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A dream come true. After many months of planning we finally went
to the Promised Land for all aviation photographers: Japan. Why is this country
so special ? Well first of all, you will not find many military aircraft from
Japan visiting Europe but that goes for other air forces in the far east as
well. The most important reasons are the amount of airbases and aircraft in
Nippon
and the numerous amount of photo opportunities around the airbases here. When
visiting an operational airbase in Europe you will A, not find much
activity, seeing operational aircraft flying is mostly limited to 10 a day, B,
not find as many good spots to take pictures from the outside of the base and
C, sent away or get arrested in some countries. None of all that in the land
of the rising sun where people, including the officials round the bases like MP
and intelligence people, are very friendly and helpful, and seem to appreciate
that you have travelled such a distance to come and see their aircraft.
After all the positive stories of friends who went the last few years, we wanted
to see for ourselves what it was like. Arnold and Frank were already thinking of
going to Japan for a long time and when their friends Iwan and Tieme came back
from their trip at the end of 2001 they decided that 2002 would be the year.
Maurice and Fred were thinking of going together and when they met Sean at the
2001 edition of the RIAT air show plans were to travel with the three of them. A
mutual friend of us, Paul van der Linden, editor for Japan of our favourite
magazine "Scramble" brought us together and soon we were a team.
Japan is a very expensive country to visit. Cost for toll roads are enormous,
staying in a hotel will cost a fortune and the rest of the prices, like for
food, gas etc, match European standards. The tickets are not cheap either. To
cover some costs we decided that we would rent a minibus and would sleep in
tents. As we would have enough space in the minibus (we thought...) we started
to look for a sixth person to join us. We did not have to search long, Hans van
den Berg, also a member of the Scramble editorial team was very enthusiastic to
come along. Unfortunately he had to decline later when it turned out that he had
some priorities at work. Then we found Eugene van der Meer, Although he is more
interested in aircraft numbers then taking pictures, he had Japan high on his
wish list and within no time has was contaminated with the same Japan-Flu as we
had been "suffering" for months.
In March of 2002 we already started planning and putting the trip together.
Seeing Japanese Phantoms was high on the priority list so almost all bases with
F-4's, Misawa, Hyakuri, Gifu and Nyutabaru were taken up in the planning. Naha,
the missing Phantom base, was not taken up because it the island of Okinawa is a
bit out of the normal route. Other priorities like seeing T-1's at Komaki,
Transport aircraft at Iruma, Orions at Atsugi, Hachinohe and Kanoya, Shin Maywas
at Atsugi, and Army helicopters at Akeno were soon added. Click
here
for the original planning.
We still had to find the right time of year to go. The weather in Japan is
rather complicated but the best time to travel is at the end of the year in the
early autumn. We planned a session at Fred's home and studied the weather
conditions for this country, The season for tropical storms is in September and
we found out that the chance of rain was the lowest at the end of October.
Tickets were purchased in May. As KLM tickets are much cheaper to purchase from
a foreign country we used the
flug.de
website to order tickets which were available at about half the price as we had
to pay in the Netherlands. Sean found a good ticket for the same flight as well.
The next few months were relatively quiet, but by the end of August we were at
full speed again. Maurice was arranging the rental car, step ladders, youth
hostels etc. Mo had met a Japanese guy named Koji at the RIAT air show last
year, and he was very helpful with arranging everything.
Just before we were ready to go, fate struck Eugene when he was forced to stay
home with a hernia. It costs him some sleepless nights but at the end he had to
admit that staying home was the only solution. The rest of the team felt
enormously sorry for him, and the mood was down for a few days.
But finally, the departure date came and soon we met at the airport to take the
flight to the land of our dreams... Select on of the dates on top to guide you
through
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Sean Wilson
Let us introduce you to probably the most intelligent member of the team:
Herr Doctor Sean Wilson. Sean is originally from Ireland but lives in
Aberdeen, Scotland nowadays with his fiancée and two children. He has a PhD in
all sorts of spooky things and he likes to spend the day at the office doing
"genetic" things like sowing ears to mice, giving monkeys three legs and giving
a mosquito a penis the size of an elephant. A friendly chap, always in a good
mood, except when things go wrong, the Irish spirit will come out and then you
better duck for cover... One more thing: Sean is a very very very
passionate fan of Celtic, a little football club from Glasgow. So he has Celtic
tattoos all over the place and you should be careful when you say something
about the Rangers. Now what did I say about intelligent again... ?
Camera Equipment
Nikon F-5
Nikon AFS 70-200 f2.8.
Nikon AFS TC 20E
II 2x Converter
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