USA 2026
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The Maltese Connection
This private tour was arranged by 4Aviation for a group of five friends from Malta. It began in the early morning of Thursday 12 March with a smooth flight to London Heathrow Airport, where they then met their 4Aviation tour leader.
The onward flight to San Diego courtesy of British Airways, arrived on time. This slightly unusual 4Aviation trip started in earnest with the helpful crew of our 777 allowing us a cockpit tour once we had arrived at the gate and the other passengers had de-planed.
The customs process and car rental pick-up went really quickly, and before we knew it we had arrived at our hotel for the night. After a quick bite to eat at an excellent nearby pizza restaurant, it was time for a well earned sleep.
Sun & Fun
We awakened to warm weather and a gorgeous blue sky on Friday 13 March. It was time for a morning on the beach, but this was no ordinary seaside setting; it was right next to the approach of North Island NAS. Unfortunately, it seemed to be no-fly Friday with just a few SH-60s using the far runway for take-off and landings, way beyond the reach of our lenses. Being flexible with our itinerary though, we decided to take in the San Diego Air and Space museum instead of waiting for flying action to happen.
There we found some interesting exhibits but most were hard to photograph properly as they were either very cluttered or mounted in high positions. However, the air conditioning was a welcome break from the heat outside.
Next, we drove towards Yuma, calling at an Army and Navy surplus store as requested by one of the group, then to El Centro to see if anything was flying. Yet again our luck was out as the Blue Angels departed five minutes before we arrived, so we carried on to Imperial County airport. Finally, our Friday the 13th luck changed as there was a beautiful USMC T-34C alongside the fence. With this duly photographed, we made our way to our hotel for the evening in sun-soaked Yuma.
Another delicious evening meal followed, at a nearby pub, shared between the group and two very good friends from America. Stories were swapped and tactics for the next day’s air show were discussed.
Yuma and Me
Saturday 14 March began early with confusion, as the advertised route to the Yuma air show gates was closed off. After a long and frustrating detour, we eventually reached the short queue, being let in ahead of the official opening time. Once past the strict security, a bus ride and fast walk to the small static display led to pleasing images of all the based aircraft including a colourful F-5, an F-35B and an F/A-18 Hornet.
Staking our places early at the crowdline also proved beneficial throughout the day as aircraft taxied right in front of us. The highlights of the flying display included a colourful CV-22, the marine corps attack demo, the pyrotechnics of the Tora, Tora, Tora team, a P-47 and four brightly marked home-based F-5s.
The F-35B proved how far technology has developed since Harrier days with a superlative display, and to round off the show, the first appearance in 2026 of the Blue Angels made for an exceptional day.
A long drive back to San Diego followed but it was certainly worth the journey to Yuma.
Operation Skyshark
After a good night’s sleep, the team were up and ready to go early today. The targets on Sunday 15 March were two aviation museums in San Diego, but first came an excellent breakfast at the Gillespie Field Cafe. This allowed us a relaxed entry to the nearby museum as soon as it opened.
The exhibits here included the world’s only Douglas Skyshark, a Sabena-marked H-21 that had been blessed by Pope John XXIII in 1959, a Ryan Vertijet, an F-14 Tomcat that took part in Topgun and an S-3 Viking in NASA markings. The well-stocked museum store also proved popular with the modellers in the group.
Next came a visit to the Maritime Museum of San Diego, a little below the usual radar for 4Aviation, where a visit had been arranged to talk about a Swift Boat that had served in the Maltese Navy before being sent to the museum. The staff were incredibly generous with their time and the whole exercise was thoroughly enjoyed by all, even though it wasn’t aviation related.
After the farewells to our hosts, a quick walk along the picturesque quayside took us to the USS Midway museum. Here, the exhibits were explored in great detail for a few hours with the highlights including an F-4, an A-5 Vigilante, an FJ-3 Fury and a rare TBD Devastator.
As if one lot of model shopping wasn’t enough, the group asked to visit another nearby shop, so naturally 4Aviation obliged.
The evening was rounded off at a local eatery and we retired to the hotel for some serious bag re-packing.
Wet & Dry
The group had decided to explore the port shoreline first thing on Monday 16 March, so that they would be on time for their harbour cruise at 10.00. Beautiful weather helped with the tourist photos and also during the sailing event. Two US Navy carriers were in port, the USS Carl Vinson and the USS Theodore Roosevelt, along with many other US Navy vessels.
Once back on dry land, we set off for Yuma once again, via a UH-1 on a petrol station roof. The warm wind was extremely strong at the base, but we were fortunate to capture four F-35s and four F-5s landing in front of us just after we parked the car.
Sadly, that was the last of the action for the day, so we made our plans for the following day over a nice meal at a local restaurant. The evening was rounded off at a local eatery and we retired to the hotel for some serious bag re-packing.
More Yuma
On Tuesday 17 March, we were rudely awakened at 06.45 by the sound of noisy aircraft; F-35s!
A rapid breakfast followed, and we duly arrived at the southern end of the runway just as one of F-35s returned from it’s early morning mission. We barely managed to capture that on our cards before the next appeared; and the next three immediately afterwards.
The latter, including the VFMA-122 CAG bird, entertained us for twenty minutes by doing circuit bashing, which allowed us to move positions and get alternate angles to our pictures.
All of this action was surpassed 10 minutes later by the stars of the show; two colourful F-5 aggressors from VMFT-401. It was still only 09.30, so what would we do for the rest of the day? Keep taking pictures of course. Next came the tiger-marked F-5F that had been in the static display at the air show followed an hour later by a Luftwaffe A400.
After a “lazy lunch”, more F-5s landed but on the wrong runway for us, however the Super Hornet from VFA-122 was a special visitor.
That was followed by two F-35s from VMFAT-502 carrying centreline gun pods. By now, the sun was in a poor position for photos, so we decided to head for our new hotel three hours away, via somewhere non-aviation related, the Yuma Proving Ground museum, to see some old tanks. Fortunately, there was also a beautiful AH-1 Cobra on a pole nearby! The drive through American rural farming country went really smoothly and we were soon checked-in despite some computer issues.
After a very successful day, an excellent dinner was taken at a nearby Mexican cantina before we retired for the night.
March in March
The group were off to Palm Springs Air Museum on Wednesday 18 March. The impressive collection of beautifully preserved airframes was easily photographable, with the helpful staff even letting us into the restricted areas.
All of the usual suspects could be found here, but the rarest of all was a Lockheed Skyfox. With the heat outside building rapidly, we continued our travels east to March Field Air Museum. In spite of the temperature, we all managed to get pictures of the aircraft in this vast collection. The rarity this time was the YA-9, but with nearly one of every type the modern USAF has operated, a great time was had by all.
Fortunately, our excellent hotel for the next two nights was nearby.
Planes of Fame
Thursday 19 March began at a relaxing pace with a short drive to the Planes of Fame Museum at Chino Airport. The collection here is superb with many unique and airworthy aircraft. Such beauties include a P-26, a P-47, an FR-1 Fireball, a Judy, a Raiden, an Me-109 with bullet holes in the airframe, and even a Gloster Meteor for the Brits.
After the group had spent a few hours exploring the museum and chatting to the helpful volunteers, we made for the famous Flo’s Cafe to refuel before heading to the other end of the airfield and the Yanks Air Museum.
Yet again, we were stunned by the huge variety of airframes on show including an FJ1 Fury, early Skyhawks, an F-11 Tiger, and a McCulloch HUM-1 along with numerous others whose identity will remain a mystery to us all even though they had data sheets and nameplates.
We also had access to the boneyard and restoration areas, which allowed for some more unusual photography opportunities, and a chance to see up-close the skills of the aircraft restorers.
Once the museum had closed we drove to nearby Ontario Airport for a little civil aircraft photography, but after an hour, the heat of the day was taking its toll so we returned to the hotel, on the way stopping off for an ice cream!
The X-Files
No more relaxing was allowed as Friday 20 March was down in the itinerary as a wrecks and relics day, so where better to start than with an F-4D in Edwards AFB markings immediately followed by an F/A-18 in NASA colours? This was of course after the fly-by of a Flabob Express DC-3.
Then came the aircraft wrecks at Fox Field, a Percival Prince and T-33 in a front garden, some CH-46 fuselages in a scrapyard and lastly, the Edwards AFB Century Circle. Sadly, the latter allowed no photos of these museum pieces for security reasons! Hopefully the new flight test museum at the same site will reverse this policy. At least we were in the area for the second flight of the X-59, visible on ADSB.
After lunch (this was a relaxed 4Aviation tour after all), we headed even further north to Mojave Airport.
The F-4, Draken and Convair 990 gate guards were our first port of call, followed up by a tour around the airport side roads which revealed many of the specially adapted test aircraft used by the companies at the airport. Once we were satisfied that we had seen everything that we could, we made our way to Palmdale to see the F-104 and F-16 outside the Lockheed Martin plant, then the exhibits in the Blackbird Air Park.
The latter included two SR-71s, a U-2, a 747 space shuttle carrier and the unique X-55 Advanced Composites Cargo Aircraft.
Upon leaving for the hotel, we were buzzed by a low-flying B-52; a great end to the day.
The journey to the hotel went well as did the group gathering in the evening.
Point Mugu
Today, Saturday 21 March, began with an early morning visit to the Point Mugu Missile Park to photograph the EA-6B, F-4 and F-14 in beautiful golden sunlight and with misty fields in the background.
After breakfast, we took the picturesque Pacific Coast Highway north via gorgeous sea views, misty mountain climbs, lakes and vineyards, STOP. This is not supposed to be a tourist vacation but an aviation tour!
Fortunately reality returned as we arrived at the Santa Maria Museum of Flight. The small collection of aircraft included an L-29, an A-4 and an F-4 phantom.
As we arrived at the Estrella Warbird Museum, a UH-60 landed at the nearby airport, so we made a quick dash to get a photo. Once that had been captured, our return to the museum revealed an excellent collection of aircraft including an A-7, F-14, F-8 and an ex-JASDF RF-86. For the vehicle lovers in the group, there was also an impressive array of cars, military trucks and tanks. A very pleasant couple of hours was spend exploring the whole site before we moved on to our final hotel of the tour.
Easy Life
With only one museum on the itinerary on Sunday 22 March, we had a late start, first making our way to Fresno Airport to see if there was any F-15 action to be photographed. Sadly, nothing was happening but we did manage some shots of the specially marked ANG bird, albeit on the ground in the distance.
Castle AFB Museum was our target today and the large collection kept us entertained for a good few hours, the highlights being a B-36, B-17, many cold war USAF jets, and of course, the mighty Vulcan for the Brits.
The gift shop and cafe proved popular too, with the group adding to their already impressive pile of souvenirs.
After yet more re-packing, a delicious dinner was taken at a nearby Italian restaurant.
Heading Home
Already Monday 23 March, our last day, was upon us. Again, we weren’t in much of a rush to start our journey back to LA as we only had to call at a couple of wrecks and relics along the initial part of our journey. These included an F-4 and a B-17, both in lovely morning light at Tulare, then a stop at Minter Field for the museum aircraft. However, a surprise awaited us on the apron in the form of an A-26, a UH-1, an MB-326 and an Agcat.
Next stop on our way to the airport was a model shop in Ventura for some last minute plastic shopping and then on to the Western Museum of Flight in Torrance.
The main exhibit here is the second prototype of the YF-23 Black Widow II in all of its stunning futuristic glory.
Our last photos of the tour just before we returned our faithful rental van, came at the Proud Bird restaurant beneath the approach to LAX.
In spite of dire warnings on the TV news, security and border control went very smoothly and before long, we were boarding our aircraft to travel home after another great adventure, even if it was a little out of the norm for 4Aviation.
