USAF F-16s Visit Lakenheath from Aviano AFB
A wet, damp, miserable day is always a challenge for photography, but even more so for fighter jet photography. The lower light levels of the dull great skies dramatically affect the quality of the photographs, and misty conditions reduces the contrasts levels substantially. The day in question - Friday 28th August - 16 F16 fighter jets from 31st Fighter Wing stationed at Aviano Air Base in northern Italy were due to arrive on a month-long detachment to RAF Lakenheath. F16s stationed in the UK is a rare event so a trip to Lakenheath was on the cards. The airfield was the busiest I had ever seen it with spectators. At 9am a record number (for me, anyway) of F15s got airborne - perhaps more than 18. The scheduled arrival times for the F16s was unknown but the first brace of 4 arrived among the F15 departing traffic shortly after 0930.
The F16s arrived in 4 groups of 4, some of which were fully laden with external fuel tanks and other external payload and weaponry. The final 8 - callsigns Buzzard and Banshee were located on the radar around Rotterdam and tracked over the north see to final approach using 360Radar. Approach control directed them over the radio towards the runway and into the viewfinder of my EOS7DMkII. The jets were from the 510th Fighter Squadron “Buzzards” and the 555th Fighter Squadron “Triple Nickel”.
The visiting jets’ serial numbers are: “AV” AF 87-350, 87-355, 88-491, 88-521, 88-525, 88-532, 88-541, 89-001, 89-008, 89-023, 89-026, 89-038, 89-044, 89-057, 89-178, 90-709.
