Where? Tsuiki AB, Japan
When? 29/11/2009

Loads of rain pouring down from a grey sky, that was the Tsuiki Airshow in 2005 – and unfortunately 2009 should not be that different. However the day started with a nice sunrise, the symbol of the Japanese flag gleaming through a thin layer of clouds on the horizon. It was at around 7:30am that the opening flight started with a formation of a T-4, F-15 and F-2, circling above the heads of the people that were still waiting outside while the jets performed well and were being illuminated by the rising sun.

At 8am permission was granted to waiting crowds to enter the showground, and the rush to the fence that followed cannot easily be described with words... Some however did not prefer the first row, but went for some of the 50th anniversary patches that were sold as a limited edition item.

Queuing for them did not leave much time to head forth for the first items of the flight display, which was a rescue demo by a U-125A and an UH-60J. The sun was still out and finally provided some sunny shots of the darkblue helicopter, that I have been after for quite a long time now. The same goes for the JGSDF AH-1S Cobra, which followed just afterwards.

The jets were next with a F-4EJ Kai Phantom that flew in directly from Nyutabaru, and a display of three Tsuiki based F-15J Eagles of 304 Hikotai. The jets did some really nice manoeuvring right above and for the crowed, but during this display also a mishap happened as one F-15 lost parts of its horizontal stabilizer during the demo. Due to this all F-15-flying was suspended for the rest of the day and the whole JASDF F-15 fleet also grounded for the following next two days, which also influenced the rest of my trip to Japan.