USA III 2023
In April 2023, a small group of photographers visited some bases in the West of the United States of America.
Early on Saturday morning (22 April) the 4Aviation West Coast group met at Schiphol for the flight to LA with a short stop at Munich. We arrived on schedule in Los Angeles and collected the two cars. As they were mini-vans there was sufficient space for all the travellers including the luggage. We headed to our first hotel east of Los Angeles where we enjoyed a good meal and an even better good night’s rest.
On Sunday 23 April, we got up early in the morning for a good breakfast and headed for the March Air Reserve Base. The base hosted an air show with a wide variety of historical and modern Air Force and Navy aircraft. The static presented a wide variety of aircraft that were positioned well for photography. The air show was also well organised and the light conditions were very good in the morning hours. When the light turned we decided to head to our next hotel further south.
The next day (Monday 24 April) we were hosted at NAF El Centro. An early visit to Imperial Airport just 10 miles down the road yielded an additional UH-1Y helicopter which was parked close to the fence. We headed to El Centro afterwards and stayed outside the base to witness the morning sortie take-off and landings. At 11:00 we reported to the main gate where we were hosted by the Public Affairs officer on base.
A detachment of T-45C Goshawks and another detachment of F/A-18 Super Hornets were present to complete their training cycles and we were positioned close to the runway to photograph the take-offs and landings. We also were lucky to see one CMV-22B of VRM-50 as a visitor. The visit lasted until roughly 16:00, after which we made our way to North Island. We performed one last stop at Imperial airport and although we saw a large number of helicopters passing through there the entire day, no helicopter was parked on the tarmac. We arrived at our hotel by 19:00 where we enjoyed a good meal.
Tuesday morning (25 April) we were welcome at NAS North Island. We started the day with a visit to the HSM Helicopter squadrons where we were hosted by HSM-71 Raptors. We were allowed to walk their platform and were able to photograph a number of their helicopters. After this visit we were hosted by VRC-30. We learned that the squadron CO had arranged a flight with a C-2A Greyhound taking us over the Grand Canyon following the Colorado River. During the flight the ramp was opened and we were allowed to shoot a couple of pictures. After roughly a two hour flight and one touch and go at NAF El Centro we landed safely again at NAS North Island and we started our journey to the next hotel.
Wednesday 26 April would be a travelling day as we had to make our way towards NAS Fallon. When we passed Fresno we stayed outside the base to witness a couple of 144th FW F-15C eagles take off and land after continuing our trip to Fallon. We arrived at Fallon around 22:00 and made sure we had a good night’s rest.
On Thursday (27 April) we were welcome at NAS Fallon. As the visit would start at 12:00 we were able to sleep in after the long journey the day before, enjoy a good breakfast in town and witness take-offs from outside the base. At 12:00 we were hosted on base. The visit started at VFC-13 which had received their first F-16s and we were allowed to shoot a couple of those on their platform. We headed towards the runway where we witnessed a take-off and landing by the carrier air wing which was present at the time. After the visit to the platform we were invited to a photoshoot at the platform where we caught most of the CAG birds of the squadrons present. The base PAO was about to retire and we handed over a gift on behalf of 4Aviation and started our journey towards NAS Lemoore.
After a short night we were hosted at NAS Lemoore on Friday 28 April. We were hosted by the base PAO and representatives of two Hornet squadrons. We were escorted on base and went to the position where the aircraft landed and took off, as well as the taxi track to take a couple of pictures. Although the visit was shorter than originally planned, we managed to capture a wide variety of squadrons and we left the base with a full memory card. As the visit was cut a bit short we decided to go to the landing position. As the photography was against the light we decided not to stay very long and we made our way to Pasedena. This would be our last stop before we made our way back home again.
Today (Saturday 29 April) saw an early rise again as we had to make our way to LAX airport through downtown LA. We arrived in time and our journey back started around 11:00 making one stop at Chicago. Everyone arrived safely at Schiphol (on Sunday 30 April) and this announced the end of another successful USN West Coast tour.
