| The Idea |
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The idea of the trip started after being to some air shows in Japan, sometimes work is fun. And all the positive stories of friends and college's who went we wanted to see for ourselves what it was
like. And seeing some reports of the Seoul trade show made us even more anxious to go there.
This would give the opportunity to visit Japan and at the same time and get a decent amount of pictures of the Korean air force as well. |
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| The planning |
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We had originally planned to do this trip in 2003. The aim was to go to Japan and do the air show in Korea to get the most out of the trip.
For several reasons it was not possible to go in 2003, so we opted for a second go in 2005. Talking to several spotters, early autumn is the best time of the year to go, with the least change of persistent rain and the air show season on
the way.
A fixt point in our planning was the Seoul air show, we had to be in Seoul around October 21. One of the airplanes we really wanted to see was the T-1 which was in the last month of flying. The same with the F-1 and T-2 but having
seen them before and Tsuiki to fare to fit in to the schedule we had to pass on them.
Seeing Japanese Phantoms was high on the priority list and specially the bleu ones at Misawa. To see the best mix of air craft we opted for the following bases, Transport aircraft at Iruma, Orions at Atsugi and Hachinohe, Shin Maywas and US
navy at Atsugi, Fighters we would see at Hyakuri and Army helicopters at several basis, according to this list we made a schedule where to go. Having finalised our planning it came to our attention that there would be a air review at
Hyakuri at October 30 with training days the Sunday and Wednesday before. Next to that it became clear that the CW from Atsugi would go on a tour around 26-10 so a visit had to be made before.
Concluding that our planning was overboard we started to process again in the weeks before departure. Two thing would be the centre of our planning, a base visit at Atsugi and the rehearsal of the air review at Wednesday on Hyakuri. |
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| The trip |
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| 19-10-05 Thursday |
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| Departure from schiphol to Seoul. |
| 20-10-05 Thursday |
| from the airport straight to the air show for a quick visit |
| 21-10-05 Friday |
| Spending the day between the air show and the war memorial. At the end of the day flying to Nagoya |
| 22-10-05 Saturday |
| Base visit at Atsugi, possible visit to Iruma and Yakota and travel to Matsushima |
| 23-10-05 Sunday |
| Rehearsal for air review at Matsushima and travel to Misawa |
| 24-10-05 Monday |
| Misawa air base and museum and Hachinohe |
| 25-10-05 Tuesday |
| Matsushima and Kasuminome |
| 26-10-05 Wednesday |
| Hyakuri and Kasumigaura |
| 27-10-05 Thursday |
| Shimofus and Atsugi |
| 28-10-05 Friday |
| Hamamatsu and Shizuhama |
| 29-10-05 Saturday |
| Tokyo area in search of air planes |
| 30-10-05 Sunday |
| Iruma |
| 31-10-05 Monday |
| Komakia and Akeno |
| 01-11-05 Tuesday |
| Going Home |
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| Thankx for the help |
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| In preparing for our trip we thank the following Japanese ‘guides’ and spotting friends:
Yasuo Nagaoka, Masanori Ogawa, Takashi Takeda and Takao Fujiyoshi “Tohkichi”.
Furthermore we would like to thank:
Mr. Jong-Min Park of Seoul Air Show 2005 Co-Organizing Office for providing facilities at the Seoul Air Show, Brian Naranjo and Matthew Schwarz of NAF
Atsugi PAO for preparing an excellent visit to their facility and Lt. Enos of VFA (sorry ‘bout the ‘A’) 102 for escorting us around the CAW 5 planes. |
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