Blue Impulse

Earlier this week I visited the air force base closest to Tokyo, in Iruma city up in Saitama prefecture. Once a year the base throws on a big air show and this years sunny but cold weather drew about 220 000 people. It’s free and just 30 mins by train from Tokyo so I was very surprised to not see more than a handful of obviously foreign people there. The main event of the air show is obviously the Japanese Air Acrobatic team, the Blue Impulse and their Kawasaki T-4 Trainers. They performed a stunning air show complete with sky writing of fearsome precision. I did my best to keep up with them but shooting planes moving at over 800km/h with a slow Sigma 50-500mm lens into the sun is not the easiest of photographic tasks. I was blinded so bad by the glare my eyes are still smarting. Still, to get even this sort of focus surprised me. I hope you enjoy them! Obviously my favorite is the first of the images, isn’t that an amazing formation? Half way through a huge loop coming straight at us. If you look hard enough in some of the other photos you can even see the two pilots (and the guys flying solo, plane numbers 2 and 4).

I will post more pictures from the Air Show later next week, I have a busy weekend in front of me, so please enjoy these Friday Fun photos! I’ll make sure that I can visit the Air Show next year again. The best fun for free you can have in early November!