We still couldn’t get enough of all that USMC stuff at Yuma, so another day was spent here.
MCAS Yuma, 10 October 2014
Initially, runway 03 was in use again. We noticed some of our “colleagues” parked on the shoulder of the E 32nd St. We asked if parking here was not an issue for the local police. They reassured us that when we wouldn’t point our lenses towards the base, we would be fine. Morning traffic was pretty slow, but we managed to make some nice take off shots. With light winds and high temperatures, it was to be expected that the old venerable Prowler would stay low during take-off. However, surprisingly the F-35’s did the same. Much appreciated was VMX-22’s sole JSF.
As forecasted, the wind changed direction, so the aircraft that just took off from 03, landed again on runway 21. Here one of VMFA-121’s F-35B’s landing on 21R.
Not only fixed wing aircraft participate in the WTI course. The helicopter element also goes through this exercise. The UH and AH-1’s usually use runway 35 which cannot be reached from outside the base. The H-46’s, H-53’s and MV-22’s use either the main runways, or runway 08/26. This reserve CH-53E of HMH-772 from McGuire NJ landed on runway 26 around midday.
During the latter part of the afternoon all hell broke loose, with large numbers of planes taking off. And as you know, “Everything that goes up, must come down”. And they did just that. In the past, you could use the parking lot of the Yuma Fairground to move, by car, up and down for runway 21L and R. However, nowadays this parking lot is closed at about 16:30 hours. Fortunately, thanks to concentrated scanner listening and a good physical condition, we didn’t miss one single plane.
At first, we planned to head west towards Point Mugu. After all, we did have a plane to catch on Saturday. However, for both LA and San Diego, the infamous Coastal Fog was forecasted. So, instead of heading west, we went east.
Tucson IAP, 11 October 2014
We were back were we started one week earlier. Again to S Park Ave for some banking shots. Like this one:
The Dutch also flew their missions. In the near future the Iraqi Air Force will be joining them at Tucson. I wonder if that will have any impact on the level of security around the airport.
In the late morning we moved to the runway 12 approach end of Davis Monthan AFB (E Technical Drive). Again the A-10’s flew pretty good. Fortunately, almost all different airframes compared to the week before.
About 15:00 hours the traffic died out, and we started our journey all the way back to LA. After driving thousands of miles, drinking gallons of Mountain Dew and eating pounds of steak, we could look back to a very enjoyable trip. We got where we came for, and as Arnold Schwarzenegger said: “I’ll be back”.
I hope this report is of use to anybody who plans to visit this part world for the first time. To conclude, one final advice. When you have a scanner, bring it along. You don’t need to worry about getting into trouble with the law. Up-to-date frequencies can be found on the website of the FAA. A scanner can be useful for two things. Firstly, runway use. When listening to the ATIS freq. you immediately know what the active runway is. Americans tend not to follow the wind direction when choosing the active runway. Everybody who has been at Ramstein can vouch for that. Secondly, some of the bases, like Nellis and Yuma have two parallel runways. Paying a little attention to what the tower controller says will tell you were you need to be in 5 to 10 minutes.
That’s all folks….
