HYAKURI AIR BASE - IBARAKI AIRPORT

2 day visit

7th and 11th of May 2018. Visit Hyakuri Air Base / Ibaraki Airport situated in the city Omitama, Ibaraki prefecture, Japan.

Situated under the wings of the highest mountain in the area, Mount Tsukuba. (Tsukuba-san)

2 runways : 03L/23R (2,700 m) and 03R/21L (2,700 m)

7th of May. Early in the morning we arrived at Hyakuri Air Base, not sure what I should expect. I heard a lot of good stuff about the towers but couldn't imagine it would be that good. And it's not the 'twin towers' but 'triplet towers'. The weather wasn't very good compared with the nice weather we had before at Iwakuni. A lot of clouds but no rain until we stopped in the afternoon around 16:00.

The facility. A private owner is refusing to sell his land towards the Japanese Government/JASDF? Several times they tried to buy his piece of land near the base but they never succeeded. Luckily! After payment towards the owner and a drive of a few hundred meters with our cars you get access to the facility. You have 2 towers (twin towers) on the left of the field and one tower on the right near the ramp of the base. Within about 50 meters you have a taxiway and ramp visual from the towers, never seen a better spotter place in my life. The first day we noticed already a lot of activity with RF-4 / F-4J / UH-60J and U-125S combined with a bit of civil traffic at Ibaraki Airport.

This year and the coming years JASDF will phase out his Phantoms at Hyakuri. Unfortunately. On this first day we saw a lot of activity from 501 Hikotai with RF-4E Kai & T-4's. Also the Hyakuri rescue unit with UH-60J and U-125A flew a lot of missions. We even noticed a barrier landing! (see pictures). Less activity from 301 & 302 Hikotai.

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11th of May.

Same schedule as the first day at Hyakuri but this time with a lot of sunshine. Today the flying started from the other end of the runway. I was happy to see that this time a lot of missions where planned by 301 & 302 squadron. This means we would have pictures from all squadrons based at Hyakuri. In the afternoon we decided to drive towards the other side of the runway to have some different pictures. And again it was a beautiful place to see take-offs and landings.

I am happy that I was able to catch the Japanese Phantoms, unfortunately this will be all over in 2020 when they are retired and replaced by one single squadron with F-2's.

One funny remark : when Chinese 'Spring Airlines' (Ch.com) arrives at the airport all aircraft are immediately taken of the ramp and put away after doors.

After departure of this airliner they pull everything again outside. Strange to watch and funny at the same time.

CENTRAL AIR DEFENSE FORCE

7th Air WING - 301st Tactical Fighter Squadron

301 HIKOTAI with F-4EJ KAI PHANTOM II & KAWASAKI T-4