black and white.