Japan (2020)

An early start today for our first day, Monday 3 February 2020, at Hyakuri. With F-4 operations slowly coming to an end at Hyakuri Air Base, a new unit has already set up camp at their future homebase. 3 Hikotai will transfer to Hyakuri from Misawa in full in 2021 but has already started operating with part of the squadron out of their new home. On 15 January, the first 7 F-2As and F-2Bs landed at Hyakuri, followed by three more a few days later. Since their arrival, 3 Hikotai has been operating on a daily basis out of Hyakuri with around 10 F-2s present at any given time. Missions include local flights but also flights to and from Misawa, changing airframes and pilots regularly. Meanwhile, the unit still operates from Misawa as well. For now, 301 Hikotai is still operating the F-4E from Hyakuri but will move to Misawa later this year to become a F-35 unit, while 501 Hikotai will retire its RF-4Es before the end of March 2020. Once we arrived, we already saw that the ramps were filled with both Phantoms and F-2s, and soon after we arrived the first engines were started. What followed was an action-packed day with several missions from all units. Just before it got too dark too photograph, the last aircraft of the day came in, RF-4EJ 07-6433, concluding an era of evening/night-flying operations for 501 Hikotai as it turned out. A very successful first day was concluded with a nice meal and some drinks!