USA 2025
With both Yuma airshow, Davis-Monthan airshow and Red Flag 2025-02 going on, we just had to visit this part of the USA again! 10 days if mostly sun and a lot of activity made for a very nice tour.
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On Friday March 14, 2025, a number of photographers gathered in Dusseldorf for our trip to the United States. The main targets were the shows at Yuma and Davis-Monthan, and the Red Flag exercise at Nellis AFB. After arriving in the United States, we picked up our two vans and met the last participant of the tour so that we could continue our journey to the hotel. Partly due to the not so great weather, we arrived here late; time for a well-deserved sleep session!
We had to get up early again because on this day, Saturday March 15, 2025, an air show was scheduled at MCAS Yuma. We arrived at the field well in time and as expected all non-Americans were subjected to an extra check, but after that we could easily move around. The static was quite small but the air show was interesting because of the participation of the F-5s and an Air Assault demo. The weather was great and so we were able to take many good pictures of the stationed aircraft. We also decided not to move to the open day of El Centro because the program was more than sufficient! At the end of the day we set course for our hotel in El Centro for a nice snack and drink!
Sunday, March 16, 2025, was used for the move to Las Vegas. We made a number of stops and on Lake Havas we were surprised by a USMC Cobra and Venom that were reasonably photographable. After a long day of driving we were able to photograph an ANG Hercules with the last evening light on McCarren. Then it was time to look for the hotel and discover Las Vegas!
Our first day at Nellis AFB, Monday March 17, 2025, was a real ‘Nellis’ day. Many runway changes and driving back and forth for the best result. Fortunately, a lot of landings came in on the ‘good’ runways in the afternoon, which made it a reasonably successful day. Due to the strong wind, the evening mission was aborted so that we were at the hotel fairly early.
Tuesday March 18, 2025 was a repeat of moves where we were lucky with some aircraft and not with others. Slowly but surely more and more participants in the exercise were photographed so that we were almost ‘complete’ in that respect. Today we again had to drive back and forth to the various landings. At the end of the day there was wonderfully beautiful light on the aircraft that came in. A great day!
On Wednesday March 19, part of the day was again spent at Nellis where the pattern of the previous days was repeated. At the end of the afternoon we set course for Phoenix, where we arrived late in the evening. Time for a quick bite and a few drinks!
Luke AFB has an extensive collection of F-35s and we knew it! From the moment we started early at the base on Thursday March 20, 2025 there was action. In addition to the many F-35s, we were also treated to the (civil) F-16s and Mirage F1s. They flew all day on the ’03’ runways and at the end of the day we had been able to photograph no less than 51 different F-35s. Satisfied, we headed for our hotel near Tucson.
The morning of Friday March 21, 2025 was spent at Tucson IAP. The many F-16s that have their home base here showed themselves well! A colorful collection of tail codes passed by on this morning in glorious weather. The afternoon was spent by part of the group in the extensive Pima museum, while another part of the group stayed at Davis-Monthan AFB to photograph the rehearsals of the air show, which worked out fine!
We were also early at the field for the second air show of the trip, on Saturday March 22, 2025. After an excruciatingly slow process for non-Americans, we were finally able to enter the field after a while. The static at Davis-Monthan was interesting, but very difficult to photograph. The same actually applied to the air show, as the light was no longer favorable after 11:00. Nevertheless, a number of nice A-10s could be photographed and it was a pleasant day. The day was concluded, as usual, with a snack and a drink!
Sunday March 23 was already the last day of the tour. We started the day with a trip to Phoenix, to Mesa-gateway. Upon arrival we were surprised by a Hornet from VMFAT-101, of which we actually thought this unit no longer existed. A nice surprise! In addition there was a VMFA-323 Hornet and a little later in the morning an ‘EN’ coded T-38 came in. Not bad for a Sunday! At the end of the day we set course for Phoenix for our flights home.
