USA III 2018
A small group of photographers visited the cream of the crops on the west coast of the US in September and October 2018: MCAS Miramar, NAF El Centro, Death Valley, NAS Lemoore and NAS Fallon.
For this report also photos were used from Melvin Jansen and Peter Steendam.
On Saturday morning, 29 September 2018, at 4:00 am, the group gathered at Schiphol for the upcoming USA trip. Here, seven passengers would gather at Schiphol and an eighth traveller would meet us at LAX. During this trip, mainly US Navy fields would be visited with the open day at MCAS Miramar as opening act. Because there were restrictions regarding the planned visits, the group was limited to eight travellers. The main reason for this is that the vans with which we would be moved around at two air bases are suitable for a total of eight people.
After a short stopover in Vienna we flew directly to LAX where we completed the group. Then it was another two hours’ drive to the hotel in San Diego.
After a good night’s rest, the show was visited at Miramar on Sunday (30 September). The highlights of this show included demonstration flights of a U-2, an F-35 and a Marines Air Power demo. On the static display, several USN and Air Force aircraft could also be admired as static displays. After the air power demo, it was decided to start the trip to El Centro where we had an appointment a day later with the base PAO for a short visit. After a drive of about 2 hours we arrived at the hotel in El Centro.
Unfortunately, due to the aftermath of Hurricane Rosa it was very bad weather at El Centro. The region in southern California, that has 360 days of sun per year, was covered with a thick layer of clouds and the night before there was a good 50 mm of rain, which is quite unique in the region. On Monday 1 October we first walked along the runway for a while, but because of the expectation of more rain in the afternoon there was limited number of flight activities. At 11 o’clock we were allowed on base and we could view the present MH-53s and Hornets and photograph most of them. The rules on almost all USNavy bases state that no aircraft may be photographed with open maintenance panels, and that unfortunately applied to a large part of the existing aircraft. We were invited to photograph all preserved aircraft on the base and then we had lunch with the base PAO in the Officer’s club at the airport. Here, we also learned that there would be a sortie at 13:30 and we decided to wait for that. It involved four Hornets that could be photographed on the taxiway. After this we left for our next hotel on our way to Rainbow Canyon.
From the hotel near Rainbow Canyon it was about a one-and-a-half-hour drive to Father Crowley’s point on Tuesday, 2 October, where we parked the car in the bend in front of it and walked to the Canyon. Here we could photograph a Marines F-35 and three USN Hornets before the cloud cover closed and started to rain. This also seems to be unique in Death Valley, but the score of the day was certainly satisfactory. Because it was raining we left at about 3 o’clock in the direction of Lemoore where we arrived around 21:00.
At NAS Lemoore we were welcome for two days and that turned out to be very convenient, because on the first day (Wednesday 3 October) “Rosa” came to visit us. Because there was occasionally also a sparkle of light, this resulted in exceptional photos, and the base PAO was very interested in photographs that were made during the rain, partly because this rarely occurs here. Because of the bad weather, the pre-set program was quickly referred to the trash-can and we made the best of it that day and saved the more spectacular parts of our visit for the day after. Because the weather was getting worse, the base PAO asked asked to shorten this day and after a visit to both sides of the ramps and a visit to the tower the visit ended at 3 PM that day.
With some nice pictures on our memory cards, we went to the hotel and we did an anti-rain dance while enjoying a bottle of beer.
The rain dance seemed to have worked because when the curtains opened on Thursday, 4 October, a clear blue sky was visible. We were picked up at the gate again at 8:30 and the base PAO itself was already repeating everything from the previous day and stretching the day (that was scheduled to end at 3 PM) until we had everything with the desired light. We visited the west side of the ramp again, where we visited all the squadrons present and were given permission again to take photos. We also met one of the pilots who had made the pass through Rainbow Canyon the day before and the promise that we would send him the photos made him visibly happy.
Because of the brilliant weather, lunch was skipped, and we went to the LSO shack at 11:00 am where again we spent 2 hours . On this spot a carrier deck situation is simulated, and you are very close to the landing Hornets.
After this visit we went to VFA-125 and VFA-147. These are the two F-35 squadrons at NAS Lemoore and we were the first group to receive a visit including photo permission. Here a total of 3 F-35s could be photographed, including one moving F-35.
After this we went to the east side to photograph the Hornet squadrons on that platform again. Because we did this around Golden Hour, this gave us fantastic light. A second visit to all the squadrons gave us the chance to repeat all the lesser recordings from the day before and many operational Hornets could be photographed. After this it was really time to start the trip to Fallon where we arrived at 23:00.
On Friday (5 October) at Fallon, the weather gods were favourable to us. After heavy rainfall the night before the weather was great and because it had rained it was crystal clear. At Fallon a Carrier Air Wing was present, but unfortunately, we learned that because of the unauthorised Facebook posting of photos of the special paint Hornet for the film Top Gun 2, including a photo of Tom Cruise, all visits to NAWDC were no longer allowed for the time being. We also learned that the large force exercise would takeo off at 09:00 and that meant that we had to hurry to catch the Air Wing taxying. We were positioned along the taxitrack. That worked out just-in-time and we were treated to 50+ aircraft launching. We were also allowed to capture the recovery and at 13:00 we went to the Carrier Air Wing helicopter platform where we could photograph some H-60s including the visitors platform where a P-3 and a VFA-204 Hornet were present. A lightning visit to VFC-13 did not yield anything extra because we were not allowed to access the flight line (because of the restiction mentioned above). We decided to go to the end of the runway for the rest of the afternoon, and this resulted in several new Hornets.
After this we left for the hotel in Fallon where we would start the journey to San Francisco the next morning (Saturday 6 October) to catch our flight home. On the way we stopped at McClellan where a modest number of Fire Bombers and Coast Guard aircraft were found. After this the journey to San Francisco continued and we were on time to catch the flight to Zurich. After a stopover at Zurich, we travelled to Schiphol where we concluded the trip as very successful.
