Iruma Base Air Show 2010

It’s this time of the year again, the annual Iruma Base Air Show! I try to go every year but this year and last we were able to enjoy fantastic weather and a brilliant blue sky with just enough clouds to make it interesting. Iruma City is in the south of Saitama prefecture, north of Tokyo. It is one the biggest Japanese Air Force bases and houses both fighter squadrons, helicopter battalions and Patriot Missile batteries. Quite interesting! Every year in November they stage a small festival and open their gates to interested visitors from Japan and abroad. There’s usually not that many foreigners though. It’s also one of the few places (the only one I think) in the Kanto region where you get to see the Blue Impulse Air Show, flying their distinctive Kawasaki T-4. As usual, their performance was perfect and a great time was had by the staggering number of 300 000 visitors! With numbers like that, you realize that this is not a day to just stroll on the train and get of at the nearest station.

More photos to follow tomorrow! Shooting air shows is, despite what you first think when you see the other photographers there, not just a question of long lenses. Sure, I had my 50-500mm Sigma lens but I took many photos with it at 100mm or 200mm. 500mm was definitely overkill for this task!