Trip report Taiwan [MIL], day 4: Tainan (updated)

[SquAdmin]

During a family holiday in Asia I had some days to myself and decided to spend them in Taiwan. Here's a brief report of what I saw. I used the excellent reports in AIMs 2015-1 and -3 to find the right spots for photography.

MONDAY 16 NOV 2015: HSINCHU AIRBASE
On November 21st, an airshow would be held at Hsinchu. I wouldn't be able to attend because first, I wouldn't be staying till Saturday. And second, as a foreigner, I should have applied for access to the showground at least six weeks prior to the event. However, thanks to forum member Dutchphantom I knew the attending aircraft would arrive on this particular Monday morning so I decided to try my luck. Hsinchu is pretty good for photography of landing aircraft, and I was definitely not the only one there: my rough estimate would be that some 70 other enthusiasts were also present. Among them three other Dutch, one from Belgium and his companion from Luxembourg. I really liked the atmosphere: lots of young people wearing squadron T-shirts, cars covered with jet stickers and much interaction. Kinda felt like being along the fence of a random Dutch airbase during the nineties. Police stopped by to write down the passport numbers of the five European spotters. They didn't know why, except that they were following orders from their boss.

Anyway, here's what we saw:

First arrival of the day, a single T-34 from Ghangshan:
RoCAF T-34

Then, the Thunder Tigers arrived with 10 AT-3's:
Thunder Tigers
AT-3

C-130 from Pingtung, with an old school camouflage:
RoCAF C-130

Next up, one of the highlights, a pretty cool agressor F-5F from Taitung:
Agressor F-5

Clean demo F-16's from Chiayi:
RoCAF F-16

And two well hung Vipers, probably for the static display:
F-16 air-to-air configuration

F-CK-1's, two from Taichung (in demo colours) and two from Tainan:
F-CK-1C
Demo Ching-kuo

E-2 from Pingtung, later followed by a P-3 (unfortunately, I messed up the shot of the latter):
RoCAF E-2 Hawkeye

Flightchecker Beechcraft 1900. Later a regular, white one would also arrive, but as a Dutchman I prefer orange:
RoCAF Beechcraft 1900C

Around 13:00u it seemed like everything had arrived. Unfortunately, not a single based Mirage had flown up until then. Knowing that light for photography would only be favorable again around 15:00 and that I still had a long drive ahead of me, I had a quick lunch with Dutchphantom and then left for my next goal: Hualien.

I will update this report later this week, when more pictures have been processed.

[FISHER01]

Love the pics, love the planes. Keep them come

[R. Stalenhoef]

Lekker Pat! Ziet er fraai uit! Benieuwd naar de rest!

[dutchphantom]

And the P-3. It was nice meeting you Patrick

[Wijgert IJlst]

Wow, great shots Patrick. Brings back good memories. No troubles with secret service following you around Taiwan?

[SquAdmin]

Thanks guys!

@Reinier: insgelijks!
@Wijgert: no real trouble, but one of them checked us out at Hualien. I prefer the transparancy of the Japanese security forces, but in Taiwan it's not really a big deal either.

[SquAdmin]

TUESDAY 17 NOV 2015: HUALIEN AIRBASE
On Monday evening, after a 4,5 hour drive from Hsinchu, I arrived at Hualien on the eastcoast of Taiwan. My hotel was approx 100 meters from therunway and really didn't like hearing jet noise in the evening. Not so much afraid for a lack of sleep, but more in doubt if evening flying would result in a quiet morning (like it would in the Netherlands). The thought crossed my mind to get straight back into the car and push on through to Taitung, but I was too tired for another 3,5 hours drive and deciced to wait and see.

The next morning, I positioned myself on a dyke (no, not the scissoring kind) at a reasonable distance from the runway. I was happy to find the brothers in crime MS and TMcD there as well. Then we heard jets taking off, skies were blue, hills were green, so I was glad I had stayed in Hualien!

F-16B:
RoCAF F-16B

Yesss, an RF-5 Tigereye:
Tigereye
RoCAF RF-5E Tigereye

Followed by wingman F-5F:
RoCAF F-5F Tiger II

Local Vipers:
RoCAF F-16A
RoCAF F-16A

I don't know why a few are wearing full colour markings, CO birds perhaps?
Full colour markings

At a certain moment someone on a scooter parked pretty close to us below the dyke. He took a small camera out of his bag and made some pictures of something seemingly unimportant. Then we saw him climbing up the dyke and greeting us, after which he walked back to his scooter and drove off. Pretty obvious the only thing he was doing was checking us out... Although taking pictures of flying jets is perfectly legal in Taiwan, we chose to avoid any unnecessary problems and repositioned ourselves a little bit further away. We reasoned that it would take at least 45 minutes before the next morning wave would return. If the police decided to follow up and check on us they wouldn't find anyone and it would save us a waste of time and possible misunderstandings. 45 minutes later we could easily move back to our original spot on the dyke again. One drawback was that our temporary spot required extra mm's. When we got there a Navy S-70 came in:
S-70

And a Be 1900 made some touch & go's:
RoCAF Be 1900C

When the first F-5F came back earlier than we expected we quickly moved back to our original spot on the dyke to catch the second RF-5 of the day:
RoCAF RF-5E Tigereye

During the afternoon lunchbreak we repositioned due to the changing position of the sun and the fact that the runway direction had been switched. MS and TMcD moved to the final approach on the other side of the base, while I chose for topfloor of an abandoned restaurant close to the end of the runway. Clouds were also moving in and this F-16 enjoyed the final seconds of sunshine:
RoCAF F-16A

It was 1430 by then and I thought it was time to leave Hualien and start my 3,5 hrs journey to Taitung.

[Wijgert IJlst]

At Hualien they always act way too obvious, you can expect them there. But always keep checking your six after that... it might just happen they follow you more often then you think! But they avoid confrontation indead.

[Wijgert IJlst]

TUESDAY 17 NOV 2015: HUALIEN AIRBASE
At a certain moment someone on a scooter parked pretty close to us below the dyke. He took a small camera out of his bag and made some pictures of something seemingly unimportant. Then we saw him climbing up the dyke and greeting us, after which he walked back to his scooter and drove off. Pretty obvious the only thing he was doing was checking us out...

Ha! This all sounds so very familiar!

[orange]

Funny. I was at Taitung on 17 nov and Hualien on 18. I met the Belgian/Luxembourg guys and a van full of Scotsmen but didn't know more Dutch ppl were there

[ronaldairbus]

Great shots, love the RF-5 Tigereye!

[NLExile]

It was a pleasure to meet you guys from the Netherlands along the RoCAF airbases fences. Special thanks (from the Taroko's Gorge ) to dutchphantom and his wife.

V.P. from Belgium

[SquAdmin]

@orange: no matter where you go, you'll never be the only one from Holland (don't know whether that's a good thing, but for sure it's a fact of life )
@NLExile: still in Taiwan I suppose?

[NLExile]

Yes

Hinshu


Hsinshu


Tainan


Gangshan


Hsinshu


Hsinshu


Taitung CCK


Gangshan


Gangshan


Gangshan


Gangshan


Gangshan


V.P.

[SquAdmin]

WEDNESDAY 18 NOV 2015: TAITUNG AIRBASE
The trip from Hualien to Taitung shouldn't take very long if it weren't for the ridiculously low speed limits on this part of the east coast. A limit of 60 km/h but also often 40 on a road that would easily permit 80 or even 100, slows you down big time. You could ignore them, but Taiwan seems to have an obsession with speed camera's and on a trip like this you're bound to run into many of them. Taiwanese car rental company's can claim speed tickets on your credit card up till 8 months after you've returned the car, so when you got flashed you'll be paying the fine automatically.

Anyway, I got up early again and after a quick breakfast at the Seven Eleven I drove to the final approach of Taitung. Just like at Hualien, a dyke here offers the best photo opportunities. The good thing of the spot at Taitung is that you can also see what's happening on the base itself, so there's no guessing about what has left. Once again, I enjoyed the company of MS and TMcD.

The shots:
RoCAF F-5F
RoCAF F-5E
RoCAF F-5E
RoCAF F-5F
RoCAF F-5E
RoCAF F-5F

At 9:00AM we had already logged 21 F-5's. At that moment I had to choose: stay longer at Taitung and perhaps catch some extra Tigers, or... get in the car and drive to Pingtung hoping to score an S-2 in the afternoon. Pingtung wasn't on my original plan, because I only had four days in Taiwan and Pingtung isn't exactly famous for it's busy flight pattern. Now that I considered Taitung to be more or less in the pocket I shook hands with MS and TMcD and got in my car for another 3hr drive...

WEDNESDAY 18 NOV 2015: PINGTUNG (NORTH) AIRBASE
I took the gamble that the southern approach of Pingtung North would be in use. When I arrived at the coordinates which were mentioned in AIM2015-3 I really doubted if there was no typo in them. I just couldn't imagine how landing aircraft could be photographed from there and I also didn't see any approach lights. Pingtung doesn't have a fence but a high concrete wall, so getting a feeling about the lay out is difficult. I waited for more than an hour and hadn't seen anything yet. Then I took the most stupid decision of my trip: I decided to go for a walk... After walking for some 20 minutes a P-3 came in and it was clear to me that I was now slightly facing the sun (as far was it was still there because the skies were turning hazy disturbingly quick now).

And without enough time to get to a better position, this ancient subhunter came in:
RoCAF S-2T Turbo Tracker
And it's successor:
RoCAF P-3 Orion II

I walked back to the origal spot and the light was now pretty much in line with the runway. An extra P-3 and some C-130's came in:
RoCAF C-130

Later, even a second S-2 came back, but the light was really bad by then.

In the mean time MS and TMcD + some local spotters had also arrived on the scene. By then the sun was completely obscured by haze, clouds, smog or whatever it is that seem to fog the Taiwanese skies in the afternoons. For the second time of the day I shook hands with my Dutch colleagues and left for my final airbase of this short trip: Tainan.