Photo spotting trip - Midwest USA - August 2017 - CIV/MIL

[VH3D]

Hi All,

Did 3 day spotting trip around Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska. First time in that area. Picked up few good frames (especially two BAc 1-11s).
First stop was Kansas City Intl Airport.
BAc 1-11 is parked right next to L1011 and easily photographable. The Jet Midwest Aviation scrapping center is tough to get pictures of airplanes. You can read most of them from the parking lot, but it's hard to get pictures of any plane behind Avianca F-50s.
The ramp was pretty much full with few B747-400s, 4 Avianca F100s, 6 Avianca F50s, 2 Dynamic B767-200s, Kenya Airways B767-300 and few others.

MCI - August 12 2017











Rest of the trip will follow as soon as I finish editing pictures.

Entire set: https://flic.kr/s/aHsm1k1qkS

[VH3D]

MKC August 12 2017

From MCI we went to Kansas City Downtown airport. The ride takes about 20 minutes.
First we went to TWA Museum located next to Signature FBO.
Right there we've shot:

TWA McDonnell Douglas MD-83 N948TW Wings of Pride
TWA Lockheed L-1329 Jetstar II N77C

And another sweet catch. USAF PZL Mielec C-145A (M-28 Skytruck) 12-0331 / N331MF 6th SOS Special Operations Command

On the way out we stopped by second museum at that airport, but didn't go inside. From outside the fence we've got L1011 N700TS.















Entire set: https://flic.kr/s/aHsm2wNbtM

[careyvan208]

Those F50 are pretty rare, I didn't even know there were any in the USA!

[VH3D]

There is total of 6 F-50s at MCI. Few years back Kinston Jetport in North Carolina had about 10 ex FedEx Fokkers stored. Don't know if they are still there.

[VH3D]

Next stop was Topeka Regional Airport - Forbes Field. First we popped in to photograph stuff on display at Museum of Kansas National Guard.
The museum is free and you can still walk around the planes even when they are closed.
The biggest attraction was KC-135 and CH-54 in Army colors.


















Entire set: https://flic.kr/s/aHsm6E66F7

[VH3D]

Second museum at Topeka airport is Combat Air Museum. Collection of airplanes in that museum is not bad, however they pack them like sardines and it's almost impossible to take decent pictures.
The hottest item in this museum is second example of CH-54, but as stated above, completely unshootable.
















Entire set: https://flic.kr/s/aHsm38ExVx

[VH3D]

The only FBO ramp at Topeka airport had great frame. Second BAc 1-11 caught within 2 hours.





There was nothing else to photograph at this airport so we hit the road and continued to Offutt AFB.
(KS ANG ramp is far away and you can't get pictures of KC-135s and also NG helicopter ramp had only one covered UH-60)

[VH3D]

Next day we went to Lincoln, Nebraska. Ramp had 5 NE ANG KC-135s and 1 IA ANG KC-135. Besides that just bunch of bizjets.

[VH3D]

From Lincoln airport we headed back to Omaha. Half way between LNK and OFF there is Strategic Air Command museum.
They have few nice frames there.























Entire set: https://flic.kr/s/aHsm1FeF79

[VH3D]

After spending first half a day at Lincoln and SAC museum we went back to Offutt AFB. In the afternoon the ramps looked exactly as on Saturday evening. No sign of any movement.
We took some pictures of the stuff on the ramp and went back to the hotel (still monitoring the scanner). Due to the distance and hot weather, there was no way to get clean shots.

[Thermal]

Some nice picture. A real shame they moved the Vulcan outside. She used to be inside as far as I know.
The weather did not do her well.

[VH3D]

Some nice picture. A real shame they moved the Vulcan outside. She used to be inside as far as I know.
The weather did not do her well.

They are running out of space inside of both hangars. Maybe once they finish restoring EC-135 they will move it in also to restore it?

[VH3D]

First half a day on our last day in the Midwest. Offutt was little busier. The ramps were packed with overnight arrivals and two E-4s arrived (3rd one was in the hangar). Also got a visit from Beale based T-38.















Entire set: https://flic.kr/s/aHsm75B1qU

[VH3D]

On the way back to Kansas City we stopped at St. Joseph airport. The ramp had 7 USAF C-130s and 1 Navy C-130.
The problem with photography this time of the year there is heat haze and growing corn.
Here is the best what I could do there.

[Erik_7Xi]

According to Steve Davies' excellent "Red Eagles", one of the former Indonesian MiG-21s ("YF-110B"s) operated by the 4477th TES went to the SAC museum.

So it could very well be that the "60" MiG-21 you photographed was in fact one of MiG-21s operated by the USAF under CONSTANT PEG, a top-secret program that was not declassified until 2006.

See also:
https://books.google.co.nz/books?id=pea ... um&f=false

If you haven't read Red Eagles yet, I strongly recommend this book.