I started my report with a part 1 (about the Hyakuri Air Fest), suggesting that there would be a part 2....
That took far too long, so if this should move to the 'Thematic / Non actual forum' then please do so!
After the Air Fest, my two buddies and me went to Iruma and Atsugi on the following day, knowing that would be little flying activity at Hyakuri the day after the show.
Lots of flying at Iruma, with a few practice displays for the upcoming show (Nov 3). Picks of that morning:
1. Just a nice shot of a full propdisk Hercules!
2. One of a few YS11s that were flying that morning, but this ELINT YS.11EB was a 'first' for me!
Around lunchtime, we decided to dive into Tokyo traffic again and move to Atsugi. We met Stefan's 4Aviation group there (again) and had an enjoyable afternoon. Not very busy with aircraft in the circuit, but enough to keep us occupied.
3. One of the P-1s that kept on flying until sundown was 5510. It also gave me the opportunity for my best moon crossing pic ever!
We planned to return to Hyakuri again on Tuesday and Wednesday. Unfortunately, we were told by Japanese guards that Tuesday was a non-flying day!
This gave us a "deja vue" felling, as the previous year we also experienced a non-flying day at Hyakuri! In fact, that was one of the main reasons to return to Japan a year later!
We decided to hang around a bit longer, waiting for things to happen - maybe...
After a very silent morning, photographing wildlife (spiders and crickets) instead, we had a coffee in the airport lounge. Considering our options, we suddenly heard jet noise!
Two F-15s taking off!! We were too late to see what unit markings they had, so we could not see whether these were local F-15s or not.
Because everything went quiet again after these two Eagles (except for the civilian flights of course), we decided to try our luck at Kasumigaura.
This is a nice little Army airfield not far from Hyakuri and it offers great photo opportunities. Two Chinooks were flying in the circuit, making this quite a fruitful day after all!
4. CH-47J taking off at Kasumigaura