This morning I’m sitting at my kitchen table reading the paper and come across this story that almost made me choke on my orange juice and cry at the loss it represented to my photo reference collection.
Yesterday, a flock of birds from the Indian Air Force enroute to Eilson AFB in Alaska to tkae part in the Cope Thunder exercise, made a stop at our international airport here in Edmonton.
Two Ilyushin IL-76 transports, 2 IL-78 Tankers and 6 Sepecat Jaguars!
I heard nothing at all about their being here until I saw the article with a picture of one of the tankers in the paper today. Oh to have been there to see them come in and had camera ready.
It just hurts[:(] It hurts soooooo bad[:(][:(][:(]
i hate it when that happens. one day i will have my cameral when i need it. like when i go to bremerton and the fleet is in. or when one of those elusive b-52’s flys over my workplace. someday…
joe
I know your pain personally Upnorth. I was sitting @ home one evening watching the news when they did a report about how all of the F-15E Eagles from the 4th wing came to Oklahoma to seek refuge from the hurricane last year.The Wing made one of the runways their entire ramp! My only consolation was the fact that I did not have a worthy camera at the time.But I still would have liked to have seen the arrival and mid-field breaks though.[sigh]
Well, I do have one bit of consolation, tomorrow I get on a plane to the Czech Republic, I got my camera and I’m getting a fresh battery and film for it as soon as I’m settled in to living there a bit.
That should put me close to some rare birds I can photograph to make up for missing these ones from yesterday.
I could stand missing the transports, but it would really hurt to miss those Jaguars. I have always liked those jets since the first time I saw one at Red Flag in the early 80’s.
I feel for you upnorth, back in 79(?) I saved my money and made the trip to Edwards AFB. I wanted to get pics of the B-1A flying. I got there an hour after Carter announced the termination of the project. Did manage to get some pics of some F-4s’ though.
i know what you mean, being that my dad is station at a marine airstation there are all kinds of planes coming here wheither it be american or foriegn. and in the base paper it always says they were here, and the date would be the day before or something.
This isn’t so exotic now, but it got me a national byline back then. When Reagan was by law forbidden to send arms to certain Central American nations, I got awakened by an early morning caller who said “Get out to the airport, go to the south end and look.” Then hung up. So I rushed out there and found four A37B’s in SEA camo and carrying a drop tank under every hardpoint. The had blue and white Greek AF-style roundels I didn’t recognize. Then I saw on a document they were painted for El Salvador. So newly refurbished the paint literally rubbed off on me. I snuck the nose bay quick releases open and the minguns were already loaded! Turned out they planned to refuel in the middle of the night and fly out over Mexico. One of them blew a tire on landing and the Brownsville TX airport was fresh out of A-37 tires. I got to write a nice big GOTCHA! story. Then there was the time I saw the C-123 and C-7 in a Honduras jungle field that weren’t there, according to U.S. officials, but that’s for another day. When you hear exotic planes, RUN, don’t walk, if you’re a serious buff.
I feel sorry for you. One day some WWII classic aircraft came over to a small airport near by, and I missed it. I was sooooooo mad. Also to make it even worse my friends made fun of me because they saw the fighters and the bombers and I didn’t. I was very mad for a long time, but got over it one day. So it is O.K. don’t fell bad. Someday I hope that you will catch your prey and take some really nice pictures and show them to all of us here. So don’t fell bad and you are not the only one!
Even if you live out of the way of any military base or major airport, check the local field often. ANG and Reserve guys in particular will use training as an excuse to take a pair of F-16s or other tactical a/c to visit relatives or girlfriends, legally. As in another time during the period when I was exiled to Brownsville, TX, on the border, two Maryland ANG A-10s turned up on the ramp. Seems the pilots wanted to go over the bridge and see Mexico, so they did a required cross country flight – choosing a border town as their destination. Got some good shots of the Hogs, then painted in the W Europe lizard scheme. That airport was great, because it was full of smuggling planes – a C-46, tons of Goonies, two C-119s, a completely airworthy Viscount that was abandoned there by drug smugglers. The occasional F-4 would come in TDY. There’s nothing like a border town airport for bird watching.