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Post by adola68 on Mar 28, 2017 17:37:34 GMT
Here come the F-35s! After Tucson we were scheduled to go direct to Yuma for the airshow arrivals day. But arrivals day at El Centro hadn't worked out well for us. US Military Bases have many runways and seem to use them at random! We always seemed to be at the end of the wrong runway. So we jointly decided to go to Luke AFB in Phoenix. Our American bus driver (Kelly) was OK with this diversion (he was a star, happily venturing up rough tracks to get the best views etc). Luke is the main training base for the F35A and still trains a lot of F-16 pilots. Not just the USAF trains there and we were lucky enough to catch some foreign Air Forces. First a local USAF F-35A: Then a star item, a Japanese Air Self-Defence Force F-35A (sadly they're all grey - no bright red 'meatball' like the Zero): We assumed this F-16 in USAF marks was a USAF machine - turns out it was a Taiwanese (Republic of China) AF F-16A: Then on to Yuma. This is a major US Marine Corps base and we attended both the Friday night show and the Saturday show. My bridge camera was a bit limited in the evening night but this local F-35B isn't too bad: The Saturday show displayed all the local aircraft including the AV-8B Harrier: Also the F-5N Tigers used by the Aggressor Squadron: And, of course, the local F-35Bs: Next (and finally!), China Lake and San Diego.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 28, 2017 18:48:31 GMT
Fantastic photos. Exceedingly jealous. Thanks for sharing.
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Post by andypspotter on Mar 28, 2017 20:25:36 GMT
A few nice lumps of metal and carbon fibre there.
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Post by andypspotter on Mar 28, 2017 22:51:13 GMT
John
Incidentally, I expect you would have seen the F-5N when it served with the Swiss Air Force as J-3031. Old Freedom Fighters never die.
Regards
Andy
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